Prayer, then, and the Holy Communion are necessary to all; and deep, hearty, painful Compunction, not passing away as fear or anger might, but continuing, is no less needful to as many of us as have ever wilfully broken our baptismal vow. We must never be content with our past repentance, and think, because our grief then was sincere, the sin so repented of is blotted out, clean out of God's book, and become as if it had never been. Rather, as men come to know more of God and goodness, they will be the more grieved and angry with themselves, will entertain the graver thoughts of their own past transgressions.

Let us not fear then to vex and punish ourselves, that we do not so entirely and bitterly repent, as we ought and wish to do. Let us cordially beseech GOD, after the example of holy Bishop Wilson, to make the remembrance of our sins more grievous to us than it is. Let some of our first waking thoughts, and of our last before we sleep, be of our own great unworthiness. Sinners as we are all, most of us backsliders, let us neither confidently look for, nor talk as if we had, assurance and entire satisfaction. Let us pray and labour to have this one sign of His pardon, that we grow daily more diligent in pleasing HIM; and so much comfortable hope withal, as He shall see needful for our doing the work He has assigned to us. For the rest, as we are, nightly content to lie down and sleep, trusting our bodies with our CREATOR, although we must be more or less uncertain whether we shall ever wake again; so let us make up our minds, if it be His will, to go on doubting and fearing, more or less, even to the end; doubting and fearing, what manner of persons we are in the sight of our Judge and REDEEMER. It will be a wholesome doubt, a strengthening fear, if it make us more afraid of sin, more diligent in keeping the commandments.

SERMON CLXXVII.

CHRIST THE KING OF ANGELS.

PREACHED ON ASCENSION-DAY.

I ST. PETER iii. 22.

"Who is gone into Heaven, and is on the right hand of GOD; Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject unto HIM."

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Ir is most certain that, when we have done our best, we cannot lift up our minds and hearts fully to understand the unspeakable glory which the Son of GOD, as He is also Son of MAN, obtained as on this day when HE, who a little more than forty days before had been a worm and no man, a very scorn of men and the outcast of the people, was "set at His FATHER's right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that also which is to come, and had all things put under His feet, and was given to be head over all things." We cannot, I say, realize this in our thoughts, even as we cannot know or imagine the place where the visible though spiritual Body of our Blessed LORD now is, or how, or which way, He was received up through the air when He hid HIMSELF in a cloud from the sight of His servants, they stedfastly looking after HIM. They saw HIM departing, yet could they no more imagine the manner of His departure than we now can. But did that hinder them from musing and meditating upon it? Nay, their very hearts and minds went after HIM, and did in a manner continually

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dwell with HIM. "They worshipped HIM, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the Temple, praising and blessing GOD." CHRIST ascended into Heaven took up their thoughts day and night: they were never satisfied with the wondering and adoring remembrance of it, and with hymning and praising the ALMIGHTY for that last and greatest of miracles. But did they think of it only as a miracle; or were not their thoughts rather taken up with the portion which they themselves had in it, and all whom CHRIST came to save?

We indeed are but little able to enter into the thoughts of Apostles, of the favoured friends of JESUS CHRIST, accustomed to His Divine words and looks, when they saw HIM in His very Body, His Crucified Body, ascending up into Heaven. But we may understand that this was a part of their feelings; that now One, who is true Man as we are,—who can enter into our joys and sorrows, our hopes and fears,—HE is set in the highest place, over all created things. And He carries with HIM there the same tender love towards the meanest of His faithful servants which HE ever vouchsafed to exercise here. He still loves to be called on by the afflicted with earnest and most persevering prayer. He is ready, as of old, to reply to the woman of Canaan, "O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt." There are still families which He loves with distinguishing and peculiar love, as he loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus ; and there are graves beside which He waits, as He did by that of Lazarus, in deep and tender pity for the sorrows of those who are tried by separation and bereavement.

His going up into Heaven was to the Apostles, who remembered these things, a sign that though absent from us visibly in the Body, He would yet be (if I may say so) more present than ever in Spirit with the children of men, in all their cares, and griefs and anxieties. It was a sign of the MANHOOD" being SO "taken into GOD," that He would always (so to speak) be on our side, in all our struggles and conflicts, spiritual and temporal, if only we do not cast HIM from us.

It was, in some sort, as if one's nearest and dearest relation were made absolute king of the country. If persons who care for earthly things would rejoice in such a change as that, and consider their own fortune made, how much more joy to those

who care for heavenly things, when we set our hearts to consider that He Who "is not ashamed to call us brethren," HE Who loved us so well that He laid down His life for us in torment, HE is made the Great King in Heaven and Earth, and has all the treasures of grace and glory put for ever into His hand.

In this, we see at once, is included every good thing. But for the present there is one blessing in particular on which I wish to say a few words. It is, the subjection of the spiritual world to our SAVIOUR, expressed by St. Peter in the words of the text, that " Angels and Authorities and Powers were made subject to the SON OF MAN when He went into Heaven, and sat down on the right hand of God. That is to say, that not only the things which we see, the sun, and moon, and stars, the earth and the waters, the bodies of men, their health and sickness, and all that we call the course of this world, is under the command of His Eternal Providence, Who is pledged to make all things work together for good to them that love HIM; but also the worlds out of sight, the spiritual and heavenly world, is entirely ordered by HIM.

Now, this is a great thing for us to know; a great comfort in our natural fears and misgivings; a great encouragement to welldoing; and a most serious warning against all carelessness and sin.

We naturally think, even from our childhood-at least, all thoughtful children think-a good deal of the spiritual world: of beings out of sight, who yet, for aught we know, may often be very near us, and may have great power to do us good, or to hurt us in body and soul. What are the many stories and imaginations about spirits appearing, and tokens from unseen beings, and the like, of which most of us have at times heard so much; what are they all, but signs that we feel how many things are about us which we do not see? They are providential ways of instructing us, how fearful it would be were our eyes suddenly opened; and how greatly, therefore, we need some assurance that we are not left alone and helpless, in regard of this unseen world, any more than in regard of that world, which we discern by our bodily senses, and which therefore seems nearer to us.

Now the Ascension of our LORD is such a token: it assures us, that however deep our solitude, however overpowering our sense

of spiritual beings possibly near us, One is at hand like-minded with ourselves, Who can pity all our misgivings, as well as protect us in all dangers. In darkness as in light, in desolation as in pleasant places, in melancholy as in cheerful hours, HE is still the same. Could we but bring home to ourselves His most mysterious, but most certain Presence, we need not " be afraid for any terror by night," any more than "for the arrow that flieth by day." The whole world unseen, we are sure, is under HIм, no less than the world which we see. And committing ourselves to HIM by serious prayer, will ever be as effectual a safeguard against the unknown dangers of our spiritual Being, as against those of our natural Being, which we can in some measure understand and foresee. Thus the Disciples found JESUS at hand to relieve them, as certainly, when supposing HIM to be a Spirit, they "cried out for fear," as when in the violent storm on the same lake, they woke HIM with the appeal, "LORD save us! we perish."

Consider the matter in this way. The Bible teaches that there are two worlds, in the midst of which we all live, did we but know it, and remember it; the one visible, the other invisible: and that there are in the invisible world two sorts of Angels, Authorities and Powers, with both of which we are concerned; with the one, as friends and fellow-servants; with the other, as unrelenting enemies. And the thought of our LORD gone up into Heaven, and sitting on the right hand of GoD, is a thought of great power to set us right in our feelings towards both these awful sorts of Beings.

Consider, first, what a thing it is to know that the good Angels are on our side: that they camp about us to deliver us: that as CHRIST Himself in His distress had but to pray to His FATHER, and HE would presently have given HIM more than twelve legions of Angels, so the members of CHRIST, in their several agonies of body and mind, have but to pray to the ALMIGHTY, and who knows but the same Holy Messengers, most likely unknown to them, will receive some commission to do them good? As they came to Daniel, to shut the lions' mouths; as they were like an army with horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha; as they opened the prison doors of Jerusalem, and let out first all the Apostles, then St. Peter, on the eve of martyrdom ; as in the Book of Revelation they are introduced continually,