was not possible that He should be holden of it,' and because in His
nature there was no proclivity to death, since there had been no
indulgence in sin; and if it be true that He ascended up on high
because that was His native sphere, and He rose to it as naturally as
the water in the valley will rise to the height of the hill from
which it has descended, then we can see that God has set His seal
upon that life by that resurrection and ascension; and as we gaze on
Him swept up heavenward by His own calm power, a light falls backward
upon all His earthly life, upon His claims to purity, and to union
with the Father, and we say, 'Surely this was a perfectly righteous
Man.'

And further let me remind you that with the supernatural facts of our
Lord's resurrection and ascension stands or falls the possibility of
His communicating any of His righteousness to us sinful men. If there
be no such possibility, what does Jesus Christ's beauty of character
matter to me? Nothing! I shall have to stumble on as best I can,
sometimes ashamed and rebuked, sometimes stimulated and sometimes
reduced to despair, by looking at the record of His life. If He be
lying dead in a forgotten grave, and hath not 'ascended up on high,'
then there can come from His history and past nothing other in kind,
though, perhaps, a little more in degree, than comes from the history
and the past of the beautiful and white souls that have sometimes
lived in the world. He is a saint like them, He is a teacher like
them, He is a prophet like some of them, and we have but to try our
best to copy that marble purity and white righteousness. But if He
hath ascended up on high, and sits there, wielding the forces of the
universe, as we believe He does, then to Him belongs the divine
prerogative of imparting His nature and His character to them that
love Him. Then His righteousness is not a solitary, uncommunicative