ness, pause, stop a little-think that you hear a voice from Heaven, saying, hear Jesus Christ: hear him bidding you to do no sin, to yield to no temptation, to walk as he walked, holy, harmless, and undefiled. And remember, my friends, that if you hear and attend to this voice from Heaven, while you live: you will hear it again, when you rise from your graves: you will hear it again, and hear it saying, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

And now to God, &c.

LECTURE XXXVIII.

ST. MATTHEW xvii. 22, 23.

And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said to them, the Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry.

AFTER our blessed Lord had been transfigured, that is, had had his bodily appearance entirely changed, so that his face became as bright as the sun, and his clothing as white and glistening as the light: after Moses and Elias, men who had been dead many hundred of years, were seen talking with him, in their bodies of glory: and after the whole had ended, our Sa

viour had returned to his usual looks, and Moses and Elias had left him and gone back to Heaven: after all this had passed, of which I gave you a full account in my last Lecture, Jesus came down, we read in the Bible, together with his disciples from the mountain. As they were all going along, he charged the disciples to tell what had happened to no man, till he, their blessed Saviour, was risen from the dead. And our Lord did not wish the Jews to know all this about him, till his resurrection took place. He saw clearly, that, notwithstanding all that he could do, they would not believe in him, and he knew that the more and the stronger the proofs were, that he gave of his being the Son of God, the heavier punishment would fall on those sinners, who still would refuse to take him as their Lord. He seems to have appeared in this glorious shape to the disciples, for their sakes chiefly, and also for the sake of those who should hereafter believe on him through their preach

:

ing. The Jews were a hardened, obstinate people. He knew that, and he left them to their deserved sufferings. And they have suffered enough for spurning and refusing the Holy Jesus. May we learn a good lesson from their example! May we learn how terrible and bitter a thing it is, not to believe in the Lord Jesus! God can send dreadful things on a people, who do so badly he can afflict them in such a manner, as to make them say, in the morning, would to God it were evening: and in the evening, would to God it were morning. Our souls sink within us: the weight of our sins press upon us: our consciences are a burden too heavy for us to bear. Let not this be the case with you, my friends: believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved; but remember, that you cannot believe as you ought, unless you do as he orders. It is in vain to call on him, and say, Lord, Lord, unless you do the things which he says. Make no long

8

tarrying therefore, but haste, and take him, him, the blessed Jesus, for your Lord and master.

The disciples told Jesus, as he was coming down from the mountain, that they had heard Elias was to come upon the earth again, at the time when the Saviour should appear. Our Lord told them, that that was the case, but that the Elias who was to come, was John the Baptist: that he had come already, and that wicked men had already done to him, as they listed. You know that John came before our Sa viour, calling on the people to repent, and to believe in Him, who was coming. You have already heard, that a wicked tyrant, named Herod, had put John to death, because he reproved this tyrant for his sins. And so, said our Saviour, would he himself suffer from that wicked generation. Our Lord knew all that should befall him, and by degrees,' prepared his disciples for it all. And all; indeed, who will