on the Mount of Transfiguration. It came not to lift Him on its soft
folds to the heavens, but in order that, first, He might be plainly
seen till the moment that He ceased to be seen, and might not dwindle
into a speck by reason of distance; and secondly, that it might teach
the truth, that, as His body was received into the cloud, so He entered
into the glory which He 'had with the Father before the world was.'
Such was the second of these moments.

The third great moment corresponds to these, is required by them,
and crowns them. The Ascension was not only the close of Christ's
earthly life which would preserve congruity with its beginning, but
it was also the clear manifestation that, as He came of His own
will, so He departed by His own volition. 'I came forth from the
Father, and am come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go
unto the Father.' Thus the earthly life is, as it were, islanded in
a sea of glory, and that which stretches away beyond the last moment
of visibility, is like that which stretched away beyond the first
moment of corporeity; the eternal union with the eternal Father. But
such an entrance on and departure from earth, and such a career on
earth, can only end in that coming again of which the angels spoke
to the gazing eleven.

Mark the emphasis of their words. 'This same Jesus,' the same in His
manhood, 'shall so come, in like manner, as ye have seen Him go.'
How much the 'in like manner' may mean we can scarcely dogmatically
affirm. But this, at least, is clear, that it cannot mean less than
corporeally visible, locally surrounded by angel-guards, and
perhaps, according to a mysterious prophecy, to the same spot from
which He ascended. But, at all events, there are the three moments
in the manifestation of the Son of God.