SERMON I. .

ACTS i. 11.

WHICH ALSO SAID, YE MEN OF GALILEE, WHY STAND YE GAZING UP INTO HEAVEN? THIS SAME JESUS, WHICH IS TAKEN UP FROM YOU INTO HEAVEN, SHALL SO COME IN LIKE MANNER AS YE HAVE SEEN HIM GO INTO HEAVEN.

Two distinct acts are recorded in this verse; first, that Jesus has been taken up from earth into heaven, and secondly, that Jesus shall come down from heaven in like manner as He was taken up. I propose, if the Lord will, to consider the former of these facts on the present occasion, and to reserve the latter for future consideration.

Jesus has been taken up from earth into heaven. This is a matter which I propose for your present contemplation. And the order which I shall pursue in my remarks, if God is pleased to give me sight and utterance, is to bring before you, first, the proof of this fact; secondly, the reason of it; and thirdly, the use of it.

I. You will not wonder that I should be large in

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the proof of it; because, however people may fancy that the facts of Scripture may be safely taken for granted, and though it may be taken for granted that every body knows them, I found that I did not know them myself when I thought I did, and I am bound to presume that the same is the condition of many others.

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First then, this fact is established by the testimony before us, the testimony contained in the text. In order to which it is necessary that I give you some account of the place in which the text is found. The writer of this book is also the writer of a Gospel, or history of the Lord Jesus Christ in his transactions whilst He was upon the earth, which Gospel bears his name, St. Luke's Gospel. And he begins this book with referring to that former work of his. former discourse on the one hand I made, O Theophilus, concerning all things which Jesus began both to do and to teach." It is the peculiarity of the language in which the Scripture is written, that the form of "beginning" does not mean merely, "He began," but, "He in a regular order transacted these things." "Until the day in which, having charged the apostles by means of the Holy Ghost, which apostles He had chosen, He was taken up." Now you will observe the expression "taken up." Two distinct expressions are used with respect to this same verity, ascension and assumption. The assumption expresses the "taking up" of the substance.

The

ascension expresses the " climbing up," as it were, of that substance. Well then, the assumption denotes that the Lord Jesus Christ was by another taken hold of, and so brought from one place in which He had been, unto another place in which previously, that is, for some time at least, He had not been. "To whom also He exhibited himself alive, after his having suffered, by many signs, during the space of forty days being seen by them, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And, being assembled with them, He charged them not to separate themselves from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which ye have heard of me;" that is, which you have heard me announce to you that He would fulfil. "Because John on the one hand baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Ghost not many days after this. They therefore, having come together, enquired of Him, saying, Lord, is it that thou art restoring at this time the kingdom to Israel? Rut He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath laid up in his own proper authority." Now these words throw a great light upon the relation which the Lord Jesus Christ has to the Father. People have been puzzled and perplexed, and have said, How is it that He knows things, and does not know things? How is it that He is God, if He does not know this? You see it arises from not apprehending the constitution which God has made in

Christ. It arises from not understanding that it is the very glory of the Second Person to have put his Godhead into abeyance; and, whilst He can never cease to be God, to act,-having assumed the human substance which has a perfect human nature,—to act within the precincts of that substance, and within the precincts of its powers, as that substance shall be brought into action, having its powers sharpened and enabled by the Holy Ghost: so that what He says of himself in John v exactly opens this mystery; "I can of mine own self do nothing; as I hear, I judge." Why, does not that distinctly imply that He received information, upon which He first of all formed his judgment, and then acted? And so of that expression, so remarkably agreeing with it, in Isaiah xlii; "Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent ?" The blindness and the deafness being voluntarily incurred: the creature is both blind and deaf; if his eyes are opened, and his ears unstopped, it is because God is pleased, and just so far as God is pleased, to open the eyes, and to unstop the ears. And therefore He plainly tells them here, that this was not communicated to Him; this was a point, on which it became Him not to be instructed; and therefore He had no understanding, and therefore He had nothing to communicate. As though He should say, I have indeed an assurance, a covenant security from my Father, that I shall receive the kingdom, and that I shall be manifested as his Lord as well as

his Christ: but the day and the hour,-just agreeing with what is said in the Gospel of St. Mark, "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man," the day and the hour in which I am to receive that dominion, is left (as we should speak) in the breast of the Father. He is to determine when the accomplishment shall take place. "But ye shall receive power," though I cannot tell you the day nor the hour, I can tell you this,-"ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost shall have come upon you." Now I must call your attention to that expression, "come upon you." You see how it agrees with what you have heard lately about "anointed;" that substance is in the unction, upon which the unction has been poured; and that substance is in the Holy Ghost, upon whom the infinite Holy Ghost has come. And it is very plain, I think, that this expression implies bodily operation; an operation upon the body by the Holy Ghost. I cannot see the fitness with which such an expression shall be applied, if the operation primarily be upon the spirit; much less, if the operation upon the body be excluded. It seems to me, therefore, that the expressions, "the Holy Ghost falling upon them," and, “after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you," do most distinctly imply the energizing of the Holy Ghost upon the body. But I do not tell you that He speaks here of bodily operation; that they were waiting for; they had the sign, the signal of the bodily operation, but the bodily operation of the Holy Ghost