ornamental to human nature was represented in its fairest colours: there you may see a fair example of the most ardent love to, and constant dependance upon God, of the most profound humility and perfect resignation to his heavenly will. There you may behold the moderation of human passions and appetites set forth to the life, and fairly delineated in its most exquisite perfections; in a word, there you will find loyalty and submission to superiors, fidelity and justice to equals, courtesy and candour, and condescension to inferiors, universal love, and an unbounded charity to all, practised to the height and exactness; and which way soever you turn your eyes on this fair monument of virtues, you can discover nothing but what is lovely and adorable, and infinitely becoming the only begotten Son of the Father.

Having thus explained and demonstrated the proposition to you, I shall conclude with these four inferences from this fourfold glory of the Word which they saw.

1. They saw the glorious splendour which invested his person at his baptism and transfiguration : from whence I infer his deputation from the most high God and Father of all things, to be his representative and viceroy in the Christian church. For this visible glory with which he was invested was always the peculiar character of the immediate representative of God; and therefore, by way of appropriation, it is called the glory of God, and the glory of the Lord; and wheresoever God, as supreme Monarch and Governor, is represented as residing and taking up his royal habitation, there you always find him displaying himself in this visible glory and splendour. Thus when by the eternal Word he was re

presented among the Jews as their supreme Lord and Governor, he always manifested his majestic presence among them by some bright and shining appearance; the first instance of which was his appearance to Moses from out of the burning bush upon mount Sinai, where he first acted under God the Father as sovereign King of Israel, in commissioning Moses to be their captain and leader out of Egypt; for here it is said, that he appeared in a flame of fire, Exod. iii. 2. that is, in a visible glory that resembled the brightness of a flame of fire. For this mountain he had chosen for the seat and throne of his majestical residence, from whence he intended to give laws to Israel, and to exert his royal dominion over them; and therefore here he appears in that visible glory which was always the character of the divine King and immediate representative of God to that people. And indeed if that be true which Josephus tells us, this mountain was looked upon as the habitation of God long before ever Moses came thither; for therefore, says Josephus, did Moses drive his father Jethro's flock thither to feed, because of all other places it most abounded with pasture, διὰ τὸ δόξαν ἔχειν ἐνδιατρί βειν αὐτῷ τὸν Θεὸν, οὐ κατανεμηθείσης πρότερον, οὐ τολμώντων ἐμβατεύειν εἰς αὐτὸ τῶν ποιμένων; that is, " because it

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was famed that God dwelt there, which was the

reason that the shepherds never durst to drive "their flocks thither, because of the sacredness of "the place." And if this report be true, then it seems this mountain was the seat of the royal residence of the eternal Word before ever Moses came thither; and consequently the glory and brightness in

which Moses saw him appear, was nothing but the display of his majestic presence, which did there make its ordinary abode. But whether that be true or false, it is most plain and apparent, that wheresoever he appeared as the King of Israel, or representative of God to them, he always clothed himself in a visible glory and splendour. Thus he appeared to them in a pillar of fire, that is, in a most bright and luminous form, when he conducted them through the Red sea and the wilderness; and when he came down upon mount Sinai to give the law to them, it is said that the glory in which they beheld him was like devouring fire, Exod. xxiv. 17. that is, it was unspeakably bright and refulgent, even like that of a most intense and vehement fire; and in all this radiant glory did he display himself from between the cherubims when he removed from the mountain, and chose the tabernacle for the seat of his future residence and royal abode. Thus wheresoever he appeared in his kingly majesty, as the public representative of his Father, this visible glory is always made mention of, as that which was the peculiar character of his presence and person. It is true, it is recorded of Moses, that when he came down from the vision upon the mount, his face shone so brightly that the Israelites were not able to approach him; which seems to argue, that this visible glory was not so peculiar to the eternal Word, as his Father's representative, as we would have it, since we plainly see it was common to Moses with him. But this doth no ways destroy our assertion; because it is plain that that glory which covered the face of Moses was all derived from the glory of the eternal Word, with whom for forty days he had conversed in the mount.

For Moses being sent down as an apostle to the Jews, to promulgate those laws to them which he had received upon the mount, the eternal Word, to convince the unbelieving Jews that he had sent him, reflects upon his face some rays of glory from that sphere of light in which he appeared to and conversed with him, that that might be an ocular demonstration to them, that Moses came from him, and was commissioned by him to preach and promulgate his laws to them. So that Moses's glory being derived from the Word, declared him to be his apostle and minister; even as the glory of the Word being derived from the Father, declared him to be his representative and viceroy; so that from its shining upon the face of Moses, it by no means follows that this visible glory is not the peculiar character of God's immediate representative; because that which shone upon his face was only the parhelius or reflection of the visible glory of him who was God's immediate representative. For so the earth also is said to shine with the glory of the God of Israel, Ezek. xliii. 2. and as the glory with which it shone was not the glory of the earth, but the glory of the God of Israel; so neither was that glory upon the face of Moses the glory of Moses, but the glory of that divine person with whom he had conversed, derived to and reflected upon him; and it being still the proper glory of that divine person, may very well be said to be the peculiar character of his being the immediate representative of God, notwithstanding it reflected from him upon Moses; especially considering that this reflected glory upon Moses's face was to be an evidence to the Jews, that he came down to them as an apostle from the eternal Word, with authority to

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publish and declare his laws to them. For if this derivative splendour was an evidence that Moses came down as an apostle from that divine person on the mount, then the original splendour of that divine person whence it was derived and reflected, was at least an equal evidence that he came down upon the mount as the apostle and immediate representative of the most high God himself.

And in the same manner we find that the Word incarnate did give evidence to the commission of his Christian apostles; for upon the day of Pentecost, when they were assembled together, it is said that there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and sat upon every one of them, Acts ii. 3. that is, there were several flashes or beams of glory, which, like bright flames of fire, did cleave asunder in many places, according to the natural motion of flames, of which every part, as it extends itself in length, grows more spire-like, or pyramidal, and so divides from the part next to it; and upon the head of every one of the apostles did one of these divided flames of glory rest in the form of a tongue, which, like a flame, grows sharper and sharper towards the top: for thus the Hebrew idiom, for a flame of fire, uses the tongue of fire, because of the resemblance that is between them, Isa. v. 24. So that as the eternal Word did evidence to the Jews the apostleship of Moses by that visible glory which he reflected on his face, so did the Word incarnate evidence to the Christian church the apostleship of the twelve by this visible glory which he derived upon them. For now, according to John the Baptist's prediction of him, he baptized them with the Holy Ghost and with fire, Luke iii. 16. that is, by the outward sign