thinks I see it still with their eyes, how thou, my glorious Saviour, didst leisurely and insensibly rise up from thine Olivet, taking leave of thine acclaiming disciples, now left below thee, with gracious eyes, with heavenly benedictions. Methinks I see how they followed thee with eager and longing eyes, with arms lifted up, as if they had wished them winged, to have soared up after thee. And if Elijah gave assurance to his servant Elisha, that, if he should behold him in that rapture, his master's spirit should be doubled upon him; what an accession of the spirit of joy and confidence must needs be to thy happy disciples in seeing thee thus gradually rising up to thy heaven ! Oh how unwillingly did their intentive eyes let go so blessed an object! How unwelcome was that cloud that interposed itself betwixt thee and them, and, closing up itself, left only a glorious splendour behind it, as the bright track of thine ascension! Of old, here below, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud; now, afar off in the sky, the cloud intercepted this heavenly glory; if distance did not rather do it than that bright meteor. Their eyes attended thee on thy way so far as their beams would reach ; when they could go no farther, the cloud received thee. Lo! yet even that very screen, whereby thou wert taken off from all earthly view, was no other than glorious: how much rather do all the beholders fix their sight upon that cloud, than upon the best piece of the firmament! Never was the sun itself gazed on with so much attention. With what long looks, with what astonished acclamations did these transported beholders follow thee, their ascending Saviour! as if they would have looked through that cloud, and that heaven, that hid thee from them.

But, oh what tongue of the highest archangel of heaven can express the welcome of thee, the King of glory, into those blessed regions of immortality! Surely the empyreal heaven never resounded with so much joy; God ascended with jubilation, and the

Lord with the sound of the trumpet. It is not for us, weak and finite creatures, to wish to conceive those incomprehensible, spiritual, divine gratulations, that the glorious Trinity gave to the victorious, and now glorified human nature. Certainly, if, when he brought his only-begotten Son into the world, he said, "Let all the angels worship him;" much more now that he "ascends on high, and hath led captivity captive, hath he given him a name above all names, that at the name of JESUS all knees should bow." And if the holy angels did so carol at his birth, in the very entrance into that state of humiliation and infirmity, with what triumph did they receive him, now returning from that perfect achievement of man's redemption! and if, when his type had vanquished Goliath, and carried the head into Jerusalem, the damsels came forth to meet him with dances and timbrels, how shall we think those angelical spirits triumphed, in meeting of the great conqueror of hell and death! How did they sing, "Lift up your heads, ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in!"

Surely, as he shall come, so he went: and, "Behold he shall come with thousands of his holy ones; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand thousands stood before him :" from all whom, methinks, I hear that blessed applause, "Worthy is the Lamb that was killed, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and praise: praise and honour, and glory and power, be to him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for evermore." And why dost not thou, O my soul, help to bear thy part with that happy choir of heaven? Why art not thou rapt out of my bosom, with an ecstasy of joy, to see this human nature of ours exalted above all the powers of heaven, adored of angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim, and all those mighty and glorious spirits, and sitting there crowned with infinite glory and majesty?

Although little would it avail thee that our nature is thus honoured, if the benefit of this ascension did not reflect upon thee. How many are miserable enough in themselves, notwithstanding the glory of their human nature in Christ! None, but those that are found in him, are the happier by him: who but the members are the better for the glory of the head? O Saviour, how should our weakness have ever hoped to climb into heaven, if thou hadst not gone before, and made way for us? It is for us, that thou, the forerunner, art entered in. Now thy church hath her wish, “Draw me, and I shall run after thee." Even so, O blessed Jesu, how ambitiously should we follow thee with the paces of love and faith, and aspire towards thy glory! Thou, that art "the way," hast made the way to thyself and us. "Thou didst humble thyself, and becamest obedient to the death, even the death of the cross; therefore hath God also highly exalted thee;" and upon the same terms will not fail to advance us: we see thy track before us, of humility and obedience. Oh teach me to follow thee in the roughest ways of obedience, in the bloody paths of death, that I may at last overtake thee in those high steps of immortality.

Amongst those millions of angels that attended this triumphant ascension of thine, O Saviour, some are appointed to this lower station, to comfort thine astonished disciples, in the certain assurance of thy no less glorious return: "Two men stood by them in white apparel." They stood by them, they were not of them; they seemed men, they were angels; men, for their familiarity; two, for more certainty of testimony; in white, for the joy of thine ascension.

The angels formerly celebrated thy nativity with songs: but we do not find they then appeared in white thou wert then to undergo much sorrow, many conflicts: it was the vale of tears into which thou wert come down. So soon as thou wert risen, the women saw an angel, in the form of a young man

clothed in white; and now, so soon as thou art ascended, two men clothed in white stand by thy disciples: thy task was now done, thy victory achieved, and nothing now remained but a crown which was now set upon thy head. Justly therefore were those blessed angels suited with the robes of light and joy. And why should our garments be of any other colour? why should oil be wanting to our heads, when the eyes of our faith see thee thus ascended? It is for us, O Saviour, that thou art gone to prepare a place in those celestial mansions; it is for us that thou sittest at the right hand of Majesty. It is a piece of thy divine prayer to thy Father, that "those whom he hath given thee, may be with thee." To every bleeding soul thou sayest still, as thou didst to Peter, "Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me hereafter." In assured hope of this glory, why do I not rejoice, and, beforehand, walk in white with thine angels, that at the last, I may walk with thee in white?

Little would the presence of these angels have availed, if they had not been heard as well as seen. They stand not silent therefore, but, directing their speech to the amazed beholders, say, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing into heaven?" What a question was this! could any of those two hundred and forty eyes have power to turn themselves off to any other object than that cloud, and that point of heaven where they left their ascended Saviour? Surely every one of them was so fixed, that had not the speech of these angels called them off, there they had set up their rest till the darkness of night had interposed. Pardon me, O ye blessed angels; had I been there with them, I should also have been unwilling to have had mine eyes pulled off from that dear prospect, and diverted unto you. Never could they have gazed so happily as now. If but some great man be advanced to honour over our heads, how apt are we to stand at a gaze, and to eye him

as some strange meteor! let the sun but shine a little upon these dials, how are they looked at by all passengers! Yet, alas, what can earthly advancement make us other than we are, dust and ashes, which, the higher it is blown, the more it is scattered? Oh how worthy is the King of glory to command our eyes, now in the highest pitch of his heavenly exaltation! Lord, I can never look enough at the place where thou art; but what eye could be satisfied with seeing the way that thou

wentest?

It was not the purpose of these angels to check the long looks of these faithful disciples after their ascended Master; it was only a change of eyes that they intended, of carnal for spiritual, of the eye of sense for the eye of faith. "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." Look not after him, O ye weak disciples, as so departed that ye shall see him no more; if he be gone, yet he is not lost; those heavens that received him shall restore him; neither can those blessed mansions decrease his glory. Ye have seen him ascend upon the chariot of a bright cloud; and, in the clouds of heaven ye shall see him descend again to his last judgment. He is gone: can it trouble you to know you have an advocate in heaven? Strive not now so much to exercise your bodily eyes in looking after him, as the eyes of your souls in looking for him.

Ye cannot, O ye blessed spirits, wish other than well to mankind. How happy a diversion of eyes and thoughts is this that you advise! If it be our sorrow to part with our Saviour, yet, to part with him into heaven, it is our comfort and felicity; if his absence could be grievous, his return shall be happy and glorious.

Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly in the mean while, it is not heaven that can keep thee from me;