withdrew from our earth, on which He had been contented to sojourn, He did not leave His followers comfortless. God the Holy Ghost was "shed abroad in their hearts, and continues to dwell in the whole body of the Church, and in the heart of each humble and contrite believer.

It remains that we endeavour to give a practical application to what has now been said. Every branch of the text brings its own lesson, its own warning along with it.

Thou art gone up on high. Our Lord Jesus Christ is ascended into the heavens. Do we in heart and mind ascend thither too? do we in our thoughts continually dwell there with Him? or do we from year to year offer in the Collect of this day the prayer that we may do so, without any serious thought about its meaning, without any hearty wish that it may be granted? If we are doing this, we are mocking God grievously, and deceiving ourselves fearfully, year by year. If any of you are conscious that this has been too much the case in time past, resolve in the strength of God's grace that it shall be so no more; that, though you may too much have forgotten the prayer as soon as it was said, in past years, though, with the very words upon your lips, you have let your thoughts wander and grovel upon earth, henceforth you will lift them to things

above, will follow your Saviour to the throne of His glory, will think of the peace and purity of heaven rather than of the strife and sin of earth. Thou hast led captivity captive. This was done for us. Blessed be Christ, who conquered Satan, the great enemy of our souls. But if you and I are to be the better and the happier for that conquest, there is much that must be done in us. Jesus bade His disciples be of good cheer because He had overcome the world; yet St. John warned those to whom he wrote fifty years after, to love not the world, nor the things of the world. Captivity has been led captive, and yet we may know no freedom. Have we made our sinful appetites captive, or do they make us their slaves? Captivity has been led captive; and yet St. Paul found it needful thus to write to the Christians at Ephesus: Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Thou hast received gifts for men. Yes, blessed be Thy great and glorious name; and Thou hast placed them in our hands. But, my brethren, y Eph. vi. 11, 12.

x 1 St. John ii. 15.

what a deposit have we trusted to our keeping! Better never to have heard of the gifts than to abuse or to neglect them: to live amidst the means of grace, yet never grow in grace: to live amidst the light of the Gospel, yet never walk as the children of light: to have still our hearts and our understandings darkened, to choose to be enemies of Christ when He invites us to be His friends.

That the Lord God might dwell among them. Here is the end and purpose of the whole. And do we welcome His approach, do we sanctify the Lord God in our hearts? or do we think little of His power and goodness? are we careless about His dwelling among us? do we see no great blessing in such a thought? Had we rather be left to ourselves? rather not have the checks and restraints which must come with the thought and consciousness of His presence?

The Saviour, who, as on this day, ascended back into heaven, is now making intercession for us there. How are we behaving in the meanwhile? On the great day of atonement, when only in the whole year their high-priest entered for them into the holy place, the Jews were reverent, and devout, and penitent. And now that Christ has not entered into the holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to

L

appear in the presence of God for us, not at set periods and for short intervals, but for evermore, how are we conducting ourselves? Levity or impurity in the outer court of the temple would have been deemed monstrous and shocking among the Jews, who waited there, while the high-priest was in the holy of holies. And what is earth now, rather, what ought earth to be,but an outer court to heaven? And while our great High-Priest is pleading for us there, not with blood of bulls and calves, but by His own blood, having obtained, not a yearly remission, but eternal redemption for us, how can we give ourselves up to vile and angry affections,-how can we forget Him, and live as if there was no Majesty on high, no Saviour who has sat down at His right hand? who will come again as He went into heaven: not indeed seen by a few Galileans only; No: when He comes "to be our Judge," every eye shall see Him. God grant to us all that we may then be enabled to lift up our heads with joy, knowing that our redemption draweth nigh.

z Acts i. 11.

SERMON VI.

PREACHED ON THE SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION DAY, 1839.

HEBREWS X. 25.

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.

THERE are few fancies with which men are more apt to deceive themselves, than the thought that, if Providence had only cast their lot in life at a different time, and under different circumstances, they should have been much better and much happier than they are. Perhaps we have ourselves, all of us, at one time or other, thought so more or less. But most foolish, worse than foolish, are such thoughts. The Jews of our Saviour's time said, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. But had they any reason for so saying? How did

St. Matth. xxiii. 30.