that that prediction relates to the transfiguration, where they faw him invested with fuch honour, glory, and majefty," as was a glimpse of that future honour, glory, and majefty, with which he is to come to judgement, feems very plain; because all the evangelifts, who give the account of that transfiguration, introduce it with that prediction f. And I am apt to think it most probable that this transfiguration is what our Saviour means by his coming." It is indeed a difficult place; but what feems to me to bid fairest to the meaning of it is this: "If they will not in one city receive you into their houfes and give you what they have, but treat you, your doctrine and your meffage with reproach and contempt, fo as to force you to shake off the dust of your feet for a teftimony against them, flee to another; for at present you are nothing but heralds to go and bid men repent, "because the kingdom of Heaven is at hand," but are not as yet inftructed fufficiently to explain to men particularly what that kingdom is. I will indeed furnish you with a mouth and wifdom which your ad verfaries thall not be able to refift; but not yet: and fince at prefent there is no occafion for you to stay long in any city, especially f Matth. xvi. 28. and xvii. 1. Mark ix. 1. Luke ix. 27, 28. Matth. x. 23. A Ver. 14. with those that treat you ill, but go to ano ther; fo there are feveral cities of Ifrael for you to go through; and I fhall want you with me as foon as you can well return, in order to be my companions and witneffes; for which purpose I have chofen you, as well as to preach and particularly I fhall want fome of you to be prefent at my transfiguration; for you will fee the Son of man come by that time you can execute the commiffion I now give you, make what difpatch you can." But, whatever the meaning of this difficult text may be, it is plain, that the occafion, defign, and circumftances of this transfiguration, and the difcourfe of our Saviour that immediately precedes this prediction, lead us to this as the fense of these words. For the occafion, defign, and circumstances of the transfiguration feem to be thefe: On our Saviour's afking the disciples or apostles, whom men faid that he was, and whom they thought him to be? and on their at that time first owning him explicitly and in terms to be the Chrift, or the anointed King of God; and on our Lord's giving Peter, when he made that noble confeffion, the keys of the kingdom of heaven; left hence they should entertain expectations of his being to be a temporal Prince, and their being to be the 1 Mark iii. 14. Matth. xvi. 13-21. chief ministers of a temporal kingdom; he from that time first began to tell them, that he must fuffer, die, and rife again!. Peter, thinking this entirely inconfiftent with his being the King of the kingdom of heaven, or with making them the chief minifters of it, firft reproves his Mafter, and is then moft fharply rebuked by him "; and he with the reft of the difciples are told, that self-denial and the crofs are the ways that must lead them to his kingdom. But, to support them under a doctrine fo difagreeable to flesh and blood, he acquaints them, that self-denial and the cross, on the one hand, or undue eafe and gratification of themselves, on the other, would be fuitably rewarded by him at the laft, when he should come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of his holy angels "; to render to every man according to his works. However, as the final judgement being at a great diftance might not be fufficient to preferve their weak faith from falling; and to prevent their being offended, and leaving him, on their first hearing that he was to fuffer and die, as other difciples of his had done on lefs occafions; and as our Saviour was to keep those men whom God had given him unto the end, to the intent that they might be Matth xvi. 21. m Ver. 22, 23. the the chief ministers of his kingdom, fo foon as he should take poffeffion of it at his afcenfion, on which the very kingdom itself was to depend; our Saviour thinks fit to add immediately, that "there were fome standing "there that fhould not taste of death till "they fhould fee the Son of man coming in "his kingdom "," or a reprefentation of the glory which he should come to; and accor dingly, a few days after, he is transfigured before them, and receives an attestation from the Father out of the most excellent glory, that (notwithstanding he was to die, yet) he was his well-beloved Son; and that though hitherto they had heard or obeyed Mofes and Elias, or the law and the prophets, and that inftead of the temporal promises they had given them; yet for the future they fhould only hear him. But then again, left what they faw and heard in the holy mount should, inftead of fupporting them under the view of their Mafter's fuffering and their own, make them forget both; Jefus immediately again repeats it, that he muft fuffer and die, ver. 9, 12. and again more strongly and particularly, ver. 22. which we learn from St. Luke was the next day. Now what does all this, which plainly appears to be the occafion and defign and the circumstances of this transfiguration, teach us, but that it was a faint representation of the glory in which he is to come when he is to appear as a King; and that therefore it was that he faid, that fome there should not taste of death till they faw his kingdom come with power? For, by the account I have given of this transfiguration, I think, it will evidently appear, that the hiftory St. Matthew gives of our Saviour, from the 8th verfe of the xvith chap. to the 24th verse of the xviith chap. is clofely connected, and is nothing but a relation of the fteady pursuit of one defign in our Saviour; namely, to take the apostles off from the expectations of a temporal kingdom, acquainting them then first that he was to fuffer and die; but at the fame time breaking this to them fo as to prevent their taking offence at his cross and then repeating that again, left the method he had taken to fupport them, under the expectation of his and their fuffering, fhould be the means of their forgetting them, and of raising again thofe hopes of a temporal kingdom he was endeavouring to allay. And does not likewife the manner of St. Peter's expreffion naturally lead us to this interpretation; when he fays, "For we have "not followed cunningly devised fables, "when we made known unto you the power VOL. I. "and e |