On the Transfiguration.

DISCOURSE IV.

MATTHEW Xvii. 3.

And behold, there appeared unto them Mofes and Elias talking with him.

WE are now confidering the Account

given us by the Evangelifts of our

Saviour's Transfiguration, and have already obferved the fudden and glorious Change that paffed on our Lord Jefus, with Refpect to his outward bodily Appearance. This wonderful Change was confidered, first, with Regard to his Rody, especially his Face, which, we are here told, fhone as the Sun; and then with Respect to his Raiment, which, St. Matthew tells us, became

became white as the Light, or, as St. Mark has it, became fhining and exceeding white as Snow; to the fame Purpose St. Luke faith, that it became white and glistering. It was observed to you that this Splendor of our Lord's Appearance, at his Transfiguration, was defigned to put a fignal Honour upon him, even in his State of Humiliation here on Earth; and it fhould alfo raise in us great and magnificent Ideas of the Glory and Majefty with which his human Nature is now invested in the heavenly State; and, laftly, it may help us in our Conceptions of the glorious Change that shall pass upon the Bodies of good Men at the Refurrection, and may strengthen our Faith in what the Scripture revealeth concerning it.

I now come to the fecond Thing propofed to be confidered with Regard to our Saviour's Transfiguration, and that is, that there were fome of the heavenly Inhabitants who appeared in Glory, and converfed with him on that Occafion, even Mofes and Elias. Behold, faith St. Matthew, there appeared unto them (i. e. to Chrift's Difciples) Mofes and Elias talking with bim. St. Mark tells us the fame Thing, almost in the fame Expreffions. But St. Luke has it more at large: Behold, there talked with him two Men, which were

Mofes

Mofes and Elias; who appeared in Glory, and fpake of his Deceafe, which he should accomplish at Jerufalem. Luke ix. 30, 31. Our Lord Jefus Chrift could have commanded Legions of Angels to attend him on this Occafion, as he elsewhere expreffeth it; and thus he would have done, if he had nothing in View but to astonish his Disciples with the Pomp and Glory of his Appearance. He could have ordered it fo that the whole Mountain should have been filled with the radiant Hofts of Heaven, all paying him Homage as their Lord. But as he had taken upon him not the Nature of Angels, but the Seed of Abraham, and was Partaker of our Flesh and Blood; fo, in this illustrious Exhibition of his Glory here on Earth, he chofe to be attended with some of the glorified Saints, rather than the Angels; fome of those that were Partakers of the fame human Nature which he had affumed, and who belonged to that Church, of which he was the Saviour and the Head, and for which he intended shortly to lay down his Life. And it was not many of these that he chofe to attend him, but only two, Mofes and Elias. As to the Reason why these two, and these only, were chosen to attend Christ on this Occafion, besides that there might be any just and wife Reasons for it which we are not

at

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at prefent acquainted with, we may, upon Reflection, obferve fo much concerning this Matter as may let us fee that there was a Juftness and Propriety in it. There had not been any, among the whole Number of Saints that had lived in former Ages, who were more remarkable for their Piety, and for the fignal Honour God had put upon them, than thefe two. Mofes had been peculiarly eminent. When it pleafed God, for wife Ends, to erect the People of Ifrael into a peculiar Polity, feparate from other Nations, for the better preferving his true Worship free from Idolatry, and the Hope and Expectation of the Redeemer who had been promifed from the Beginning, and who was to come from Ifrael according to the Flesh; he chose Mofes as the Perfon by whom he would give an excellent System of Laws to this his peculiar People. Mofes was, in feveral Refpects, an illuftrious Type of Christ. His bringing the Ifraelites out of Egypt was a lively Image of Chrift's delivering his Church from the Oppreffion and Bondage of Sin and Satan, and the dreadful Ruins and Miferies of the fallen State. Mofes was a Mediator between God and the People of Ifrael, who brought the Commands of God to them, and reprefented their Defires unto God; in which he bore an imperfect Refemblance

Refemblance of that great Mediator of the new Covenant Jefus Chrift the righteous. He was also the most illuftrious of all the Prophets, by whom God spake unto the Fathers. God is faid to have spoken to him not merely by Dreams or Vifions, as he did to the other Prophets, but Mouth to Mouth, even apparently, and not in dark Speeches, i. e. in a more clear and immediate and familiar Way of Revelation than to any other of the Prophets. Numb. xii. 6, 7, 8. And hence it is declared, that after him there arofe not a Prophet in Israel like unto Mofes, whom the Lord knew Face to Face. Deut. xxxiv. 10. In this he was a Figure of Chrift, the great Prophet and Teacher of his Church, who knew God in a far clearer and more intimate and glorious Manner than Mofes himself, as being the only Begotten of the Father, who was in his Bofom, and hath revealed him unto us. Of Mofes that glorious Encomium is given by God himself, that he was faithful in all his Houfe. Numb. xii.

7. In all the Directions and Inftitutions

he gave relating to the Ordering of the Church, he kept close to the Divine Will and Appointment; and in this alfo he was a Type of our Lord Jefus Chrift, who, as the facred Writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (peaks, was faithful to him that VOL. IV. appointed

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