evidence, which, as their Master divinely foretold, all their adversaries have not been able to gainsay.

In a word, the EVENT has been, and is such, as might be expected, if the divine assistance promised, was actually imparted to them; but improbable in the highest degree, or rather impossible to have taken place, if fraud, or enthusiasm, had been concerned, either in giving, or fulfilling, this promise.

It would be equally an abuse of your patience, and an affront to your good sense, to enlarge farther on so plain a point. From recollecting, and laying together, the circumstances, which have been now briefly touched, and pointed out to you, ye will conclude, That, when Jesus gave this extraordinary promise of the Spirit to his followers, he certainly knew, that he should be able to make good his engagements to them: And that this spirit, being of God, would not be at the command of his followers, to be employed by them, as their passions, or short-sighted policies, might direct; but would operate in them, according to the good pleasure and unerring wisdom of HIM, who sent this celestial guide; or, in the words of the text, that he should not speak of

himself, but whatsoever he should hear, that, only, he should speak.

No ill effects would, then, proceed from the privilege of being let into new truths, or, of being entrusted with the power of foretelling things to come. And, from the And, from the very consideration, that Jesus had engaged to confer such privileges upon his disciples, who, if not overruled in the use of them, that is, if not truly and immediately inspired, would, or rather must, have employed them to the discredit and subversion of his own design; from this single consideration, I say, it may fairly be concluded, especially when we can now compare the assurance with the event, That He himself was the person, he assumed to be, that is, A DIVINE PERSON; and his religion, what we believe it to be, THE WORD AND WILL OF

GOD.

SERMON XLIV.

PREACHED MAY 29, 1774. T. S.

ACTS i. 11.

Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you, shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

As the entrance of Jesus into the world, so his departure out of it, was graced by the ministry of angels. Events, so important as these, deserved, and, it seems, required, to be so dignified. His birth was, indeed, obscure and mean; and therefore the attendance of those flaming ministers might be thought necessary to illustrate and adorn it. But his ascension into heaven was an event so full of

glory, that it needed not, we may think, any additional lustre to be thrown upon it by this celestial appearance. For what so likely to raise the ideas and excite the admiration of those, who were witnesses of this event, as the fact itself, so sublimely and yet so simply related in these words of the sacred historianwhile they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight?

We may presume, then, that the heavenly host were not sent merely to dignify this transaction, in its own nature so transcendantly awful; but for some further purpose of divine Providence. And we find that purpose expressed very plainly in the words of the text; which contain an admonition of great importance, and direct the attention of the disciples to the true end, for which this scene of wonder was displayed before them. For while they looked stedfastly toward heaven, as he went up, two men stood by them in white apparel; which, also, said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

This

The Apostles, we may suppose, were only occupied with the splendor of the shew; or

they were wholly absorbed in the contemplation of its miraculous nature; or they were speculating, perhaps, on the circumstances of it. They were asking themselves, as they gazed (at least, if they had possessed the philosophic spirit of our days, they might be tempted to ask), how the natural gravity of a human body could permit its ascent in so light a mediumhow a cloud, which is but a sheet of air, impregnated with vapours, and made visible by reflected light, could be a fit vehicle of a gross and ponderous substance, and serve for the conveyance of it into the purer regions of æther, which we call heaven-or, what need indeed there was, that Jesus should be carried up thither; as if the God, to whom he ascended, were not in every place, alike; as if there were any such distinction, as high and low, with regard to him; as if all space were not equally inhabited by an infinite spirit; and as if his throne were not in the depths beneath, as well as the heights above, every where, in short, without respect to our descriptions of place, where himself existed.

From such a state of mind, or from such meditations as these, the Angels divert the Apostles, and call off their attention to a point, which deserved it better, and concerned them