upon us the just vengeance of an offended God. "Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”

Another reflection arising from this short history of Herod and John the Baptist is this; that although, in the ordinary course of divine administrations, the punishment of the wicked does not always overtake them here, but is reserved for the last awful day of account; yet it sometimes happens (as I observed in my last Lecture) that their crimes draw after them their just recompense, even in the present life. This was eminently the case of the flagitious Herod; for besides those terrors of conscience, which, as we have seen, perpetually haunted him, which raised up before him terrific forms and agonizing apprehensions, and represented John the Baptist as risen from the dead to avenge his crimes; we are informed by the historian Josephus, that his marriage with Herodias drew upon him the resentment of Aretas, king of Arabia Petræa, the father of his first wife, who declared war against him, and, in an engagement with Herod's army, defeated it with great slaughter. This, says the historian, the Jews considered as a just judgement of God upon Herod for his murder of John the Baptist. And not long after this, both he and Herodias were deprived of their kingdom by the Roman emperor, and sent into perpetual banishment. And it is added by another historian, that their daughter Salome met with a violent and untimely death. Instances like this are intended to show that the Governor of the universe, though he has appointed a distant period for the general distribution of his rewards and punishments,

* Jer. v. 9.

t Jos. Ant. 1. xviii. c. 5. s. 1. 2. ‡ Nicephori. Hist. Eccles. I. 11. p. 89.

yet, in extraordinary cases, he will sometimes interpose to chastise the bold offender, to assert his superintending providence and supreme dominion over all his creatures, and to give them the most awful proofs, that, from his all-searching eye, no wickedness can be. concealed.

The remaining part of this chapter is occupied with the recital of two miracles, on which I have only to observe, that they have both of them a spiritual as well as a literal meaning, are both of a very extraordinary nature, and calculated to make, as they did, a most powerful impression on the minds of the spectators; these were, the feeding above five thousand persons with five loaves and two fishes, and our Saviour's walking on the sea. The first of these had a reference to that spiritual food, that celestial manna, that bread of life, which our Lord was then dispensing in such abundance to those that hungered and thirsted after righteousness. The other was meant to encourage the great principle of faith; of trust and reliance upon God, in opposition to that self-confidence, that high opinion of our own strength, which we are too apt to entertain, and to which St. Peter, above all the other apostles, was peculiarly liable. When therefore, in consequence of his own request, he was permitted to go to Jesus on the water, and forgetting immediately who was his guide and support, began to be afraid and to sink, and called out to his Divine Master to save him, our Lord graciously stretched forth his hand and caught him, and said unto him, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" A reproof well calculated to convince him that it was not in proportion to his own natural strength, but according to the degree of his faith, that he must rise or sink. And

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what he says to Peter, he says to all who waver in their belief: "O ye of little faith, why do you doubt?"

But there is another circumstance belonging to these miracles, which is of great importance; they are very extraordinary and astonishing instances of our Lord's power over nature, and of such a kind as to admit of no possibility of being counterfeited. And accordingly we find, that although some cheats have pretended to cure diseases miraculously, and some have even attempted to raise the dead, yet no impostor I believe has ever yet been so bold as to undertake to feed five thousand people at once with five loaves and two fishes, or to walk upon the sea. And the reason is plain. It would not be very easy to persuade five thousand people that they had been plentifully fed, when in fact they had received no nourishment at all; and it would be rather too dangerous an experiment for any man, not really supported by the hand of God, to attempt walking on the sea, when he cannot but know that the loss of life must be the inevitable consequence of it. Indeed this act has always been considered as utterly beyond all human power to achieve; accordingly two feet walking upon water was an Ægyptian hieroglyphic to denote impossibility. And Job represents the power of treading on the waves of the sea as a distinguished mark and attribute of the Deity*. Yet this did Jesus do; this impossibility did he accomplish: a most incontestible proof that God was with him. And in fact this miracle seems to have made a stronger impression on the minds of his disciples than any other recorded in the gospels, even than that of raising the dead; for we are told in St. Markt, that when our Lord went up into the ship,

from walking on the sea, the disciples were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered. The words in the original are still stronger; indeed so strong, that it is impossible for the English language to express all their force. In comparison of this miracle, even that of the loaves and fishes seems to have appeared nothing in the eyes of the disciples; for St. Mark tells us, they considered not the miracle of the loaves, for their heart was hardened; but at the act of walking on the sea, they were amazed beyond measure; they were overwhelmed and overcome with this astonishing display of divine power; they fell instantly at the feet of Jesus, and worshipped him; and exclaimed, as every one who considers this stupendous miracle must do, "Of a truth thou art the SON of GOD!"..

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LECTURE XV.

MATTHEW XVII.

I SHALL now request your attention to a very remarkable part of our Saviour's history, that which is called by the evangelists his TRANSFIGURATION, and which is related in the seventeenth chapter of St. Matthew. It so happens, that many years ago I turned my thoughts very much to this particular subject in the sacred writings, and ventured (though without my name) to lay my sentiments concerning it before the public. I could have wished therefore to have excused myself from repeating here any part of what I have said elsewhere, and to have passed over this incident unnoticed. But when I considered that this transaction is of a very peculiar and extraordinary nature; that there are circumstances attending it which cannot fail to excite the curiosity of an inquisitive mind; that there are difficulties in it which stand in need of a solution, and conclusions to be drawn from it of considerable utility and importance; when I considered farther, that much the greatest part of this audience had probably never seen or ever heard of what I had formerly written on this subject; I determined not to omit so material a part of the task I am engaged in, but to give you what I conceive to be the true explanation of this interest