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even the Son of man which is in heaven; which words imply that he had then ascended; yet even those concern not this ascension. For that was therefore only true, because the Son of Man, not yet conceived in the Virgin's womb, was not in heaven, and after his conception by virtue of the hypostatical union was in heaven: from whence, speaking after the manner of men, he might well say, that he had ascended into heaven; because whatsoever was first on earth and then in heaven, we say ascended into heaven. Wherefore, beside that grounded upon the hypostatical union, beside that glorious condition upon his resurrection, there was yet another and that more proper ascension: for after he had both those ways ascended, it was still true that he had not yet ascended to his Father.

For

Now this kind of ascension, by which Christ had not yet ascended when he spake to Mary after his resurrection, was not long after to be performed; for at the same time he said unto Mary, Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father. And when this ascension was performed, it appeared manifestly to be a true local translation of the Son of Man, as man, from these parts of the world below into the heaven above; by which that body which was before locally present here on earth, and was not so then present in heaven, became substantially present in heaven, and no longer locally present on earth. when he had spoken unto the disciples, and blessed them, laying his hands upon them, and so was corporally present with them, even while he blessed them, he parted from them, and while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight; and so he was carried up into heaven, while they looked steadfastly towards heaven as he went up. This was a visible departure, as it is described; a real removing of that body of Christ, which was before present with the apostles; and that body living after the resurrection, by virtue of that soul which was united to it, and therefore the Son of God according to his humanity, was really and truly translated from these parts below unto the heavens above, which is a proper local ascension.

Thus was Christ's ascension visibly performed in the presence and sight of the apostles, for the confirmation of the reality and the certainty thereof. They did not see him when he rose, but they saw him when he ascended; because an eye-witness was not necessary unto the act of his resurrection, but it was necessary unto the act of his ascension, it was sufficient that Christ shewed himself to the apostles alive after his passion; for being they knew him before to

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be dead, and now saw him alive, they were thereby assured that he rose again: for whatsoever was a proof of his life after death was a demonstration of his resurrection. But being the apostles were not to see our Saviour in heaven; being the session was not to be visible to them on earth; therefore it was necessary they should be eye-witnesses of the act, who were not with the same eyes to behold the effect.

Beside the eye-witness of the apostles, there was added the testimony of the angels; those blessed spirits which ministered before, and saw the face of, God in heaven, and came down from thence, did know that Christ ascended up from hence unto that place from whence they came; and because the eyes of the apostles could not follow him so far, the inhabitants of that place did come to testify of his reception; for behold two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? 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. We must therefore acknowledge and confess against all the wild heresies of old, that the eternal Son of God, who died and rose again, did, with the same body and soul with which he died and rose, ascend up to heaven; which was the second particular considerable in this Article.

An Exposition of the Creed, Article VI.

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"He was none of God's ordinary works, but his Endowments were so many and so great, as really made him a Miracle. . . . He was a rare Human

1st, and hugely versed in all the polite parts of Learning, and thoroughly concocted all the ancient Moralists, Greek and Roman Poets and Orators, and was not unacquainted with the refined wits of the later ages, whether French or Italian.

This great Prelate had the good humour of a of a Poet, the acuteness of a Schoolman, the proGentleman, the eloquence of an Orator, the fancy foundness of a Philosopher, the wisdom of a Chancellor, the sagacity of a Prophet, the reason of an Angel, and the piety of a Saint. He had devotion enough for a Cloister, learning enough for an University, and wit enough for a College of Virtuosi. And had his parts and endowments been parcelled out among his poor Clergy that he left behind dioceses in the world."-DOCTOR GEORGE RUST, him, it would perhaps have made one of the best his chaplain, and subsequently his episcopal suc

cessor in the see of Dromore.

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good works, that thy time may be crowned
with eternity.

7. In the midst of the works of thy calling,
often retire to God in short prayers and ejac
ulations; and those may make up the want
of those larger portions of time, which, it
may be, thou desirest for devotion, and in
which thou thinkest other persons have ad-
vantage of thee; for so thou reconcilest the
outward work and thy inward calling, the
church and the commonwealth, the employ-
ment of the body and the interest of thy
soul: for be sure, that God is present at thy
breathings and hearty sighings of prayer,
as soon as at the longer offices of less busied
persons; and thy time is as truly sanctified
by a trade, and devout though shorter pray-
ers, as by the longer offices of those whose
time is not filled up with labour and useful
business.

8. Let your employment be such as may become a reasonable person; and not be a business fit for children or distracted people, but fit for your age and understanding. For a man may be very idly busy, and take great pains to so little purpose, that in his labours and expense of time he shall serve no end but of folly and vanity. There are some trades that wholly serve the ends of idle persons and fools, and such as are fit to be seized upon by the severity of laws and banished from under the sun and there are some people who are busy; but it is as Domitian was, in catching flies.

2. Let every man that hath a calling be diligent in pursuance of its employment, so as not lightly or without reasonable occasion to neglect it in any of those times which are usually, and by the custom of prudent persons and good husbands, employed in it. 3. Let all the intervals or void spaces of time be employed in prayers, reading, meditating works of nature, recreations, charity, friendliness, and neighbourhood, and means. of spiritual and corporal health ever remembering so to work in our calling as not to neglect the work of our high calling; but to begin and end the day with God, with such forms of devotion as shall be proper to THE INVALIDITY OF A LATE OR DEATH-BED our necessities.

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Rules and Exercises of Holy Living.

REPENTANCE.

But will not trusting in the merits of Jesus Christ save such a man? For that, we must be tried by the word of God, in which there is no contract at all made with a dying person that lived in name a Christian, in practice a heathen: and we shall dishonour the sufferings and redemption of our blessed Saviour, if we think them to be an umbrella to shelter our impious and ungodly living. But that no such person may, after a wicked life, repose himself on his deathbed upon Christ's merits, observe but these two places of Scripture: "Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us"what to do? that we might live as we list, and hope to be saved by his merits? no:but "that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." These things "speak and exhort," saith St. Paul. But more plainly yet in St. Peter: "Christ bare our sins in his own body on the tree"-to what end? "That we, being dead unto sin, should live unto righteousness." Since,

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therefore, our living a holy life is the end of Christ's dying that sad and holy death for us, he that trusts on it to evil purposes, and to excuse his vicious life, does as much as in him lies, make void the very purpose and design of Christ's passion, and dishonours the blood of the everlasting covenant; which covenant was confirmed by the blood of Christ; but as it brought peace from God, so it requires a holy life from us. But why may not we be saved, as well as the thief on the cross? even because our case is nothing alike. When Christ dies once more for us, we may look for such another instance; not till then. But this thief did but then come to Christ, he knew him not before; and his case was, as if a Turk, or heathen, should be converted to Christianity, and be baptized, and enter newly into the covenant upon his death-bed: then God pardons all his sins. And so God does to Christians when they are baptized, or first give up their names to Christ by a voluntary confirmation of their baptismal vow: but when they have once entered into the covenant they must perform what they promise, and do what they are obliged. The thief had made no contract with God in Jesus Christ, and therefore failed of none; only the defailances of the state of ignorance Christ paid for at the thief's admission: but we, that have made a covenant with God in baptism, and failed of it all our days, and then return at "night, when we cannot work," have nothing to plead for ourselves; because we have made all that to be useless to us, which God, with so much mercy and miraculous wisdom, gave us to secure our interest and hopes of heaven.

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And therefore, let no Christian man who hath covenanted with God to give him the service of his life, think that God will be answered with the sighs and prayers of a dying man: for all that great obligation which lies upon us cannot be transacted in an instant, when we have loaded our souls with sin, and made them empty of virtue; we cannot so soon grow up to a perfect man in Christ Jesus." Suffer not therefore yourselves to be deceived by false principles and vain confidences: for no man can in a moment root out the long-contracted habits of vice, nor upon his death-bed make use of all that variety of preventing, accompanying, and persevering grace which God gave to man in mercy, because man would need it all, because without it he could not be saved; nor upon his death-bed can he exercise the duty of mortification, nor cure his drunkenness then, nor his lust, by any act of Christian discipline, nor run with patience," nor "resist unto blood," nor "endure with long-sufferance;" but he can pray, and

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groan, and call to God, and resolve to live well when he is dying.

Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying.

HENRY MORE, D.D.,

born 1614, died 1687, famous for his learning and piety, was the author of philosophical poems and treatises, theological dissertations, and Aphorisins.

bined with the Pythagorean and Cabalistic, with "No one defended the Platonic doctrine, comgreater learning and subtlety than Cudworth's friend and colleague, Henry More... . He died leaving behind him a name highly celebrated among theologians and philosophers."-ENFIELD: Hist. of Philos., 1840, 546.

"More was an open-hearted and sincere Christhe great principles of religion against atheism." tian philosopher, who studied to establish men in BISHOP BURNET: Hist. of My Own Times.

We give an extract from An Antidote against Atheism, which was included in his Philosophical Works, Lond., 1662, fol., 4th edit., corrected and much enlarged, Lond., 1712, fol.

NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE OF THE EXIST

ENCE OF GOD.

When I say that I will demonstrate that there is a God, I do not promise that I will always produce such arguments that the reader shall acknowledge so strong, as he shall be forced to confess that it is utterly impossible that it should be otherwise; but they shall be such as shall deserve full assent, and win full assent from any unprejudiced mind.

For I conceive that we may give full assent to that which, notwithstanding, may possibly be otherwise; which I shall illustrate by several examples: suppose two men got to the top of Mount Athos, and there viewing a stone in the form of an altar with ashes on it, and the footsteps of men on those ashes, or some words, if you will, as Optimo Maximo, or To agnosto Theo, or the like, written or scrawled out upon the ashes; and one of them should cry out, Assuredly here have been some men that have done this. But the other, more nice than wise, should reply, Nay, it may possibly be otherwise; for this stone may have naturally grown into this very shape, and the seeming ashes may be no ashes, that is, no remainders of any fuel burnt there; but some unexplicable and unperceptible motions of the air, or other particles of this fluid matter that is active everywhere, have wrought some parts of the matter into the form and nature of ashes, and have fridged

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So of anchors that have been digged up, either in plain fields or mountainous places,

as also the Roman urns with ashes and in

Nor

RICHARD BAXTER, born 1615, died 1691, a divine first of the Church of England, and subsequently a nonconformist, was the author of one hun dred and sixty-eight works, of which The Saint's Everlasting Rest and the Call to the Unconverted are still in high estimation. A collection of his Practical Works was pubeditions appeared, 1838, 4 vols. imp. 8vo, and lished, London, 1707, 4 vols. fol., and other 1847, 4 vols. imp. 8vo, Works, with a Life of 8vo. After his death was published Reliquiæ the Author by Rev. W. Orme, 1830, 23 vols. Baxteriana: A Narrative of his Life and Times, published by Matthew Sylvester, 1696, fol.

Another of Johnson's friends tells us that the doctor "thought Baxter's Reasons of the Christian

Religion contained the best collection of the evidences of the divinity of the Christian system."

"Baxter wrote as in the view of eternity; but generally judicious, nervous, spiritual, and evangelical, though often charged with the contrary.

He discovers a manly eloquence and the most evident proofs of an amazing genius, with respect to which he may not improperly be called the English Demosthenes."-DODDRIDGE: Lects. on Preaching.

"Pray read with great attention Baxter's life of himself; it is an inestimable work. There is no substitute for it in a course of study for a clergyman or public man: I could almost as soon doubt the Gospel verity as Baxter's veracity."COLERIDGE.

Of Baxter's Life, thus praised, we give two specimens. CONTROVERSY.

scriptions, as Severianus Ful. Linus, and the like, or Roman coins with the effigies and names of the Cæsars on them, or that which is more ordinary, the skulls of men in every churchyard, with the right figure, and all those necessary perforations for the passing Boswell tells: "I asked [Dr. Johnson] what of the vessels, besides those conspicuous works of Richard Baxter's I should read. He hollows for the eyes and rows of teeth, the said, Read any of them: they are all good.'" os stylocides, ethocides, and what not. If a man will say of them that the motions of the particles of the matter, or some hidden spermatic power, has gendered these, both anchors, urns, coins, and skulls, in the ground, he doth but pronounce that which human reason must admit is possible. can any man ever so demonstrate that those coins, anchors, and urns were once the artifice of men, or that this or that skull was once a part of a living man, that he shall force an acknowledgment that it is impossible that it should be otherwise. But yet I do not think that any man, without doing manifest violence to his faculties, can at all suspend his assent, but freely and fully agree that this or that skull was once a part of a living man, and that these anchors, urns, and coins were certainly once made by And this token of my weakness so accomhuman artifice, notwithstanding the possi-panied those my younger studies that I was bility of being otherwise. And what I have said of assent is also true in dissent; for the mind of man, not crazed nor prejudiced, will fully and irreconcilably disagree, by its own natural sagacity, where, notwithstanding, the thing that it doth thus resolvedly and undoubtedly reject, no wit of man can prove impossible to be true. As if we should make such a fiction as this,-that Archimedes, with the same individual body that he had when the soldiers slew him, is now safely intent upon his geometrical figures under ground, at the centre of the earth, far from the noise and din of this world that might disturb his meditations, or distract him in his curious delineations he makes with his rod upon the dust; which no man living can prove impossible. Yet if any man does not as irreconcilably dissent from such a fable as this, as from any falsehood imaginable, assuredly that man is next door to madness or dotage, or does enormous violence to the free use of his faculties.

very apt to start up controversies in the way of my practical writings, and also more desirous to acquaint the world with all that I took to be the truth, and to assault those books by name which I thought did tend to deceive them, and did contain unsound and dangerous doctrine; and the reason of all this was, that I was then in the vigour of my youthful apprehensions, and the new appearance of any sacred truth, it was more apt to affect me, and be more highly valued, than afterwards, when commonness had dulled my delight; and I did not sufficiently discern then how much in most of our controversies is verbal, and upon mutual mistakes. And withal, I knew not how impatient divines were of being contradicted, nor how it would stir up all their powers to defend what they have once said, and to rise up against the truth which is thus thrust upon them, as the mortal enemy of their honour; and I knew not how hardly men's minds are changed from their former appre

hensions, be the evidence never so plain. And I have perceived that nothing so much hinders the reception of the truth as urging it on men with too harsh importunity, and falling too heavily on their errors; for hereby you engage their honour in the business, and they defend their errors as themselves, and stir up all their wit and ability to oppose you. In controversies, it is fierce opposition which is the bellows to kindle a resisting zeal; when, if they be neglected, and their opinions lie awhile despised, they usually cool, and come again to themselves. Men are so loath to be drenched with the truth, that I am no more for going that way to work; and, to confess the truth, I am lately much prone to the contrary extreme, to be too indifferent what men hold, and to keep my judgment to myself, and never to mention anything wherein I differ from another on anything which I think I know more than he; or, at least, if he receive it not presently, to silence it, and leave him to his own opinion; and I find this effect is mixed according to its causes, which are some good and some bad. The bad causes are, 1. An impatience of men's weakness, and mistaking forwardness, and self-conceitedness. 2. An abatement of my sensible esteem of truths, through the long abode of them on my mind. Though my judgment value them, yet it is hard to be equally affected with old and common things as with new and rare ones. The better causes are, 1. That I am much more sensible than ever of the necessity of living upon the principles of religion which we are all agreed in, and uniting in these; and how much mischief men that overvalue their own opinions have done by their controversies in the church; how some have destroyed charity, and some caused schisms by them, and most have hindered godliness in themselves and others, and used them to divert men from the serious prosecuting of a holy life; and, as Sir Francis Bacon saith in his Essay of Peace," that it is one great benefit of church peace and concord, that writing controversies is turned into books of practical devotion for increase of piety and virtue." 2. And I find that it is much more for most men's good and edification to converse with them only in that way of godliness which all are agreed in, and not by touching upon differences to stir up their corruptions, and to tell them of little more of your knowledge than what you find them willing to receive from you as mere learners; and therefore to stay till they crave information of you. We mistake men's diseases when we think there needeth nothing to cure their errors, but only to bring them the evidence of truth. Alas! there are many distempers of mind to be re

moved before men are apt to receive that evidence. And, therefore, that church is happy where order is kept up, and the abilities of the ministers command a reverend submission from the hearers, and where all are in Christ's school, in the distinct ranks of teachers and learners; for in a learning way men are ready to receive the truth, but in a disputing way, they come armed against it with prejudice and animosity. Reliquiae Baxterianæ.

THE CREDIT DUE TO HISTORY.

I am much more cautelous in my belief of history than heretofore; not that I run into their extreme that will believe nothing because they cannot believe all things. But I am abundantly satisfied by the experience of this age that there is no believing two sorts of men,-ungodly men and partial men; though an honest heathen, of no religion, may be believed, where enmity against religion biasseth him not; yet a debauched Christian, besides his enmity to the power and practice of his own religion, is seldom without some further bias of interest or faction: especially when these concur, and a man is both ungodly and ambitious, espousing an interest contrary to a holy, heavenly life, and also factious, embodying himself with a sect or party suited to his spirit and designs, there is no believing his word or oath. If you read any man partially bitter against others, as differing from him in opin ion, or as cross to his greatness, interest, or designs, take heed how you believe any more than the historical evidence, distinct from his word, compelleth you to believe. The prodigious lies which have been published in this age in matters of fact, with unblushing confidence, even where thousands or multitudes of eye and ear witnesses knew all to be false, doth call men to take heed what history they believe, especially where power and violence affordeth that privilege to the reporter that no man dare answer him, or detect his fraud; or if they do, their writings are all supprest. As long as men have liberty to examine and contradict one another one may partly conjecture, by comparing their words, on which side the truth is like to lie. But when great men write history, or flatterers by their appointment, which no man dare contradict, believe it but as you are constrained. Yet, in these cases I can freely believe history: 1. If the person show that he is acquainted with what he saith. 2. And if he show the evidences of honesty and conscience, and the fear of God (which may be much perceived in the spirit of a writing). 3. If he appear to be impartial and chari

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