A. M. 4035, it cannot be denied but that they were justly punished for breaking their own laws &c. or 5440. and constitutions, which forbad them to keep any; nor can our Saviour's right of Ann. Dom. 31, &c. inflicting the punishment be called in question, because it was a received maxim Vulg. Er. 29. among the Jews, that any person invested with the character of a prophet, and acting by the Spirit of God, might, without the assistance of a magistrate, put the laws in execution against offenders *: and therefore, we who acknowledge our Jesus to have been more than a prophet, can never be at a loss to account for his exercising an authority among the Jews, which (according to their own confession) was allowable in the lowest of that order. But if the heathens of Gadara were the owners of these swine, our Saviour might be induced to permit the devils to enter into them, not only to teach them the sacredness of the Jewish laws, which they, on account of the prohibition of swines flesh, may be supposed to have ridiculed; but to cure them likewise of their idolatrous worship of demons, and to engage them to embrace the Christian faith. For when they saw our Lord's power over such a multitude of devils, exhibited in their possession of such a number of swine, (had they made a right application of the miracle) they could not but perceive the truth and Divinity of his doctrine, and the madness of their worshipping such impure spirits, as were both cast out of the men at his command, and could not enter into the swine without his permission. They could not but perceive, I say, that our Saviour was a prophet sent from heaven; that what he did was by a commission sent from God; and consequently, that he could not be guilty of any injustice in the destruction of the swine, which, upon this supposition, was not his act, but the act of Providence. He indeed, as a man, had no right to destroy the people's swine, but God, who is the Supreme Proprietor of the whole earth, most certainly had; and shall we then complain of him for such a punishment as this, when every day we see more surprising instances before our eyes? When we see him laying whole nations waste with pestilence, with famine, and with earthquakes, shall we confess his sovereign Authority in these cases, and yet upon the loss of two thousand swine, cry out, and say, "why hast thou done this?" The heathens themselves (upon the supposition of a Providence) will acknowledge this to be unreasonable; nor can our Saviour (as acting by a Divine commission) ever be justly blamed, because he once or twice did the same thing which God does every day. But after all, whether the proprietors were Jews or Gentiles, (a) the words in the text do not imply that our Saviour was either principal or accessory to the destruction of the swine. St Mark indeed tell us, that he gave the devils leave; and St Luke, that he suffered them to enter into the swine: but by this is meant no more than that he did not prevent them; that he did not interpose his Divine Power in order to hinder them from entering. But if this made our Saviour a sharer in the destruction of the swine, by parity of reason, it will make God (because he permits it) answerable for all the evil that is done under the sun. Thus, whether we suppose the Jews or heathens owners of the herd of swine, our Saviour's permitting the devils to enter into them made him not accessory to their destruction; or if it be said that he did it with a punitive intent, it was either to make the Jews suffer for the breach of their law, or the heathens for their obstinate idolatry; which his character of a prophet, and the testimony of his being the Son of the Most High, without all controversy authorised him to do. To know the true end and design of our Saviour's transfiguration, it may not be improper to look back a little into the context, where we find, that after Peter's confessing him to be (b)" the Christ, the Son of the living God, from that time began he to shew * [The maxim was perfectly just and free from that wild fanaticism, which has been the source of similar maxims among some Christians. The Jewish constitution was indisputably a theocracy, and therefore every prophet really inspired was an extraordinary minister, sent occasionally by the sovereign to direct (a) Dr Pearce's Vindication, part i. p. 28. 23. Luke vi. 1. unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the From Matth. elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." xii 1. Mark ii. Nor was this all, for he foretold them that they likewise were to suffer many grie- John v. 1. to vous persecutions for his name's sake, and therefore he recommended to them the un- Matth. xvii. 14. pleasant doctrines of (a)" self-denial, and taking up the cross and following him," with Luke ix. 37. this great (though distant) encouragement, that (b)" when the Son of Man should come John vii. 1. in the glory of his Father, with his angels, he should then reward every one according to his works." 66 These predictions, doctrines, and promises, were so contrary to the expectation of his disciples, who hoped in him to have a temporal prince and deliverer, a restorer of the decayed state of Israel, and promoter of themselves to great honours and employments, that our Saviour thought proper, (not many days after) in order to revive their faith and trust in him, and (c) to fortify their minds against what was likely to ensue, to take as many with him into the Mount as made up a legal evidence, and there to give them an ocular conviction of what he had promised, in recompence of what they were to suffer, by assuming for a while the lustre and appearance of a glorified body; which so raised their drooping hearts, that we find St Peter immediately declaring, (d) "Lord, it is good for us to be here; and if thou wilt let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias." For the design of these words is, not only to secure his Master by staying in that retreat, from the sufferings and death which would be the consequence of his going up to Jerusalem, (as St Chrysostom and others understand it), but to express likewise the pleasure and satisfaction he took in this transfiguration and glorified company; and how he resumed fresh spirits and comforts from a miracle, which was emblematical of the glorious state, not of Christ only, but of all good Christians after their resurrection. The only instance we have in Scripture of any transfiguration like unto this, is in the case of Moses, (e) after he had been forty days and forty nights with God on Mount Sinai; for upon his descent, we are told, "that the skin of his face so shone, that the children of Israel were afraid to come nigh him, and therefore he put a veil on his face while he talked with them." That our Blessed Lord, in the act of his transfiguration, might probably have respect to this preceding one of Moses, and, both in the nature of the change, and the place where it was wrought, design some conformity thereunto, ist what we are at liberty to suppose; and consequently can account why the scene of this transaction was in a mountain rather than a valley: And why the three apostles, Peter, James, and John, and not the whole multitude, were allowed to be spectators of it, we have several reasons to allege. For besides that this was a vouchsafement fit only to be communicated to such as were of his more immediate confidence, and stood in the highest degree of his esteem; to such as, for their zeal and affection to him, were honoured and distinguished (ƒ) with a peculiar title, and, after his resurrection, appointed by Providence to be the great pillars of his church; and besides, that it would have looked like vanity and ostentation in him to have taken the multitude into the Mount, and there made a public sight of his miracles, which was the thing he always carefully declined: Besides this, I say, (a) Matth. xvi. 24, &c. (b) Ibid. ver. 27. (c) Younge's Sermons, vol. ii. p. 360. This is the proper meaning of the word μεταμορ Qwen. For mogon, both in the Old and New Testa ment, doth not signify the essence or constituent properties of a man, but only his external shape or appearance: as when it is said of Belshazzar (Daniel v. 10.) and of Daniel (chap. vii 28.) that nog¶n na ," their forms were changed;" of Nebuchad Mark ix. 14. A. M. 4035, there seems to be something in the transfiguration itself, which might have been of danAnn. Dom. gerous consequence for the multitude to have been admitted to. &c. or 5440. St Peter, who himself was one of those who were with him on the Holy Mount, gives us this account of it. (a)" We have not followed cunningly devised fables, says he, when we made known unto you the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty; for he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Now, (b) by his majesty in this place, most properly is to be understood that lustre and radiancy wherein he appeared, when his "face shone as the sun, and his garments (pierced through with the beams that were darted from his body) became as white as light (c) :" For to shine as the sun, is a phrase expressing something belonging to celestial majesty; and white and splendid garments are proper for kings, and (d) royal ministers of the heavenly court. And, in like manner, by the excellent glory, from whence the voice proceeded, can be meant nothing but the bright and shining cloud that then appeared, which the Jews call the Shechinah, and is made up (as most imagine) of an host of angels, the constant symbol of the Divine presence. And how great and magnificent this symbol is, we may in some measure learn from the vision of the prophet Daniel (e): "The ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was like the fiery flames, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued, and came forth from before him; thousands of thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him." Supposing then that this was the manner of our Saviour's transfiguration; that not only in his own person he was arrayed with all this glory and lustre, but had likewise an angelic host surrounding him, two of the greatest prophets of ancient ages attending him, and a voice from heaven, declaring him to be the well-beloved Son of God: While the multitude stood by, and saw and heard all this, it would have been almost unavoidable, but that, upon such conviction of his being the Messiah, (ƒ)" they would have taken him by force, and made him a king." But since (as our Saviour tells us) his (g) "kingdom was not of this world," nor to come with the pomp and observation which the Jews expected; and since one of his great concerns was, that no disturbance of the civil government should be occasioned by him, or laid to his charge, he wisely made choice of three only (but these the principal of his apostles), to whom he exhibited a specimen of his future glory; which had he done to the multitude, it might probably have occassioned a general insurrection; and as he came down from the Mount, he charged them, "that they should tell the vision to no man till after his resurrection." From the word "paux, which we render vision, some have supposed, that Moses and Elias were not there in their proper persons, but that the apostles, in their fancy and imagination, had only a strong idea or impression of them; or, at most, that their spectres, or some shadowy resemblances of them, only were there. Since the evangelists, however, speak of them in a personal character and capacity; since they represent them as talking with Christ, and speaking of his decease which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem; since they tell us, that when they were come out of the ecstasy into which this vision had cast them, they saw two men standing with him;-it is much more probable to think, that Moses and Elias were really there, and that God had, somewhere or other, from the time of their departure out of this world, preserved both their bodies to this end. The Scriptures, indeed, are express as to Elias, that he was translated into heaven by the ministry of angels, resembling (h) a chariot of fire, and horses of fire; and it is a pretty general opinion, (i) both among Jewish and Christian au(a) 2 Pet. 16, &c. (b) See Whitby, on 2 Pet. i. 16. (c) Matth. xii. 43. (f) John vi. 15. (g) Ibid. xvii. 36. (2) Vid. Dissert. de Calmet sur la Mort et la Sepulture de Moyse, vol. iii. (e) Dan. vii. 9, 10. (d) Rev. iii. 4 (h) 2 Kings ii. 11, xii. 1. Mark ii. 23. Luke vi. 1. Mark ix. 14. thors, taken (as is supposed) from some Apocryphal book, that Moses did not die, but From Matth. was translated into heaven, or some terrestrial paradise, in the same manner as were Enoch and Elias. There is a passage in St Jude, where (a Michael the archangel is John v. 1 to said to contend with the devil, and dispute about the body of Moses, which (if taken in Matth. xvii. 14. a literal sense) will greatly favour this opinion; for if we can but suppose that (b) the Luke ix. 37. contest between this good and evil angel, concerning Moses's body, related, not to its bu-John vii. 1. rial (as some will have it), but its assumption into heaven, or some other place of happiness, which the devil might oppose, and urge the obligation of his dying the common death of all men, for this reason more especially, because he had once taken away the life of an Egyptian: If we can but suppose, I say, that the contest arose upon this subject, then may we easily conceive, both how Moses might subsist in a separate state from the time of his assumption; and how he, together with Elias, might be dispatched from thence, upon this occasion, to set off the lustre of our Lord's transfiguration, by their appearing at the same time in their resplendent robes of glory. And indeed if this was the purpose of their errand, what subject can we suppose so proper, and so well becoming the conversation of three such illustrious persons, as the redemption of mankind by the death and passion of the Son of God? What these two ancient prophets had in their times imperfectly revealed; nay, what the angels of heaven desire, at all times, to look into, viz. the harmony of the Divine attributes in this stupendous work, (c)" the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, and (d) the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge; (e) Mysteries which have been hid from ages and from generations, but are now made manifest to the saints." These were the sublime subjects (for these are implied in (ƒ) "their speaking of Christ's decease") of their conversation at this interview; and, in comparison of these, how jejune and worthless are all the wise sayings of philosophers, or compositions of human wit? With good reason, therefore, might the great apostle of the Gentiles, (who himself was no mean proficient in what the world falsely calls knowledge), instead of " the (g) excellence of speech and wisdom, determine to know nothing among his Corinthians but Jesus Christ, and him crucified:" For (h) "we preach Christ crucified, (says he) unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God; for (i) of God he is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." The Scriptures, upon all occasions, acquaint us, that the Baptist, through the whole course of his ministry, had borne constant and ample testimony to our Saviour's Divine mission; that he exhorted those who came to him to rest their faith, not on himself, but on "him that should come after him ;" and that, as soon as he was acquainted who he was, by a visible descent of the Holy Ghost and a voice from heaven, he made it his business to dispose the Jews in general, and his own disciples in particular, to receive and reverence him, by testifying every where that he was the "Son of God, the Lamb of God, who came from above, and spake the words of God, and to whom God had not given the Spirit by measure." And yet, after all this, (k) some are of opinion, that the Baptist might have the same conception of Christ's temporal kingdom that the rest of the Jewish nation had and that his long and irksome imprisonment might, by this time, have tempted him to doubt, whether he, who by birth was his relation, and from whose assistance, very probably, he expected a deliverance, was in reality the Messias. It seems however not a little injurious to the character of the Baptist to suppose, (a) Jude, ver. 9. (e) Col. i. 26. (i) Ibid. ver. 30. Epistles and Gospels, vol i. VOL. III. (b) Vid. Whitby, in locum. (c) Rom. xi. 33. U (d) Eph. iii. 18, 19. &c. or 5440. 31, &c. Vulg. Er. 29. A. M. 4035, either his constancy so shaken, or his behaviour so inconsistent with itself, as, after such Ann. Dom. open and solemn a declaration, to admit of any doubt whether our "Lord were he that should come," i. e. the long promised and universally expected Messiah. And therefore the safest way is, to conclude that he did not send this message with a design to satisfy any scruples of his own, but purely for the sake and conviction of his disciples who brought it; to set them right in their notions, and confirm them in the belief of Jesus, and so turn them over to their proper and better Master, now that himself was upon the point of leaving the world. And this was the rather necessary, because their immoderate zeal and partial respect for the Baptist had hitherto made them averse to Jesus, and envious at his honour and miracles. What John had discoursed to them formerly upon this subject had made but little impression upon them; and therefore, in compassion to their infirmities, he condescended to have their scruples propounded in his own name: And our Saviour's method of resolving them (which was by shewing them that the miracles which he wrought were the same in kind that the Messiah was to do) gave so great satisfaction, that when their former master was gone, they repaired to him with the melancholy news of his death, and (according to the received tradition) for ever after became his constant disciples. (a) The frequent use of parables and emblems in the discourses and writings of the oriental sages, and especially of the Jewish doctors, is so very well known, that a man must discover his ignorance who pretends to assert, that our Blessed Saviour attempted any innovation when he first began to instruct the people in a parabolical way; since several of his discourses of this kind, particularly that (b) of the rich glutton, and (c) of the foolish virgins, (d) are acknowledged to be borrowed from the writings of their Rabbins. + There are three other opinions which have their *The Jews, above all nations, delighted in this way of reasoning. Their books at this day are full of such parables as our Saviour used, and are generally introduced in a form of speech not unlike his; "where unto shall I liken such or such a thing? nay, in the Talmudical Treatises, such as the Treatise Killaim, there is a dispute of sowing upon the rocks and stones, and of mixing wheat and tares together; and in Peah, (a tract in the Jerusalem Talmud) there is mention made of a tree of mustard-seed, which one might climb up into, like other trees. So that our Saviour was by no means to blame, but rather highly to be commended, for pursuing this parabolical way of teaching morality, which was the most celebrated method among the Jews. For his farther vindication, however, some have observed, that what our Saviour delivered in this manner, did not contain the fundamental precepts and doctrines of the Gospel (for these were taught with sufficient clearness in the vth, vith, and viith chapters of St Matthew), but only the mysteries relating to the progress of the Gospel, and the event of it among Jews and Gentiles; and the Jews themselves acknowledge, that the predictions of this nature were usually taught in allegorical and emblematical expressions, being not so necessary to be known as were the fundamental rules of faith and manners. Lightfoot's Harmony of the New Testament, page 30, Nichols's Conference, part iii. page 413, and Whitby's Annotations on Matth. xiii. 10. (b) Luke xvi. 19. (c) Matthew xxv. 1. (d) Sheringham, Præf. |