who thought He was any other than Christ, and to a full acknowledgment of that great mystery of godliness, that God was here manifested in the flesh: the truth of this faith is the rock on which Christ promises to build His Church'; wherefore, Jesus immediately rejoins, This faith of thine is not built on mere human testimony, but on miracles and doctrines which thou hast heard and seen, which are the testimonies of God Himself, whereby He has testified concerning Me to thee, and to others such as thou. And upon thy faith, which is a rock, I will build My Church, laying the first foundation of it upon this preaching of thine3. By the expression of the Church being founded on St. Peter as a rock, it is not meant that he was the only foundation of it, or that he had supremacy over it; but that he was, in order of time, the first and principal preacher of the Gospel in the true sense of its foundation,faith in Jesus as the Christ of God1; and that that faith was a confidence in the mediatorial offices of Christ, and His Divinity, and in the mystery of the incarnation. Whatever be raised by man upon any other foundation, however it may assume the name of a church, is no part of Christ's building, and has no interest in His glorious promises. The time shall never be 1 Bishop Horsley. 3 Dr. Whitby. 2 Dr. Hammond. 4 Dr. S. Clarke. from henceforth when a true Church, built on these foundations, shall not be found somewhere subsisting upon the earth; but any individual Church, as we have examples in history of many, once illustrious, and watered with the blood of saints and martyrs, may fall from its true profession, and sink into ruin. The promise of God that "the gates of hell shall not prevail" is to the Church Catholic of Christ. SECT. LXIX.-The Transfiguration of Christ.—Matt. xvii. 1-13; Mark ix. 2-13; Luke ix. 28–36. ABOUT a week after this last solemn address to His disciples, He retired to a high mountain, for the purposes of secret devotion. It has been constantly believed that this mountain was Mount Tabor, a high, round, and beautiful eminence, in form like a truncated cone, which stands by itself, in the plain of Esdraelon: it is two or three miles high, and the platform at the top is about half a mile in circumference. If this tradition were true, our Lord must have again moved, in the short interval named, from the town of Cesarea Philippi, in the north, to some miles to the eastward of the sea of Galilee. The legend which assigns Mount Tabor as the scene of that event, which we are now going to consider, of Christ's Transfiguration, has, however, neither probability nor antiquity to recommend it. It is not so mentioned by any Bishop Horsley. Dr. Whitby. of the Evangelists, who have recorded the event, and cannot be traced further back than St. Jerome, in the fifth century. The text says, that our Lord "taketh Peter, James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart," from which it has been sagely inferred, that the word "apart" applied to the situation of the mountain, but it probably refers to the three disciples as having been taken apart from the rest. The original word, so translated in our version, is understood in every other instance in which it is met with in the Evangelical narrative, in the sense of privately, or by themselves '. Mount Tabor could never have been selected by our Lord for the purpose of retirement, as there is every reason to believe, that it was at that time a fortress of considerable importance. It is always spoken of in history as a military post. It was here that Barak encamped with ten thousand men, thirteen hundred years before Christ; and it was still an important post in the time of Vespasian, a few years after Christ, and subsequently. It is more probable that the mountain to which our Lord retired for His transfiguration, was towards the northern boundary of the Holy Land . The three disciples who were distinguished by our Lord's peculiar confidence on this occasion, were the same who appear to have 7 Mant and D'Oyly. s Modern Traveller. generally attended Him on all important occasions. It is unnecessary for us to inquire why Peter, James, and John were so favoured; but we can readily understand that Jesus would desire that the same disciples should be witnesses of a grand exhibition of His glory, as they soon afterwards became of His distressing agony in the garden of Gethsemane. In their presence He offered up His fervent supplications. "As He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light, so as no fuller on earth can white them." And, behold, Moses and Elias"-the one, the deliverer; the other, the restorer of the Jewish Law'; the one, the first prophet of the Jews; and the other, the first prophet of the Gentiles-both appear "in glory," to attend. their Master; and "spoke of His decease, which He should accomplish at Jerusalem;" and, "behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." 66 One great purpose of this singular scene of the Transfiguration, seems to have been to represent the cessation of the Jewish, and the commencement of the Christian dispensation. It appears to have been one very prevailing Dr. Whitby. Dr. Lightfoot. prejudice among the disciples, that the whole Mosaical Law, the ceremonial, as well as the moral, was to continue in full force under the Gospel; and that the authority of Moses and the prophets was not in any respect to give way to the establishment of Christianity, but to be placed on an equal footing with that of Christ. To correct these erroneous opinions, this scene of the Transfiguration was presented to three chosen disciples. Moses and Elias were, undoubtedly, most proper representatives of the Law and the prophets; and when the three disciples saw these illustrious persons conversing familiarly with Jesus, they probably were confirmed in their opiinon that they were of equal authority with Him. But the gracious words, which issued from the cloud, most clearly explained the meaning of what was passing before the eyes of the disciples: "Hear ye Him, My beloved Son." The conclusion, too, of the whole scene, harmonizes with this declaration. Moses and Elias instantly disappear: “And when the disciples lift up their eyes, they see no man, save Jesus only." The former objects of their veneration are no more; Christ remains alone, their unrivalled and undisputed Sovereign 2. The Transfiguration was now ended, and Jesus charged them not to divulge what they |