4. _This act is to be regarded as of incomparable worth and
excellence._--The mission of Christ contemplated the highest
principles which can direct the Divine conduct. He came to vindicate
that character which to conceive aright is the happiness of all
creatures--to uphold and avenge that law which cannot be infringed
without an utter loss of good and overthrow of order--to atone for
sin whose slight and impunity would have been the allowance of
infinite mischiefs and evils--to bring in an everlasting
righteousness adequate to the justification of the most guilty, and
of the most multiplied objects who needed it--leaving it for ever
proved that no rule nor sanction of God's moral government can be
violated without a necessary and meet resentment! His ascension was a
radiant triumph. Scarcely is it more descried than His resurrection.
We catch but a few notes of the resounding acclaim, we mark but a few
fleeces of the glory-cloud, we recognise but a few attendants of the
angel-train. With that laconic force which characterises holy writ,
it is simply recorded, "Who is gone into heaven."
+III. The reciprocal influence of these respective facts.+--"The
same" was He who bowed Himself to these indignities and who seized
these rewards. And this identity is of the greatest value. Not only
do we hail Him in His reinstatement in original dignities, but in the
augmentation of His glories. Deity was never so beheld before. There
is a combination and a form of the Divine perfections entirely new.
We repine that He is not here. We forget that it is expedient that He
should go away. Heaven alone provides scope for His undertakings and
channel for His influences. There must He abide until the restitution
of all things. But nothing of His sympathy or His grace do we
forego.--_R. W. Hamilton._