[117] 2 Peter ii. 10-13.]
[118] The redemption was an ordinance of God consequent upon man’s fall. Had Adam never sinned, Jesus had never been crucified. But it would seem more consonant with the boundless love of God for his creation to believe that the Blessed Sacrament formed part of his antecedent will; and that a sinless race would have received spiritual and divine food, and would have been thereby sanctified, and ultimately glorified through participation in the Body and Blood of the God-Man. It would have been, as it is now, the Bread of Life; bloodless as it is now, but also unbroken as it is not now—that is, divested of its propitiatory character in so far as propitiation involves the idea of offence.]
[119] Isaias xi. 9.
[120] Matt. xiii. 41, 42, 43, 49.
[121] It is generally believed that Adam was amongst the souls released from Limbo when our Lord descended thither, and who entered heaven with him.
[122] Mark viii. 38.
[123] Apocalypse i. 7.
[124] 1 Thess. iv. 15-17.