shake your constancy.

nothing.

Nothing, my friends,

"Watch ye, therefore," as the Apostle of the Gentiles exhorts, "stand fast in the faith, do manfully, and be strengthened." Consider, moreover, that the conflict in which you are engaged, will soon be at an end; that a few years at most will bring it to a conclusion; and that then you will have the satisfaction of being able to exclaim with St. Paul, in transports of delight: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me at that day." (2 TIM. c. iv. v. 7, 8.)

SERMON XII.

THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT.

ON THE TRANSFIGURATION.

GOSPEL. St. Matthew, xvii. v. 1-9. At that time Jesus took Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart; and he was transfigured before them, and his face did shine as the sun, and his garments became white as snow; and behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with him. And Peter answering, said to Jesus, Lord it is good for us to be here; if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias; and as he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them; and lo, a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. And the disciples hearing, fell upon their face, and were very much afraid; and Jesus came and touched them, and said to them, Arise, and fear not. And they lifting up their eyes,saw no one, but only Jesus. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead.

How truly grand and magnificent must have been the spectacle displayed to the view of the three chosen Apostles, as it is recorded by St. Matthew in this day's Gospel. Image to yourselves, my friends, the blessed Jesus stationed on the summit of a high mountain, and exhibiting, by the splendour and majesty of his appearance, that wonderful change in the figure of his person, to which the appellation of his transfiguration has for that

reason been given. Conceive him, in this refulgent form, attended at the same time by Moses and Elias, who, as St. Luke relates, appeared also in glory, and who testified by their presence, the validity of his pretensions to the character of Messiah, prefigured and foretold by the law and by the prophets, of which those two distinguished personages may fairly be considered to have been the appointed representatives. Well indeed might St. Peter, on an occasion like this, exclaim emphatically, in an extasy of admiration, " It is good for us to be here." Well might he express a wish to remain in a situation from which he experienced such inconceivable delight. And oh! with what sentiments of reverential awe must they have beheld the bright cloud descending from above majestically upon them, encompassing them around with a luminous shade; and, in the language of the Psalmist," clothing them with light as with a garment." But above all, when from the midst of that resplendent cloud, they heard their divine Master proclaimed with solemnity, the beloved Son of the Most High, and a command to obey his authoritative mandates distinctly issued! Is it surprising that these apostles, hearing and seeing what they heard and saw, should have fallen prostrate to the ground? is it surprising that they should have sunk beneath the weight of feelings, which circumstances of such unparallelled splendour and magnificence were calculated to excite? But what think you must

have been their sentiments, when roused from their stupor by the touch of their divine Master, and lifting up their eyes, they saw no vestige remaining of that splendid scene, on which they had gazed before in such raptures of admiration,—but Jesus alone, in his usual form, presenting himself to their sight? Was it not natural for them to conclude, that what they had beheld, was a scenic representation of that new dispensation which their divine Master had come upon the earth to introduce? Was it not obvious to infer, that as Moses and Elias had both disappeared, and Jesus alone remained, so the law and the prophets, of which Moses and Elias might be considered as the representatives, were to yield their place to the covenant established by that august legislator of the New Testament, whom they were commanded to hear. "Hear ye him." Was it not natural, moreover, for them to be reconciled to the ignominious and cruel treatment, which Jesus had informed them, that both himself and his followers were destined to endure, when the glorious issue of their sufferings and tribulations was depicted to them in such striking colors,. in the splendour which invested both himself and his chosen servants, when he was transfigured before them? Yes, my friends, such it may be presumed, were the impressions made on the minds of these three Apostles; and such appear to have been the designed effects of the transfiguration of our divine Redeemer. It was to reconcile them, it is proba

ble, in the first place, to the temporary sufferings which both Jesus and themselves were doomed to undergo, by the encouraging prospect of that future glory by which they would be succeeded; and to intimate to them, in the next place, that as he who was in reality the end of the law, and the object of the predictions of preceding prophets, had now made his appearance upon the earth, the function of both had ceased, and that Christianity, unmixed with Judaism, was the sole religion which it behoved them to announce, to practice, and to propagate. But as the minds of the Jews were not yet prepared for a full disclosure of this last injunction, he cautioned his three select Apostles not to make known the event which represented it, till after the period of his resurrection from the tomb. "And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead."

The glorious scene of the transfiguration of our Lord, and the effects which it appears to have been intended to produce on the minds of the three Apostles who were permitted to witness it, are applicable to Christians of every age and nation. Yes, my friends, to you it is also given to behold that magnificent spectacle of the transfiguration of the blessed Jesus, which the Apostles contemplated with such rapturous emotions of astonishment and delight, and that too accompanied with circumstances of an incomparably more