But you will all remember that Moses, though he must die before entering Canaan, was to rise and appear in that land ages before the general resurrection. When Christ was transfigured on Mount Tabor, who were those shining forms that stood by Him, and "spake of the decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem ?" Who but Elias and Moses-Elias, who had been translated without seeing death, so that he had entered, body and soul, into heaven; and Moses, who had indeed died, the soul having been separated from the body, but whose body had been committed to angelic guardianship, as though in order that it might be ready to take part in the brilliant transaction upon Tabor! The body, which had been left upon Pisgah, reappeared upon Tabor; and evidence was given, that those who lie for ages in the grave shall be as glorious at the second coming of Christ as those who are to be changed "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.' Moses was the representative of the myriads who shall rise from the grave; Elias of those who, found alive upon the earth, shall be transformed without seeing death; and forasmuch as the representatives appeared in equal splendour, so also, we believe, shall the quick and dead, when all that was typified by the Transfiguration shall be accomplished in the preliminaries to the general judgment.

"12

But we have no space to enlarge upon this. We must pass from the mysterious death and burial of Moses, and ask you whether you do not see that there are great spiritual lessons in the series of events which we have briefly reviewed? We need not tell you that the captivity of Israel in Egypt was a striking representation of the moral condition of the whole human race, as sold by sin into the service of a task-master. And when the chains of the

1 Luke ix. 31.

2 1 Cor. xv. 52.

people were broken, and God brought them forth "by a mighty hand, and a stretched-out arm," the whole transaction was eminently typical of our own emancipation from bondage. But why might not Moses, who had commenced, be allowed to complete the great work of deliverance? Why, after bringing the people out of Egypt, might he not settle them in Canaan? Why, except that Moses was but the representative of the law, and that the law of itself can never lead us into heavenly places? The law is as "a schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ:"1 it may discipline us during our wanderings in the wilderness; but if, when we reach the Jordan, there were no Joshua, no Jesus-for the names are the same-to undertake to be our guide, we could never go over and possess that good land which God hath prepared for His people. Therefore, we may believe, was it appointed that there should be a change of leaders, that all may know that if the law, act ing through terrors, bring a man out of the slavery of sin, it is only the Gospel, rich in merciful provision, which can open for him an entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Moses was commanded to resign the people to Joshua: "the very acts of God," says Bishop Hall, were allegories: where the law ends, there the Saviour begins; we may see the land of promise in the law; only Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testament, can bring us into it."

Thus does Moses instruct us, by his death, to whom to look for admission into the heavenly Canaan. He instructs us, moreover, as to how we must be placed, if our last hours are to be those of hope and peace. We must die on the summit of Pisgah: we must die with our eye upon Bethlehem, upon Gethsemane, upon Calvary. It was not, as we have ventured to suppose, the gloriousness of the 1 Gal. iii. 24.

Canaanitish landscape which satisfied the dying leader, and nerved him for departure. It was rather his view of the Being by whom that landscape would be trodden and who would sanctify its scenes by His tears and His blood. And in like manner, when a Christian comes to die, it is not so much by views of the majestic spreadings of the paradise of God, of the rollings of the crystal river, and of the sparklings of the golden streets, that he must look to be comforted his eye, with that of Moses, must be upon the manger, the garden, and the cross; and thus, fixing his every hope on his Forerunner, he may be confident that an entrance shall be ministered unto him abundantly into the kingdom "prepared from the foundation of the world."1 "Get thee up into this mountain, and die there.” O that we may all be living in such a state of preparedness for death, that, when summoned to depart, we may ascend the summit, whence faith looks forth on all that Jesus hath suffered and done, and exclaiming, "We have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord,"2 lie down with Moses on Pisgah to awake with Moses in paradise.

1 Matt. xxv. 34.

2 Gen. xlix. 18.

SERMON VII

THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST

“Lift up your heads, ℗ ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” --PSA. xxiv. 7, 8.

WE

E hardly know how it has come to pass, that comparatively but little attention is given to the great fact of Christ's Ascension into Heaven. Christmas-day, Good-Friday, and Easter-day, are universally observed by members of our Church; but Holy Thursday is scarcely known even by name to the great mass of Christians. The Church evidently designed to attach as much importance to that day as to the others, having appointed proper psalms as well as lessons, and furnished a sacramental preface. We have come, however, to the neglecting this ordinance of the Church, so that whilst we statedly assemble to commemorate the birth, death, and resurrection of our Lord, we have no solemn gathering in celebration of His Ascension. And if this have not arisen from men's attaching too little importance to the Ascension, it is at least likely to lead to their thinking less of that event than it deserves, or than is required for it by the Church.

On this account, forasmuch as we have just passed Holy Thursday, we think it well to direct your attention to the closing scene of Christ's sojourn upon earth, so that, having stood round his cradle, followed Him to Calvary, and seen Him burst from the grave, we may complete the wondrous contemplation by gazing upon Him as He soars from Mount Olivet. Of course it will not be the mere historical fact on which we shall enlarge: for we may assume that you require no evidence that, as Jesus died and revived, so did He return in human nature to the Heaven whence He had descended, and take His seat at the right hand of God. But, as in discoursing on the Resurrection of Christ, we strive to show you our personal interest in that event, arguing our own resurrection from that of our Head; so will we endeavour, in discoursing on the Ascension, to consider the occurrence in its bearings on ourselves for such bearings undoubtedly there are, seeing that St. Paul declares to the Ephesians that God "hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."

"1

It is generally admitted, by expositors of the writings of David, that the words of our text have a secondary, if not a primary, reference to the return of the Mediator to Heaven when He had accomplished the work of human redemption. By many, the Psalm of which our text is a part is supposed to have been written and sung on occasion of the removal of the ark by David to Jerusalem; it may have been also employed when that ark was carried into the magnificent temple which Solomon had reared. The Levites may be regarded as approaching in solemn procession, bearing the sacred depository of sacramental trea1 Eph. ii. 5.