SERMON XXIII.

ON OUR SAVIOUR'S ASCENSION.

ST JOHN, xiv. 2, 3.

"I go to prepare a place for you. And

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if I go and prepare a place for you,

"I will come again, and receive you un"to myself, that where I am there ye 66 may be also."

THE discipline of our church, which has appointed annual seasons in which we commemorate the great events of our religion, has not only for its object to confirm our faith, but to awaken those reli

* Preached on Ascension day.

gious feelings and dispositions which such events are intended to produce. It is ever to little purpose that our understanding is employed upon the subject of religion, if our hearts remain unmoved; and a wise man will ever study to meet those yearly solemnities which the discipline of the church prescribes to him, with a mind prepared for the peculiar emotions which the season is fitted to inspire.

The season which is now passing, is that in which we commemorate the Ascension of our Lord. The portions of Scripture which are read, are those in which this great event is related ;-the prayers which are employed, have all a reference to the influence which it ought naturally to have upon our minds ;—and, to receive all the benefits which so lofty a contemplation is fitted to leave upon us, it is necessary for us to fix our attention with more than ordinary care, upon the magnificent event we are commemorat

ing, and to open our hearts to all the suggestions which it is calculated to awaken. It is in this view, that I am now to lay before you a few reflections upon the subject, in the confidence that I cannot present it, even for a few moments, to your minds, without awakening sentiments of religious gratitude, and I trust of religious consolation.

The first and most obvious reflection that occurs to us upon the remembrance of the Ascension of our Lord is, that of the demonstration which it gives of the truth of the Gospel, and of the certainty of our faith. The circumstances in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, which have occasioned the incredulity of vulgar and sordid minds in every age, as they did of those of the Jews in his own, the humility, the poverty, and the apparent meanness of his condition, are now all past. He is no longer" the hum"ble and despised teacher,"-the “son

"of the carpenter,”—the " friend of pub"licans and sinners," and who had not

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a place where he could lay his head." By the most stupendous of all miracles; -by his visible Resurrection from the grave, his pretensions are now confirmed by the interposition of Heaven;-and by his Ascension from earth, he has proved to the senses as well as to the understanding of mankind, from what abode he came, and what is the divine nature to which he be longs. It is on the right hand of the Father that he is now seated, far above all human principality, and all angelic power; to him is given "that holy name which " is above every name; and before Him

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every knee is now commanded to bow, "of things in Heaven, and things in earth, " and things under the earth." The gracious work which he was commissioned to do, is now performed; and the Christian eye

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follows now the Leader of its salvation into that original glory from which he descended, and in which " He dwelt be"fore the foundation of the world." Compared to such astonishing events, the pretensions of all other religions are vain; and even the philosopher who measures the powers of human invention by what it has performed, will acknowledge the truth of the Ascension of our Saviour, from the very circumstance, that it is an event too stupendous for imagination to have invented, or for imposture to have attempted to perform.--There is, beside all this, another circumstance in the event which every Christian mind will feel, it is, its analogy to the whole genius of the Gospel, in the simplicity and even the modesty with which it is performed. The greatest scene upon which eye of man ever gazed,—the visible passage of a divine person from earth

the