ii. & iii. in a

subsequent

See on Acts, same promise respecting the Prophet, whom parent they were to hear, as the founder of a new work. mode of worship. This vision was granted

beforehand, in order to give the apostles correct views of the kingdom, and to fit them for preaching it, which involved the necessity of their having right conceptions of the Prophet whom God had promised; and I think it probable that the words from "the excellent Glory" referred specially to this. "Him shall ye hear," says Moses ; "Hear ye him," says God; that is, as "raised up," or in the resurrection-glory. Both these points are advanced by St. Peter in Acts, ii. and his first and second addresses to the Jews; for the right time of urging them was after the resurrection.

iii.

I have gone through the whole of the passage, because I think the most satisfactory manner of shewing that the interpretation is sound, is to exhibit a consistency of view, and to point out the mutual dependence of the parts; which in this passage is not very evident, but which I hope I have in some manner effected.

after the

One important use which I intend to Apostles draw from this passage, is to maintain that vision after this vision the apostles knew the nature christ's of Messiah's kingdom.

knew the nature of

kingdom.

tical.

sec. 2.

Bishop Hall observes, that the disciples Christ mys66 were at a fault for the manner of Christ's Ch. vii. kingdom," when they put the question to our Lord in Acts, i. 6. This has often been Acts, i. 6. repeated; but it appears to me a mere assumption, for which there is no warrant in the text, and, I believe, was adopted solely with the intention of getting rid of a doctrine which would otherwise be necessarily implied. This surely is a dangerous principle of interpretation, and is, if I mistake not, precisely the manner in which some Socinians interpret the expression of Thomas, in order to get rid of the doctrine John, xx. of Messiah's Deity: but, of the two, I think this interpretation of Acts is more unreasonable; for it is not only, like the other, in defiance of our Lord's tacit approval, but also of what Peter afterwards writes. In his second epistle he addresses those who had "obtained like precious faith" with him in the 2 Pet. i. 1.

28.

righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus
Christ; they therefore were members of
Christ's kingdom of grace, as it is called.
These he exhorts to the exercise of various

Ver. 11. graces; "for so," says he "an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." He then backs his urgent exhortations by enforcing the reality of these things, in the following words: "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus. Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty❞—that is, of the kingly glory of Christ. And when was this? It was when they were "with him in the holy mount." The transfiguration, therefore, was a "vision" or representation of the "majesty," or kingly glory, that Jesus Christ will display when he shall come again with power.

But how did Peter learn this? Did he learn it by the revelation of the Holy Ghost, after the day of Pentecost? No, but he learned it by being an eye-witness; and the

force of the exhortation turns upon the certainty of the knowledge which he had so acquired, that it was not a cunningly devised fable, because he was an eye-witness. Hence it follows, that from the time that he was an eye-witness of this majesty, he had such correct ideas respecting the power and coming of Jesus, as that, from his own knowledge at that time, and by those means acquired, he was able to impart to others the knowledge respecting the nature of Messiah's kingdom.

90

CHAPTER VI.

THE PLACE OF MESSIAH'S THRONE.

"And he shall come again with glory. . . . whose kingdom shall have no end."

This earth THE last head must have shewn my wish to

the place of Messiah's

reign.

Eph. i.

God the

Father purposed the creation.

prove, that this earth will be the place of Messiah's reign. This is a very large subject; for if the gathering together of all things in Christ be the end of all God's dispensations and dealings, we may suppose that there were intimations from the beginning of the place of Christ's manifested glory. Hence I purpose, before giving the more plain and explicit declarations, to trace whether there be not glimpses of this kingdom from the very first.

Gen. i. 26. image.

We read in the beginning of Genesis, that "Elohim said, Let us make Adam in our So Elohim created Adam in his image in the image of Elohim created he him." It appears evident, from the