person of the Holy Ghost. But then you perceive that, whilst I am very fitly in a figure said to have ascended, to have been taken up together with Him, to be sitting down there, and dwelling there together with Him,—the reality all the while is, that my heart and mind is regulated and directed by Him who sitteth there, and that my heart and mind doth dwell there, inasmuch as He who regulateth and directeth my heart and mind, who is as soul to my soul,-how beautifully that expresses it!-who is as soul to my soul, dwelleth there.

Well then, this, I think, if God lead you to pursue it, will be food for your souls, and you will bless God for having given you this service in which these things have been brought into your minds.

But I have said there is a use of this subject for those who are not yet at least born or begotten of God, that is, appended to God. Why, I ask, what is the meaning of Jesus being carried up there, and staying there? Is He not waiting there while the proclamation is making of Him throughout the world? And what is to be the result of that proclamation? That they that believe and are baptized may be saved, and they that believe not may be damned. My friends, he who believes not this testimony, which is here distinctly proclaimed, and to which I am producing so much of collateral testimony,-if he receive not this testimony,-destruction lingereth not; in a little while the epoch of his coming will arrive, as you have heard

on a former occasion that it is not far distant. And when He doth come, what will He do? “Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him;" that is, all the unbelieving millions, all those who receive not his testimony, who have turned their back upon that testimony, and would not receive it, they shall be in the number of those of whom it is said, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment;" "into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

Ascension Day, 1827.

SERMON II.

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.

THESE words manifestly bear witness to two distinct facts; that Jesus hath gone up into heaven, hath been taken up from earth into heaven; and that He shall come again from heaven in like manner as He went up,—that is, with power; for surely it was power that took Him, in a manner contrary to the law of the nature of that kind of substance, from earth to heaven; in like manner, I say therefore, with power, and in like manner, I say, with great glory; for exceedingly glorious was his appearance whilst He was taken up. In my sermon of this morning I considered the first of these facts, that Jesus was taken up from earth into heaven. And I reserved the consideration of the latter fact for a future opportunity, which I thank God that He hath given me at this moment.

Now the consideration which I entered into this morning will render it unnecessary that I should go into some particulars which might otherwise be desired. I explained the words which immediately precede this testimony. I showed you under what particular circumstances it was borne; that the Lord had now appeared to his disciples after his resurrection many times during forty days; and that at length, having assembled them together, He gave them his last charge, which was that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait until they had received the promise of the Father,—that promise of which He had frequently made mention to them; that on this occasion they put a question to Him, imagining, at least thinking it probable, that He was going at that moment to restore the kingdom to Israel,-that kingdom which they had now for many years lost, being brought into subjection to the Romans. To this question He gave them a reprehensory answer; which however lets us very distinctly into the mystery of God the Father and Christ; that Christ is one informed, receiving instruction from time to time of the Father in the substance of the person of the Holy Ghost; his glory lying in that denial of himself, in that emptying of himself, in that putting of his Godhead into abeyance, and acting within the precincts or limits of the human substance to which He had joined himself, as that human substance is inspired from time to time, moment after moment, by the Holy Ghost: this most marvellous fact

being an explanation of a great deal of scripture, and the very root of the mystery of God,-that the Second of the three Co-equals in the indivisible substance of Jehovah hath consented and covenanted to act, and that from the beginning, yea, from everlasting, has been acting,-I say "from everlasting," because it is not only from the beginning, but in the beginning, that He did so act, has been acting from the beginning as though He were only a creature, as though He were only a man, having that peculiarity of the creature man which distinguishes the creature man from God, that he is the subject of action. God is impassible. God cannot be the subject of operation; but the Second Person has consented to become the subject of operation. And observe, there is not that contradiction, there is not that yea and nay in Christ which some would ascribe to Him. He does not one while, at one instant, act as though He were a creature, and at another while, and another instant, act as though He were God; but uniformly and universally, from everlasting, in the sense which I have ascribed to that term, He has been acting as though He were only a creature man inspired by God in the substance of the person of the Holy Ghost. Well then, He put them off from this enquiry; and brought them to the simple expectation of receiving power when the Holy Ghost should fall upon them, take them into the within overshadowing of his substance, and so should instruct them, and make them competent as well as credible