238 BAXTERS DYING THOUGHTS. then and to this day bath owned it, by the sanctifying efficacy of the same Spirit, upon millions of souls. How holy a doctrine bath Peter himself delivered, as confirmed by his apparition ! "We have not, followed cunningly-devised fa- bles,.when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty ; for he received fromGod, the Father, honor and glory, when there came' such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; and this voice, which can from heaven, we heard when we were with him in the holy mount;" 2 . Peter i. 16-18. The words "inwhóm I am well pleased " are only here and in Matthew ; Mark and hike, omittingthem, tell us that the evangelists undertook not to recite all that was said and done, but each one so much as seemed necessary for him to say. 44. And now what remaineth, O my soul, but that thou take in the due impression of this apparition of the glory of Jesus and his saints ;_ and that thou joyfully obey this heavenly voice, and hear thebeloved Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased? I. As we that are born in another age and land must know what Christ said by the transmission and certain testimony of them that heard him, infallible tradition, by' act, word, and record, being our way of notice, as immediate sensation was theirs, so even the glo- rious apparition itself may, by the mediation of their infallible record, be partly transmitted to our imagination. An incorporate soul is so used to a mixed way of knowing by imagined ideas re- ceived by sense, that it would fain have such a sort of knowledge of separated souls, and other spirits, and of their glorious state, and place, and work, and is hardly fully satisfied without it. Seeing Christ bath partly, condescended to this our culpable weakness, lose not the help ofhis condescension. Let this clear description of the heavenlysight make it to thee partly as if thou hadst been one of the three spectators ; till thou canst say, ` Methinks I almost see the face of Christ shine as the sun, and his raiment whiter than the-snow ; and Moses and Elias (no doubt in some degree of glo- ry) standing with him:' methinks I almost hear them discoursing of Christ's death and man's redemption ; and by this sight I part- ly conceive of the unseen heavenly company and state methinks I see the cloud receive them, when Peter had been transported with the sight ; and I almost feel his pleasant raptures, and am ready to say, as if I had been with him, " It is good for us to be here:" methinks I almost hear the heavenly voice, "This is my beloved Son, hear him." And shall I yet doubt of the celestial society and glory? Had .I once seen that; what a sense would it have left upon myheart, of the difference between earth and heav-
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