ence from the text, which I wish most to press upon your attention,) least of all does he conceive the hope of reaching heaven by that sort of compromise, which would make easy, nay perhaps pleasant duties, an excuse for duties which are irksome and severe. To recur, for the last time, to the instance mentioned in our text, I can very well believe, that a man of humane temper shall have pleasure in visiting, when by visiting he can succour the fatherless and the widow in their affliction: but if he believes St. James, he will find that this must be joined to and accompanied with another thing, which is neither easy nor pleasant, nay, must always almost be effected with pain and struggle, and mortification and difficulty, the "keeping himself unspotted from the world."

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SERMON XXII.

THE AGENCY OF JESUS CHRIST SINCE

HIS ASCENSION.

HEBREWS, xiii. 8.

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, amd for ever.

THE

'HE assertion of the text might be supported by the consideration, that the mission and preaching of Christ have lost nothing of their truth and importance by the lapse of ages, which has taken place since his appearance in the world. If they seem of less magnitude, reality, and concern to us at this present day, than they did to those who lived in the days in which they were carried on: it is only in the same man

ner as a mountain or a tower appears to be less, when seen at a distance. It is a delusion in both cases. In natural objects we have commonly strength enough of judgment to prevent our being imposed upon by these false appearances; and it is not so much a want or defect of, as it is a neglecting to exert and use, our judgment, if we suffer ourselves to be deceived by them in religion. Distance of space in one case, and distance of time in the other, make no difference in the real nature of the object; and it is a great weakness to allow them to make any difference in our estimate and apprehension. The death of Jesus Christ is, in truth, as interesting to us, as it was to those who stood by his cross his resurrection from the grave is a pledge and assurance of our future resurrection, no less than it was of theirs who conversed, who eat and drank with him, after his return to life.

But there is another sense, in which it is still more materially true, that " Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." He is personally living, and

acting in the same manner; has been so all along, and will be so to the end of the world. He is the same in his person, in his power, in his office.

First, I say, that he is the same individual person, and is at this present time existing, living, acting. He is gone up on high. The clouds, at his ascension, received him out of human sight. But whither did he go? to sit for ever at the right hand of God. This is expressly declared concerning him. It is also declared of him, that death hath no more dominion over him; that he is no more to return to corruption. So that, since his ascension, he hath continued in heaven to live and act. His human body, we are likewise given to believe, was changed upon his ascension, that is, was glorified, whereby it became fitted for heaven, and fitted for immortality: no longer liable to decay or age, but thenceforward remaining literally and strictly the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. This change in the human person of Christ is in effect asserted, or rather is referred to, as a thing already known, in that text of Saint

Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, wherein we are assured, that hereafter Christ shall change our vile body, that it may be like his glorious body. Now, the natural body of Christ, before his resurrection at least, was like the natural body of other men; was not a glorious body. At this time therefore, when Saint Paul calls it his glorious body (for it was after his ascension that Saint Paul wrote these words), it must have undergone a great change. In this exalted and glorified state our Lord was seen by Saint Stephen, in the moment of his martyrdom. Being full, you read, of the Holy Ghost, Stephen looked up stedfastly unto heaven, and saw the glory of God*, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. At that seemingly dreadful moment, even when the martyr was surrounded by a band of assassins, with stones ready in their hands to stone him to death, the spectacle, nevertheless, filled his soul with rapture. He cried out in

* The "glory of God," in Scripture, when spoken of as an object of vision, always, I think, means a luminous appearance, bright and refulgent, beyond the splendour of any natural object whatever.