SERMON VIII.

EXALTATION OF CHRIST.

FOR ASCENSION-DAY.

ACTS vii. 55.

But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.

In discoursing, not long ago, upon the doctrine of the atonement, I observed that it is incumbent upon us to examine and maintain the foundations upon which it rests, not only on account of the importance of the doctrine itself, but because the atonement of Christ, properly so called, is denied by a large body of persons calling themselves Christians. That the doctrine of the atonement should be rejected by Unitarians, is perfectly in unison with other parts of their belief; and it is natural that this doctrine, and that of our Lord's divinity, should stand or fall together. For if Jesus Christ were not more than man, it would be difficult, not to say impossible, to believe, that God accepted his death as an atonement for the sins of the world; and, on the other hand, if that atonement has not

been made, we have at least much less interest in proving that Christ, who died, was God. There is a difficulty in combating the tenets of modern Unitarians, which hardly occurs in any other controversy. I mean the difficulty of ascertaining precisely what their tenets are: for it is undeniable that from the time of Socinus downwards, they have been modifying their opinions, and more and more degrading the character of Christ; and in the present day, they differ so exceedingly among themselves, that we may unintentionally offend some persons by charging them with holding tenets which they themselves would disavow.

There is no point in which they have more departed from the sentiments of the first Socinians, than in that which is peculiarly brought under our notice by this day's solemnity, the state and condition of Jesus Christ subsequent to his ascension. The sentiments of Socinus and his contemporaries upon this point are on record as a matter of history: they expressly and unequivocally maintained, that Jesus Christ, since his ascension, has existed in a glorified state; that not only Christians upon earth, but the angels in heaven, are placed under his control; and that we are commanded in Scripture to pay him divine adoration. It is true that Socinus, with a strange inconsistency, maintained, that though we are told to worship Christ, yet we are not bound to offer prayers personally and directly to him. Still, however, with respect to his exaltation into heaven, it was openly asserted by Socinus and his party, that they believed the doctrine in its

literal sense, and that the texts which support it cannot be taken figuratively.

It may be said with truth, that the whole of this is denied or explained away by modern Unitarians, who, though they frequently speak of the Socinians as identified with themselves, do not hesitate to do what the first Socinians so pointedly condemnedto interpret all the passages which speak of Christ's exaltation in a figurative sense. I propose, on the present occasion, to consider the most remarkable of these passages; and not only will this be the most likely way to lead us to the true and scriptural understanding of the character and office of Christ, but a statement of the interpretations affixed to these texts by the Unitarians, will enable us also to form a fair and proper judgment of the arguments which support their cause.

Before we enter upon this investigation, I should wish to make a few remarks upon the simple fact of our Lord ascending into heaven at all; and I would observe, that the very fact of his ascension points out at once a marked difference between Jesus Christ and any other person who has ever appeared in the world. Other persons who had died had returned to life; but between their cases and that of our Saviour there is this great difference -they returned, indeed, once more to life after being dead, but they were still subject to the lot of mortality, and once again they died, and were laid in the grave; but of Christ it has been said, and of him only, Christ being raised from the dead, dieth

no more death hath no more dominion over him'. If we say of any other persons who are dead, that they are now in heaven, we mean by the term heaven, that their souls are in that place of rest and happiness which is allotted to departed spirits; and in this respect there is a marked difference between our Saviour and every other His soul was person. in that mansion of departed spirits during the period that his body lay in the grave; but when we say that his soul returned from that unseen place, and was again united to his body, and that afterwards he ascended into heaven, we say that which cannot be applied to any other person whatever. St. Peter says expressly of David, that he is not ascended into heaven; and St. John says as plainly of Christ, no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven 3. I shall have occasion to notice the latter passage again more at length, but I quote it at present, as proving, that when Jesus Christ is said to have ascended into heaven, he is said to have done that which no other person had ever yet done; and this alone might make us pause, before we pronounce him to be a created being, differing in no respect from ourselves.

We will proceed, therefore, to consider what we are to understand by it being said, that Jesus Christ ascended into heaven. When we speak of heaven as the abode of the Deity, we use a term which is necessarily and always liable to indistinctness. We

1 Rom. vi. 9.

2 Acts ii. 34.

3

John iii. 13.

know that God is present every where; but if each person would analyse his own thoughts concerning matter and spirit, he would perhaps find that he is incapable of abstracting even God himself from all notions of lineaments and space. The spiritual nature of God certainly does not preclude the idea of his occupying space, for the angels are spirits, and yet we do not believe them to be present every where consequently we can and do conceive of spirits, that they are bounded by space. But without pursuing this enquiry farther, it is sufficient to observe, that the Scriptures, when they speak of God being in heaven, present an idea distinct from that of his omnipresence; and they speak of angels being more immediately in the presence of God than the inhabitants of this earth. I do not enquire whether the Scriptures adopt this language to meet our finite and imperfect ideas, but they do, in some sense or other, properly or figuratively, speak of heaven as a place where spiritual beings are admitted to the presence of God; and our enquiry at present leads us to consider whether they also speak of Jesus ascending to that place, and whether we are to form the same notion of his being in heaven, as that which we form concerning the Deity himself.

The first expression which I would notice, is that which occurs very frequently in the New Testament, of Jesus, after his ascension, being seated at the right hand of God; and if we compare the different forms by which this idea is expressed, we shall see that the sacred writers certainly meant us to understand that Jesus Christ ascended to the