3. _This style may be intended to intimate that burial to which He yielded._--"Lest I become like them that go down into the pit." "So must the Son of man be in the heart of the earth." He has made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death! He is put away into darkness. He is held of death in its gloomy chambers. He is as a victim and a prey. It is a prison-keep. 4. _The separation of the Redeemer's body and spirit may be described in these words._--We mark in this departure of His soul the simple requirement of death. It could not be retained. It descended into the lower parts of the earth. This is the reverse of resurrection and heavenward flight. It was humiliation. These are the gradations of His descent. These are the "lower parts of the earth" to which He declined. This is His coming forth from the Father! This is His coming down from heaven! This is His coming into the world! His measureless surrender of claims! His inconceivable renunciation of honours! Stooping to inferior and still inferior levels of ignominy! Plunging to deeper and still deeper abysses of shame! +II. The glory of His subsequent exaltation.+--1. _It is in itself an absolute expression of love._ 2. _It justifies an expectation of surpassing benefits._ 3. _The act regulates and secures its own efficiency._ 4. _This act is to be regarded as of incomparable worth and excellence._--The mission of Christ contemplated the highest principles which can direct the Divine conduct. He came to vindicate that character which to conceive aright is the happiness of all creatures--to uphold and avenge that law which cannot be infringed without an utter loss of good and overthrow of order--to atone for sin whose slight and impunity would have been the allowance of infinite mischiefs and evils--to bring in an everlasting righteousness adequate to the justification of the most guilty, and of the most multiplied objects who needed it--leaving it for ever proved that no rule nor sanction of God's moral government can be violated without a necessary and meet resentment! His ascension was a radiant triumph. Scarcely is it more descried than His resurrection. We catch but a few notes of the resounding acclaim, we mark but a few fleeces of the glory-cloud, we recognise but a few attendants of the angel-train. With that laconic force which characterises holy writ, it is simply recorded, "Who is gone into heaven."