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Ascension Eve.

THE Ascension of our Lord 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.

SEPMON i.

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Ascension Day.

Great indeed, and most blessed, is the Mystery of this day that God our Saviour, He Who suffered for us on earth, should now and evermore be in Heaven, at His Father's Right Hand, pleading for us, reigning over us, ruling His Church, and

preparing it for heavenly glory; and also preparing for it a place, that, in His own good time, He may come and receive it unto Himself, that where the Head is, there the Body may be also. That GOD the Son should be in Heaven, is of course, no wonder at all. He was there, of course, through all the time of His Affliction and Sufferings.

SERMON VI.

Friday in the Octave of Ascension.

Our LORD'S going up into Heaven was to the Apostles, 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.

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SERMON i.

Saturday in the Octave of Ascension.

The mere fact of our Saviour's Exaltation ought in all reason to lift us, heart and soul, on high

after Him and when the effect of His Ascension comes to be considered, our duty, and the way to accomplish it, is so much the plainer. For He has overcome our spiritual enemies, and bound the old serpent in chains. This gives a fearful notion of what we are in fact doing, when we permit ourselves to forget that we are Christians, serving any lust or unworthy desire, instead of practising those tempers, which only can make us fit for everlasting life. We are then taking the wrong part in the great never-ending warfare, between Christ and the power of darkness.

SERMON ii.

Sunday after Ascension Day.

He maketh Intercession for us; He is not only our King in Heaven, but also our Priest. As King, He sits on the Throne of God: as Priest, He stands at. GOD's Right Hand, making intercession for us offering up (so Scripture seems to teach) our prayers and fastings, our doings and sufferings, our sacrifices and self-denials, to be accepted of His Father, as being united to His only Precious Sacrifice of Himself on the Cross. He knows our hearts. He feels for us when death parts us from

relations and friends; for He wept at the grave of

Lazarus.

SERMON viii.

Monday in the Octave of Ascension.

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Christ has suffered and is doing all things to provide us with a happy Eternity: are we in any true sense training ourselves for that Eternity? He never forgets our souls: do we ever seriously think of them? What that Heaven is, which He is preparing for us, we know not yet fully but thus much He has told us; that His Presence there, the Presence of the Most Holy Trinity, is all in all: that His Saints and servants are to be happy with one another and with Him, serving Him continually, as in a perfect and glorious Church: that nothing wicked or unclean can come there, and that such as abide there will go on eternally from glory to glory, becoming more and more like Him. O, that we may be wise! that we may consider these things! that we may turn ourselves once for all, away from the world, towards Christ in Heaven, and having done so, may never forget to keep our hearts pure, lest we forfeit the place prepared for us !

SERMON ix.

Tuesday in the Octave of Ascension.

Only think how the beholding of that sight must have brought home to the Apostles the thought, how near earth is to Heaven; what a narrow line, what a mere hair's-breadth, separates us from the Eternal World.

The death of each person among us, as we part with each one in turn, reads so far the same lesson as the glorious event of our LORD's own Ascension. It puts home to us, brings forcibly before us, this most certain, most aweful, most blessed circumstance, the nearness of the next world to this.

SERMON Xii.

Wednesday in the Octave of Ascension.

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Away with all little and low thoughts. would not be very courageous in Christ's work! And on the other hand, down with all proud thoughts for the more highly we are exalted in Christ, the more reason is there we should abase ourselves in the very dust, remembering past backslidings and present infirmities, and the strict account we have to give.

SERMON xii.

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