On the Transfiguration. DISCOURSE IV. MATTHEW xvii. 3. And behold, there appeared unto them Mofes and Elias talking with him. W given us E are now confidering the Account by the Evangelists of our Saviour's Transfiguration, and have already observed the sudden and glorious Change that passed on our Lord Jesus, with Respect to his outward bodily Appearance. This wonderful Change was considered, first, with Regard to his Rody, especially his Face, which, we are here told, Shone 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 shining 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 designed to put a signal Honour upon him, even in his State of Humiliation here on Earth; and it should also raise in us great and magnificent Ideas of the Glory and Majesty with which his human Nature is now invested in the heavenly State; and, lastly, 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 second Thing proposed to be confidered with Regard to our Saviour's Transfiguration, and that is, that there were some of the heavenly Inhabitants who appeared in Glory, and conversed with him on that Occafion, even Mofes and Elias. Behold, faith St. Matthew, there appeared unto them (i. e. to Christ's Disciples) Mofes and Elias talking with him. St. Mark tells us the fame Thing, almost in the same Expressions. But St. Luke has it more at large : Behold, there talked with him two Men, which were Mofes Moses and Elias; who appeared in Glory, and spake of his Decease, which he should accomplish at Jerufalem. Luke ix. 30, 31. Our Lord Jesus Christ could have commanded Legions of Angels to attend him on this Occafion, as he elsewhere exprefseth it; and thus he would have done, if he had nothing in View but to aftonish 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 Hosts 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; so, in this illustrious Exhibition of his Glory here on Earth, he chose to be attended with some of the glorified Saints, rather than the Angels; some of those that were Partakers of the same human Nature which he had assumed, 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 chose 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 Occasion, besides that there might be any just and wife Reasons for it which we are not at present acquainted with, we may, upon Reflection, observe so much concerning this Matter as may let us see that there was a Justness 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 signal Honour God had put upon them, than these two. Moses had been peculiarly eminent. When it pleased God, for wife Ends, to erect the People of Ifrael into a peculiar Polity, separate from other Nations, for the better preferving his true Worship free from Idolatry, and the Hope and Expectation of the Redeemer who had been promised from the Beginning, and who was to come from Ifrael according to the Flesh; he chose Mofes as the Person by whom he would give an excellent System of Laws to this his peculiar People. Mofes was, in several Respects, an illustrious Type of Christ. His bringing the Ifraelites out of Ægypt was a lively Image of Christ's delivering his Church from the Oppreffion and Bondage of Sin and Satan, and the dreadful Ruins and Miseries of the fallen State. Mofes was a Mediator between God and the People of Ifrael, who brought the Commands of God to them, and represented their Defires unto God; in which he bore an imperfect Resemblance 1 1 Resemblance of that great Mediator of the new Covenant Jesus Christ the righteous. He was also the most illustrious 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 arose 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 Christ, the great Prophet and Teacher of his Church, who knew God in a far clearer and more intimate and glorious Manner than Moses 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 be was faithful in all his House. Numb. xii. 7. In all the Directions and Institutions he gave relating to the Ordering of the Church, he kept close to the Divine Will and Appointment; and in this also he was a Type of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, as the sacred Writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks, was faithful to him that VOL. IV. appointed F |