SERMON XXX.

THE LIFE AND ACTS OF JESUS, DURING THE PERIOD BETWEEN HIS RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION.

LUKE xxiv. 36.

Jesus himself stood in the midst of them.

We have recently been engaged, my brethren, in celebrating those remarkable periods in the history of our Lord, when he suffered for our sins, when he was subjected to the dominion of the grave, and when he rose from the dead. The church, following successively the events of his history, now marks in her services that portion of it which intervened between his resurrection and his ascension. After our blessed Lord, in the fulfilment of prophecy, and in the performance of those stupendous acts by which our redemption was achieved, had obtained victory over death, and established his pretensions as the Son of God, a considerable period elapsed before he left the world, never to return to it but as its Judge, and ascending to the celestial courts, took possession, of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was.

Having thus contemplated Christ as a Saviour suffering and dying on the cross, and in his power rising from the tomb, let me now direct your attention to him during that period which is subsequent to his resurrection, and prior to his ascension to heaven.

1. What was the corporeal nature of our Lord during that period?

2. What was his general occupation? and, 3. What were his most remarkable acts! These are the inquiries on which I shall now submit to you a few remarks.

1. What was the corporeal nature of our Lord during the period which elapsed between his resurrection and his ascension to heaven?

This inquiry would seem unnecessary and extraordinary, if it were not the fact that our Saviour's corporeal nature, as it now subsists in his state of triumph and glory in heaven, is very different from its condition during his state of humiliation on earth. In this latter, mortal, frail, subject to the wants and the sufferings of humanity-in the former, immortal, impassible, perfect, invested with celestial splendour. It has therefore been made an inquiry-Of the properties of which of these conditions did the body of Christ partake during the period between his resurrection and ascension? Was his body, after he rose from the grave, in all respects the same body that suffered the wants and sorrows of humanity, and expired on the cross? or was it that glorified body in which the Redeemer is now seated on the throne of universal dominion?

The opinion has been advanced, that, after his resurrection, the Saviour having thrown aside the habiliments of mortality, had assumed that immortal body in which he shall reign for ever at the right hand of his Father. This opinion has been advanced and maintained with great force and ingenuity by the distinguished Bishop Horsley, who, in addition to unrivalled erudition and exalted ta

lents, exhibited the rare union of the most bold originality in theological investigation with the most humble submission of his vigorous understanding and lofty fancy to the prescriptions of revealed truth. He supposes that a complete change was effected in our Lord's person after his resurrection; that his body-which, before this event, was "the mortal body of a man, suffering from fatigue and external violence, and needing the refection of food, of rest, and sleep, was confined by its gravity to the earth's surface, and was translated from one place to another by successive motion through the intermediate space-became, after his resurrection, the body of a man raised to life and immortality, and mysteriously united to divinity;-no longer, as when invested with a mortal body, requiring food for subsistence, and lodging for shelter and repose. On earth he had no longer any local residence: he was become the inhabitant of another region, from which he came occasionally to converse with his disciples."

The objection to this theory (if it may be allowed to me to object to a theory advanced by so high an authority) is, that on the supposition that the body of Christ, after his resurrection, had undergone this change from mortal to immortal, from the body of suffering and humiliation to the body of triumph and glory, we should expect that this immortal body would have exhibited a portion at least of that splendour with which we are taught to believe that it shines forth in its celestial state. The transfiguration of Christ, when his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light, is considered an emblem of that blaze of splendour which unceasingly surrounds the glori-

fied body of the Redeemer; and if he assumed that body after his resurrection, and if his habitation was in the glory of the highest heavens, why, when he descended to his interviews with his disciples, did he not bring with him some of the splendour of the courts which he had left? For aught that appears from his history, his appearance was the same as before his resurrection. And what still more weakens this theory, there is not the least intimation, that the disciples regarded their Lord but as invested with a body partaking of all its former qualities. On various occasions he sat at meat with them, and on one occasion he did eat before them.

The evangelists and apostles, in their writings, assign the glorification of Christ, his assumption of a glorified and immortal body, not to the time of his resurrection, but to the period when he ascended to heaven, and for ever sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

But this conjecture involves and affects no essential article of faith. The only fact on this subject of real importance is, that whatever was the body of the Saviour, whether of glory or humiliation, it was the body which enabled the disciples to identify their Lord. Satisfied, after his resurrection, by repeated interviews, and by personal converse with him, of the identity of his person, they were thus qualified to bear testimony to the fact of his resurrection from the dead.

We are now prepared for the second inquiry.

2. What were the general occupations of our Lord, in the interval between his resurrection and his ascension?

They still had reference to that great work which had occupied every moment of his life, which was the object of his death, and of which his resurrection was an important pledge-the great work of redemption, the establishment of that kingdom by which the dominion of sin and Satan was to be destroyed, and holiness, and happiness, and immortality dispensed to believers. In order to this, his first business was to convince his disciples of the identity of his person, and thus to satisfy them of the truth of his resurrection. For this purpose he appeared to the women who held him fast by the feet and worshipped him. He appeared to two of the disciples as they walked and went into the country. He conversed with the two disciples going to Eminaus, and sat at meat with them. He appeared to the eleven as they sat at meat, and showed his pierced hands, and feet, and side. He called to the incredulous Thomas-"Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing." He showed himself again to his disciples at the sea of Tiberias, and from their presence he was visibly taken up into heaven. It was impossible for them to doubt that the same Jesus, whom they had seen crucified and committed to the tomb, had risen from the dead. They who knew his person thoroughly, from his constant and intimate intercourse with them, were the best qualified to be the judges of its identity after his resurrection, and thus to be witnesses to the world of the truth of that event which is the foundation of all our hopes.

But our Lord, prosecuting the work of redemption in order to the establishment of his kingdom,