Only let us remember to ask for pardon and to ask for peace, that we may use them as the collect bids us;—­To ask for pardon, not merely that we may escape punishment; not even to escape punishment at all, if punishment be wholesome for us, as it often is:  but that we may be cleansed from our sins; that we may not be left to our own weakness and our own bad habits, to grow more and more useless, more and more unhappy, day by day, but that we may be cleansed from them; and grow purer, nobler, juster, stronger, more worthy of our place in God’s kingdom, as our years roll by.  Let us remember to ask for peace, not merely to get rid of unpleasant thoughts, or unpleasant people, or unpleasant circumstances; and then sit down and say, Soul, take thine ease, eat and drink, for thou hast much goods laid up for many years:  but let us ask for peace, that we may serve God with a quiet mind; that we may get rid of the impatient, cowardly, discontented, hopeless heart, which will not let a man go about his business like a man; and get, instead of it, by the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, the calm, contented, brave, hopeful heart, in the strength of which a man can work with a will wherever God may put him, even amidst vexation, confusion, disappointment, slander, and persecution; and, in his place and calling, serve the Lord, who served him when he died for him, and who serves him, and all his people, now and for ever in heaven.

So shall we have real pardon, and real peace.  A pardon which will make us really better; and a peace which will make us really more useful.  And to be good and to be useful were the two ends for which God sent us into the world at all.

SERMON XXX.  THE CENTRAL SUN

(Sunday after Ascension, Evening.)

Ephesians iv. 9. 10.  Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?  He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.

This is one of those very deep texts which we are not meant to think about every day; only at such seasons as this, when we have to think of Christ ascending into heaven, that he might send down his Spirit at Whitsuntide.  Of this the text speaks; and therefore, we may, I hope, think a little of it to-day, but reverently, and cautiously, like men who know a very little, and are afraid of saying more than they know.  These deep mysteries about heaven we must always meddle with very humbly, lest we get out of our depth in haste and self-conceit.  As it is said,

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

For, if we are not very careful, we shall be apt to mistake the meaning of Scripture, and make it say what we like, and twist it to suit our own fancies, and our own ignorance.  Therefore we must never, with texts like this, say positively, ’It must mean this.  It can mean only this.’  How can we tell that?