those who are no friends to the gospel, that it would have been better contrived, and more successful, if, besides these three disciples, numbers of the Jewish nation at large, believers and others, had been spectators of so glorious a scene, and heard the voice from heaven declaring the divine testimony to the blessed Jesus,

To this it is easy to reply, that those men who would give no credit to our Lord for a miracle so clearly proved to them, as his healing and giving sight (John ix.) to the man that was blind from his birth, would much more easily have satisfied themselves, and triumphed in setting aside a voice from heaven, and construing it into mere delusion.

Moreover, it is not the method of the divine dealing with men, to astonish and overpower their senses all at once with irresistible evidence of a divine authority, and compel them as it were to submit to it.

To produce an effectual persuasion in the mind, and a sincere attachment to truth, there must be a gradual process and preparation. Men must be left in some measure to themselves, to the exertion of their own powers, to honest inquiry, and cool reasoning; by which

means

means a lasting conviction will be generated, and good principles formed and established.

Such private miracles as this divine appearance were wrought for particular purposes, and are not proposed, or to be produced, as being themselves proofs of Christ's divine authority, but derive their credibility from such miracles as were public and evident.

After Christ was risen from the dead, and thereby (as the apostle speaks, Rom. i. 4.) declared or demonstrated to be the Son of God, the Messiah, with power, by such a wonderful act of divine power; this would give weight and confirmation to all the other miraculous accounts of him that were well authenticated.

And

Therefore the three apostles were ordered to keep the vision secret till that time. then also there would be no danger of worldlyminded men abusing such a discovery of the high dignity of the Lord Jesus, and his favour with God, to serve their present ambitious purposes.

His sufferings and death fully evinced that his kingdom was not of this world, and that the salvation and deliverance he was to bring to mankind were of a moral and spiritual nax 2

ture;

ture; a deliverance from the chains of ignorance and vice, and recovering them to the liberty of the children of God; to assist them by the most efficacious motives to become habitually and unalterably determined to virtue and holiness, and fitted for the immortal happiness designed for them.

II.

It may be presumed, that this common persuasion of the Jewish nation concerning Elias or Elijah coming from heaven to prepare things for the reception of the Messiah, was grounded on what the Almighty speaks in Malachi iv. 5; "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”

But their expectation thence of Elijah himself coming in person, was owing to their not attending to the peculiar style of their prophets; whose manner sometimes was to speak of those who were destined by Almighty God in future times to fulfil great purposes in his moral government, and to describe them under the name of famous persons who had in former timės been remarkable in their history, whom they had some relation to or resembled.

Thus

Thus in Ezekiel xxxiv., where the governors of the Jewish nation, in a strain of very beautiful imagery, are characterized as shepherds intrusted with their people by Almighty God, as a flock of sheep over which they were to be watchful, and not to draw them into wrong ways, but to lead them to that which is good, -after reproving them in this emblematic language for their carelessness of the public good, and neglect of those who were put under their care, the Almighty Being thus introduces the mention of a more faithful shepherd, i. c. of Christ, and of his different and better character, by the name of David their former king: ver. 23, &c. “I will save my flock, and they shall be no more a prey. And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them: I the LORD have spoken it."

The same title and name of David, the prophets Jeremiah, xxx. 9, and Hosea, iii. 5, give to Christ, long after David was in his grave, probably because the promises made to David were to be fulfilled in him.

And so in the instance before us, the prophet

Malachi

Malachi speaks of John the Baptist under the name of Elias or Elijah, because he was to be a second Elias, as it were, in austerity of manners, in deep piety, and zeal for God, to be like him.

That so Malachi was to be understood, and not Elias himself to appear

in

person,

but one

resembling him, is confirmed by the words of the angel to Zachariah, the father of John, Luke i. 17; "He shall go before him," says he, i. e. before Christ, "in the spirit and power of Elias, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."

And this is what our Lord signifies here to his disciples, as the evangelist informs us, in the answer which he gives to their question concerning the popular belief, that Elias was to make his appearance on earth a second time:-"Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias shall truly first come and restore all things but I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise also shall the Son of Man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist."

The Jews vainly expected their monarchy

to