SERMON VI.
THE BENEFIT OF OUR LORD'S INTERCESSION, DEPENDENT ON COMMUNION WITH HIM.

ASCENSION DAY.

HEB. vii. 25.

"He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them."

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. Even then He described Himself to Nicodemus as "the Son of Man, Who is in heaven;" and this, by virtue of His Divine Power and Godhead, whereby He is evermore one with the Everlasting Father. But this is the wonder, this the mystery, this is our joy and bliss on Ascension Day, that the Body and Soul which had been humbled to such extremity of pain and shame and death; spit upon, buffeted, stript, scourged, pierced with nails, laid in the grave; the Soul which was exceeding sorrowful, and felt as if the Father had forsaken it; that Soul and Body are now set "at the Father's Right Hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and hath all things put under its feet."

The better to enable us to conceive this unspeakable exaltation of the Man Christ Jesus, and the innumerable benefits which we receive thereby, holy Church draws our attention, in the services of this day, to Moses going up to the mount, and to the blessings thereby vouchsafed unto God's people Israel. Moses, we know, was a special type and figure of our Lord: as was promised, "The Lord your God shall raise you up a prophet of your brethren like unto me." And Moses was remarkably like unto Christ in his ascension. You know what I mean by Moses' ascension: his going up into Mount Sinai to meet the Lord, while the rest of the people staid below. They were so amazed and affrighted at the fearful sights and sounds, betokening the near approach of the great and dreadful God, that they removed and stood afar off, and their prayer was, "Let not God speak with us, lest we die." They were like all sinners when the Lord touches their hearts: they felt themselves quite unworthy to draw near and speak to God: they longed for a mediator, one to be between God and them: they said to Moses, "Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say, and speak to us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee, and we will hear it and do it." God approved of this. He said, "They have well said all that they have spoken." And so it was ordered: Moses went up and was in their stead, before God. Moses, one of themselves: he went up as surety and representative of the whole people, to transact with the Almighty this great business of the covenant between Him and them, on which all their good and happiness depended. So is the Son of God, our Moses, one of ourselves, "of our flesh and of our bones," gone up out of our sight, even to the highest heavens, u to appear in the Presence of God for us."

Then, as Moses went to receive the two Tables of the Law, on which the covenant, even the ten commandments, was written with the Finger of God, so Jesus Christ went up for this among other purposes, "that He might receive gifts for men." What gifts? The New Law, and the Holy Spirit to write it in our hearts; with all His manifold outpourings of grace, icdfor the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ." This gift, our Lord plainly tells us, could not, in the counsels of God, be granted, until He had gone up to heaven. "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you." And alas! my brethren, without the Comforter, without the Blessed Spirit of God to write all His laws in our hearts, what profit should we have either of the blessed laws themselves, or even of His Divine Love in dying to atone for our breach of them? Heaven itself will be no heaven; the Cross will be no salvation to us, except our hearts be turned and changed by His Almighty grace. Were it only on this account, then, our Lord's Ascension would be infinitely more to us, than Moses going up to the mount could be to the Israelites; that Moses brought down only the letter of the law, the ten commandments written and engraven in stones; but Christ sent down the living and life-giving Spirit, Who should both instruct us what to do, and also unite us to Him, i. e. to Christ Jesus, through Whom we may have grace and strength, really to do it.

Thirdly, Moses had not only to appear before God for his brethren, and to obtain for them the gift of the holy law, but even before that errand was completed, he had to perform this further work of love for them; to intercede in their behalf, and obtain God's gracious pardon, for that they had already sinned grievously against one of His chiefest laws: they had turned aside quickly out of the way which He had commanded them: they had made them a molten calf. God's sentence had already begun to go outf: "Let Me alone, that I may destroy them utterly, and make of thee a great nation." Upon which, Moses, his heart overflowing with love to his backsliding brethren, began to plead most earnestly for them. He besought the Lord, by His great mercies hitherto vouchsafed, by the memory of His servants Abraham Isaac and Jacob, and by His promises made to them; by all this he pleaded with God for mercy, and God, in His tender love, heard the intercession of His servant, and both spared those sinners for the present, and afterwards, when Moses came up a second time, to renew the covenant, with the new tables in his hand which he had hewed like unto the first, the Lord accepted his fasting and prayer, continued yet another forty days, and promised to accept the penitence of His people, to forgive them this great sin, and to go up in the midst of them into the land of Canaan. Now what was Moses in this holy and loving work, but a true type of our Saviour in heaven, interceding for our manifold breaches of His sacred law? As S. Paul describes Him in the text, "He ever liveth to make intercession for them that come to God by Him;" and S. John in those golden words, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous." He pleads for us with the Father, reminding Him of the perfect Sacrifice which He offered once for all on the Cross: He presents to the Father the Body and Blood, which He, this day, took up with Him to heaven, for a constant memorial of that Sacrifice: and thus, although His bloody atoning Sacrifice is completed, never to be renewed, yet is He for ever offering for us in heaven; He hath an unchangeable Priesthood; He is our High Priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedec. Moses indeed was no priest, but only a great prophet and a sort of king: nevertheless, in his intercession for his sinful and condemned brethren, he was, as I said, a true type of our Lord pleading in heaven for us sinners. A true type and shadow he was, but at an immense distance. His intercession being as much more effectual than that of Moses, as His Name and Nature is higher: Moses being the servant, Christ the Son; Moses the friend of God, but Christ Himself Very God, God the Son, presenting Himself, as our Priest and Sacrifice, before the Father continually. So that if Moses by his intercession could obtain so great a boon as the sparing of his condemned countrymen, well may they hope to be saved indeed to the uttermost, who truly and heartily come to God by Christ.

Then again, Moses only wished that he might be made, if possible, a curse for his people. "If Thou wilt forgive their sin," he says, "well; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book." Moses, as S. Paul long afterwards, was willing to die for his brethren, the Jewish people: but our Lord actually did die. He caused Himself to be "made a curse for us: as it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree." As the Apostle saith of God the Father, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" so we may say of the Son Himself, "He that spared not His own life or body, but poured out His soul to death for us all; how shall He not by earnest intercession fully obtain for us all good things?

Thus you see that our Lord's Ascension, besides other and infinite blessings which belong to it, did according to the counsel of God provide you and me and all Christians with a perpetual Mediator, Intercessor. Advocate at the Right Hand of the Father in heaven; One Whose word cannot return to Him void; of Whom we are certain that, whatsoever He blesseth, is blessed. Now what I wish you particularly to observe, dear brethren, is this: that our Bisen and Ascended Lord's Mediation for us with the Father, whether it rightly be called prayer or no, depends almost or altogether on the memorial which (as I said just now) He perpetually maketh before His Father, of the Sacrifice of His Death on the Cross: even as the high priest of the Jews, when he entered once a year into the most holy Place, always took with him the blood of the atoning sacrifice, which he had just been offering without. So S. Paul informs us: "Into the most holy place, or inner tabernacle, entereth the high priest alone, once every year, not without blood, which he offereth "for sins and errors: "but Christ being come, High Priest of the good things to come--not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by His own Blood, entered once for all into the sanctuary, having obtained eternal redemption for us;" "He hath entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the Presence of God for us." "This Man, having offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the Right Hand of God." Thus Jesus Christ in heaven, presenting to the Father His own Body and Blood, maketh continual remembrance of the Sacrifice of His death, and thereby obtaineth for us "remission of our sins and all other benefits of His Passion," saveth us, (as the Apostle says) "to the uttermost."

For us, (so the Scripture speaks) not for all, but for us. And who are we? It is a most serious question: but He leaves us in no doubt about the answer, "He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by Him." If we really and earnestly keep on coming to God by Him, then are we the persons for whom all these blessings are prepared. He intercedes for us now; He will save us to the uttermost. Now, do you not perceive, my brethren, even before I have named it to you, that there is one special appointed way of coming to God by Jesus Christ, I mean the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood, to which these promises especially relate? For even as our Lord in heaven is day and night presenting to the Father the very Body with its Wounds, and the Sacred Blood, which was once for all offered on the Cross: so He hath appointed His Church on earth to join in that Sacrifice of His, and present it to the Father, uniting thereby the services of earth and heaven. "This do," He said, "in remembrance of Me:" and that very thing the Church does. We join in that very Sacrifice, which He offered in the upper room the night before His Death, and which He is now continuing day and night before His Father in heaven, in the place to which He this day ascended. In that very Sacrifice we join, as often as we duly receive the Holy Communion. The Holy Communion is our Lord's heavenly memorial transferred to earth: there is the same Priest as in heaven, Jesus Christ, only out of sight; and there is the same Sacrifice, His very Body and Blood. It comes then to be a very serious question, whether they who slight Holy Communion have really any part in our Lord's Intercession; whether their prayers are good for any thing. Certainly it was a saying of Bishop Wilson's, "If I were not a communicant, I should be afraid to say my prayers."

I suppose he meant, not simply that it is a great fault to neglect Holy Communion, and, like any other great fault unrepented of, would make a person unfit to appear before God. I suppose he meant something more particular than this. He meant that, in order to pray acceptably, we must be joined to Him Who is our only High Priest and Mediator: our prayers must be joined to His continual Intercession; that this can only be through that Sacrifice of Holy Communion, which keepeth us one with Him and He with us; and that therefore the prayers of a wilful non-communicant are indeed no Christian prayers. There is no promise, that in them the Holy Spirit will be interceding for us, or that they will go up to be presented as a memorial before God by our great Melchisedec in heaven. My brethren, I want to make this quite plain to you. There is reason to fear that a Christian person, who might come to Holy Communion and does not, is wilfully separating between himself and his God; he is putting himself in such a condition that his prayers will be no prayers; they will do him no good at all, because they are not really said in Christ's Name: they are not put into the Mediator's hands, to be offered by Him as part of His perpetual Sacrifice to His Father.

And what if a person come unworthily, I mean in wilful, impenitent unworthiness? We know, alas! too well, what such an one is in the way to bring on himself; "he eateth and drinketh his own damnation." It is a fearful instance of taking God's Name in vain, drawing near to Him only to affront Him.

What then is a poor sinner to do? It is very plain. He must not stay away, for this is putting from him the only remedy for his sins: he must not come hastily, for this is turning the remedy into poison: but he must come penitently; that is the word. He must come to Christ's Altar; for that is the Throne of grace, where He is to be found Who is our true King and Priest, from Whom we are sure to obtain both mercy for the past and grace for the future, to help in time of need. Come unto Him in this way, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and He will give you rest; as surely as, at the prayer of Moses, He forgave His people Israel, and helped them on the way to Canaan, their earthly rest. Through all the forty days and forty nights, the whole time which yet remains for the trial and exercise of His Church on earth, He will be interceding at His Father's Right Hand, in virtue of that Body and Blood which He this day took with Him into heaven. He will be interceding both for the whole Church and for each one of its members. And O, my brethren, how can we think enough of it? If we are trying in earnest to be worthy communicants, this blessed, this perfect Saviour is ours. He is our Saviour and He will save us; He is our God, and He will save us to the uttermost. Through Him we may lie down every night of our lives in peace, in comfortable hope that, for His Intercession's sake, we are absolved from our past sins, how grievous soever; and that our daily repentance is accepted for our daily slips and infirmities, we watching and praying against them. And we may present before Him, and put under His care, the cares and troubles, the needs and infirmities and dangers, temporal and spiritual, of all our dear friends and relations and benefactors, all for whom we are anxious, and of whom we are bound to take charge. Finally, this our great and good High Priest will accept at our hands and present to His Father, in union with His own Flesh and Blood, our earnest prayers and wishes and longings for the whole Christian people, the whole of Christendom in its fallen and divided state; that, according to His own parable of the barren tree, He may spare it yet awhile, "let it alone this year also," if so be, by our Lord's merciful grace, "digging about it and dunging it," it may bear fruit, and not be cut down.

For all, even for the worst, we may pray in hope; since for all our Melchisedec liveth to make special intercession, if only they will come to God by Him. He liveth, not for a time, but for ever: He offereth, not now and then, but perpetually. As He is able therefore, so He is willing to save us to the uttermost. Only have the same will to be saved, that He hath to save you, and there is no end to the blessing you may hope for.

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