"This day's grateful celebration": A Hackney Phalanx sermon for Holy Thursday

From A Course of Sermons for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England (1821) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for this Holy Thursday, Ascension Day, in which the soteriological meaning of the feast is richly celebrated:

I will name but one more particular of that eminent advantage which we have by our blessed Lord's ascension into heaven, and by the prospect of his sure return. We are thus invited to pursue that track which leads from earth to heaven. Let us learn, then, by our Lord's ascension, as the Son of man, to those bright scenes, that our nature has been indeed advanced to heaven, and that even our frail body will not binder our ascending thither, if our minds and hearts shall have gone before, and if we have so been partakers, in some sort, of our blessed Lord's ascension. By such spiritual elevations, and such good desires, the soul aspires to those scenes of bliss as to its own place, and enjoys some happy earnests of a future resurrection to eternal life and endless glory.

And what now are the lessons to be gathered in conclusion for this day’s grateful celebration? The views of future glory are commended to us by the noblest prospects. We behold a rescued race once, more united and transferred to happier regions, where to scenes of trial, there succeed the never ending days of recompense and joy. How cheering is the prospect; how noble and sublime; how worthy of the high perfections of him who provides thus for his reasonable creatures! Reverse the view, and how base, how sordid, how poor in every rational endowment, does that mind appear, which feels no wish to be numbered with the good, and to have part in their inheritance!

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Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

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