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fied speaks to him a man, in Tabor, in light and majesty? Elias hid his face before with a mantle, when he passed by him in the rock; now with open face he beholds him present, and in his own glory adores his. Let that impudent Marcion, who ascribes the law and prophets to another God, and devises an hostility betwixt Christ and them, be ashamed to see Moses and Elias, not only in colloquio but in consortio claritatis, "not only in conference, but in a partnership of brightness," as Tertullian speaks, with Christ; whom, if he had misliked, he had his choice of all the quire of heaven; and now choosing them, why were they not in sordibus et tenebris, in rags and darkness? Sic in alienos demonstrat illos, dum secum habet; sic relinquendos docet, quos sibi jungit; sic destruit, quos de radiis suis extruit: "So doth he show them far from strangeness to him, whom he hath with him; so doth he teach them to be forsaken, whom he joins with himself; so doth he destroy those whom he graces with his beams of glory," saith that Father. His act verifies his word, "Think not that I come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfil them." Matt. v. 17. Oh what consolation, what confirmation was this to the disciples, to see such examples of their future glory! Such witnesses and adorers of the eternal deity of their Master! They saw, in Moses and Elias, what they themselves should be. How could they ever fear to be miserable, that saw such precedents of their ensuing glory? How could they fear to die, that saw in others the happiness of their own change? The rich glutton pleads with Abraham, that "If one came to them from the dead, they will amend;" Abraham answers, "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them." Behold, here is both Moses and the prophets, and these two come from the dead: how can we now but be persuaded of the happy state of another world, unless we will make ourselves worse than the damned? See and consider that the saints

of God are not lost, but departed; gone into a far country with their Master, to return again richer and better than they went. Lest we should think this the condition of Elias only, that was rapt into heaven, see here Moses matched with him, that died and was buried. And is this the state of these two saints alone? Shall none be seen with him in the Tabor of heaven, but those which have seen him in Horeb and Carmel? O thou weak Christian, was only one or two limbs of Christ's body glorious in the transfiguration, or the whole? He is the head, we are the members. If Moses and Elias were more excellent parts, tongue or hand, let us be but heels or toes, his body is not perfect in glory without ours. "When

Christ, which is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with them in glory." Coloss. iii. 4. How truly may we say to death, "Rejoice not, mine enemy, though I fall, yet shall I rise;" yea, I shall rise in falling. We shall not all sleep, we shall be "changed," saith St. Paul, to his Thessalonians. Elias was changed, Moses slept, both appeared; to teach us, that neither our sleep nor change can keep us from appearing with him. When, therefore, thou shalt receive the sentence of death on Mount Nebo, or when the fiery chariot shall come and sweep thee from this vale of mortality, remember thy glorious re-apparition with thy Saviour, and thou canst not but be comforted, and cheerfully triumph over that last enemy, outfacing those terrors with the assurance of a blessed resurrection to glory. To the which, &c.

CONTEMPLATION XIII.

The Second Part of the Meditations upon the Transfiguration of Christ. In a Sermon preached at Whitehall, before King James.

Ir falls not with this discourse as with Mount Tabor itself, that it is more easily climbed with the eye than

with the foot. If we may not rather say of it, as Josephus did of Sinai, that it doth not only ascensus hominum, but aspectus fatigare, "weary not only the steps, but the very sight of men." We had thought not to spend many breaths in the skirts of the hill, the circumstances: and, it hath cost us one hour's journey already; and we were glad to rest us ere we can have left them below us. One pause more, I hope, will overcome them, and set us on the top. No circumstance remains undiscussed but this one, what Moses and Elias did with Christ in their apparition. For they were not as some sleepy attendants, (like the three disciples in the beginning,) to be there and see nothing; nor as some silent spectators, mute witnesses, to see and say nothing: but, as if their glory had no whit changed their profession, they are prophets still, and "foretold his departure," as St. Luke tells us. Foretold, not to him, which knew it before, yea which told it them; they could not have known it but for him; he was ó óyos, "the Word" of his Father; they told but that which he before had told his disciples, and now these heavenly witnesses tell it over again, for confirmation. Like as John Baptist knew Christ before; he was vox clamantis, "the voice of a cryer," the other Verbum Patris, "the Word of his Father;" there is great affinity betwixt vox and Verbum yea, this voice had uttered itself clearly, Ecce Agnus Dei, "Behold the Lamb of God:" yet he sends his disciples with an "Art thou he?" that he might confirm to them by him, that which he both knew and had said of him. So our Saviour follows his forerunner in this, that what he knew and had told his disciples, the other Elias, the typical John Baptist, and Moses, must make good to their belief.

This odos, departure of Christ, was okλngÒS λóyos, a word both hard and harsh; hard to believe, and harsh in believing. The disciples thought of nothing but a kingdom; a kingdom restored magnificently, interminably: and two of these three wit

VOL. III.

nesses had so swallowed this hope, that they had put in for place in the state, to be his chief peers. How could they think of a parting? The throne of David did so fill their eyes, that they could not see his cross; and if they must let down this pill, how bitter must it needs be! His presence was their joy and life; it was their death to think of his loss. Now, therefore, that they might see that his sufferings and death were not of any sudden impotence, but predetermined in heaven, and revealed to the saints, two of the most noted saints in heaven shall second the news of his departure, and that in the midst of his transfiguration that they could not choose but think, He that can be thus happy, needs not be miserable; that passion which he will undergo, is not out of weakness, but out of love. It is wittily noted by that sweet Chrysostom, that Christ never lightly spake of his passion, but immediately before and after he did some great miracle. And here, answerably, in the midst of his miraculous transfiguration, the two saints speak of his passion. A strange opportunity! in his highest exaltation to speak of his sufferings; to talk of Calvary in Tabor; when his head shone with glory, to tell him how it must bleed with thorns; when his face shone like the sun, to tell him it must be blubbered and spat upon; when his garments glistered with that celestial brightness, to tell him they must be stripped and divided; when he was adored by the saints of heaven, to tell him how he must be scorned by the basest of men ; when he was seen between two saints, to tell him how he must be seen between two malefactors: in a word, in the midst of his divine majesty, to tell him of his shame; and, while he was transfigured in the mount, to tell him how he must be disfigured upon the cross. Yet these two heavenly prophets found this the fittest time for this discourse: rather choosing to speak of his sufferings in the height of his glory, than of his glory after his sufferings. It is most seasonable in our best to think

of our worst estate; for both that thought will be best digested when we are well, and that change will be best prepared for when we are the farthest from it. You would perhaps think it unseasonable for me, in the midst of all your court-jollity, to tell you of the days of mourning, and, with that great king, to serve in a death's head amongst your royal dishes, to show your coffins in the midst of your triumphs: yet these precedents, above exception, show me, that no time is so fit as this. Let me therefore say to you with the Psalmist, "I have said ye are gods:" if ye were transfigured in Tabor, could ye be more? "but ye shall die like men:" there is your todos. It was a worthy and witty note of Jerome, that amongst all trees the cedars are bidden to praise God, which are the tallest and yet dies Domini super omnes cedros Libani, Isaiah ii. 12, 13. Ye gallants, whom a little yellow earth, and the webs of that curious worm, have made gorgeous without, and perhaps proud within, remember that, ere long, as one worm decks. you without, so another worm shall consume you within, and that both the earth that you prank up, and that earth wherewith you prank it, is running back into dust. Let not your high estate hide from you your fatal humiliation, let not your purples hide from you your winding sheet, but even on the top of Tabor think of the depth of the grave: think of your departure from men, while ye are advanced above men.

We are now ascended to the top of the hill; let us therefore stand, and see, and wonder at this great sight: as Moses, to see the "bush flaming and not consumed;" so we, to see the humanity continuing itself in the midst of these beams of glory. Christ was Ev μoppy doúλov, saith St. Paul, "in the form of a servant;" now for the time he was truly,uerauoopwleìs, "transformed:" that there is no cause why Maldonat should so inveigh against some of ours, yea, of his own, as Jansenius, who translates it transformation: for what is the external form but the figure? and their

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