I know not with what historical allusion; but sure, I think, to imply, that great places are not free from great cares. Saul knew what he did, when he hid himself among the stuff. No man knoweth the weight of a sceptre, but he that swayeth it. As for subordinate greatness, it hath so much less worth as it hath more dependence. How many sleepless nights, and restless days, and busy shifts, doth their ambition cost them that affect eminence! Certainly, no men are so worthy of pity, as they whose height thinks all other worthy of contempt. High places are slippery; and as it is easy to fall, so the ruin is deep, and the recovery difficult. Altiorem locum sortitus es, non tutiorem, sublimiorem, sed non securiorem, saith Bernard, Thou hast got an higher place, but not a safer; a loftier, but not more secure." Aulæ culmen lubricum, " The slippery ridge of the court," was the old title of honour. David's curse was, Fiat via eorum tenebre et lubricum, “ Let their way be made dark and slippery." What difference is there betwixt his curse and the happiness of the ambitious, but this, that the way of the one is dark and slippery, the way of the other lightsome and slippery: that dark, that they may fall; this light, that they may see and be seen to fall? Please yourselves then, ye great ones, and let others please you in the admiration of your height; but if your goodness do not answer your greatness, Sera querela est, quoniam elevans allisisti me, “It is a late complaint, Thou hast lift me up to cast me down." Your ambition hath but set you up a scaffold, that your misery might be more notorious. And yet these clients of honour say, Bonum est esse hic. The pampered glutton, when he seeth his table spread with full bowls, with costly dishes, and curious sauces, the dainties of all three elements, says, Bonum est esse hic. And yet eating hath a satiety, and satiety a weariness: his heart is never more empty of contentment, than when his stomach is fullest of delicates. When he is empty, he is not well till he be filled; when he is full, he is not well till he have got a stomach: Et momentanea blandimenta gulæ stercoris fine condemnat, saith Jerome; "And condemns all the momentary pleasures of his maw to the dunghill." And when he sits at his feasts of marrow and fat things, (as the prophet speaks,) his table, according to the Psalmist's imprecation, is made his snare; a true snare every way. His soul is caught in it with excess; his estate with penury; his body with diseases. Neither doth he more plainly tear his meat in pieces with his teeth, than he doth himself: and yet this vain man says, Bonum est esse hic.

The petulant wanton thinks it the only happiness, that he may have his full scope to filthy dalliance. Little would he so do, if he could see his strumpet as she is, her eyes the eyes of a cockatrice, her hairs snakes, her painted face the visor of a fury, her heart snares, her hands bands, and her end wormwood; consumption of the flesh, destruction of the soul, and the flames of lust ending in the flames of hell. Since therefore neither pleasures, nor honour, nor wealth, can yield any true contentment to their best favourites, let us not be so unwise as to speak of this vale of misery, as Peter did of the hill of Tabor, Bonum est esse hic.

And if the best of earth cannot do it, why will ye seek it in the worst? how dare any of you great ones to seek to purchase contentment with oppression, sacrilege, bribery, outfacing innocence and truth with power, damning your own souls for but the humouring of a few miserable days?

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Filii hominum, usquequo gravi corde? ad quid diligitis vanitatem, et quæritis mendacium? "O ye sons of men, how long, &c." But that which moved Peter's desire (though with imperfection) shows what will perfect our desire and felicity for if a glimpse of this heavenly glory did so ravish this worthy disciple, that he thought it happiness enough to stand by and gaze upon it, how shall we be affected with the contemplation, yea fruition of the divine presence! Here was but Tabor, there is heaven; here were but two saints, there many millions of saints and angels; here was Christ transfigured, there he sits at the right hand of Majesty; here he was a representation, there a gift and possession of blessedness. O that we could now forget the world, and fixing our eyes upon this better Tabor, say, Bonum est esse hic. Alas! this life of ours,

if it were not short, yet it is miserable; and if it were not miserable, yet it is short. Tell me, ye that have the greatest command on earth, whether this vile world hath ever afforded you any sincere contentation. The world is your servant: if it were your parasite, yet could it make you heartily merry? Ye delicatest courtiers, tell me if pleasure itself have not an unpleasant tediousness hanging upon it, and more sting than honey? And whereas all happiness, even here below, is in the vision of God; how is our spiritual eye hindered, as the body is from its object, by darkness, by false light, by aversion! Darkness, he that doth sin is in darkness; false light, while we measure eternal things by temporary; aversion, while, as weak eyes hate the light, we turn our eyes from the true and immutable good, to the fickle and uncertain. We are not on the hill, but the valley, where we have tabernacles, not of our own making, but of clay; and such as wherein we are witnesses of Christ, not transfigured in glory, but blemished with dishonour, dishonoured with oaths and blasphemies, recrucified with our sins; witnesses of God's saints, not shining in Tabor, but mourning in darkness, and, instead of that heavenly brightness, clothed with sackcloth and ashes. Then and there we shall have "tabernacles not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," where we shall see how sweet the Lord is: we shall see the triumphs of Christ; we shall hear and sing the hallelujahs of saints. Quæ nunc nos angil vesania vitiorum sitire absinthium, &c. saith that devout father. how hath our corruption bewitched us, to thirst for this wormwood, to affect the shipwrecks of this world, to dote upon the misery of this fading life; and not rather to fly up to the felicity of saints, to the society of angels, to that blessed contemplation wherein we shall see God in himself, God in us, ourselves in him! There shall be no sorrow, no pain, no complaint, no fear, no death. There is no malice to rise against us, no misery to afflict us, no hunger, thirst, weariness, temptation to disquiet us. There, O there, one day is better than a thousand! there is rest from our labours, peace from our enemies, freedom from our sins! How many clouds of discontentment darken the sunshine of our joy, while we are here below! Væ nobis qui vivimus plangere quæ pertulimus, dolere quæ sentimus, timere quæ expectamus! Complaint of evils past, sense of present, fear of future, have shared our lives amongst them. Then shall we be semper læti, semper satiati, "always joyful, always satisfied," with the vision of that God, "in whose presence there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore." Shall we see that hea

then Cleombrotus abandoning his life, and casting himself down from the rock, upon an uncertain noise of immortality; and shall not we Christians abandon the wicked superfluities of life, the pleasures of sin, for that life which we know more certainly than this? What stick we at, my beloved? Is there a heaven, or is there none? have we a Saviour there, or have we none? We know there is a heaven, as sure as that there is an earth below us; we know we have a Saviour there, as sure as there are men that we converse with upon earth; we know there is happiness, as sure as we know there is misery and mutability upon earth. O our miserable sottishness and infidelity, if we do not condemn the best offers of the world, and lifting up our eyes and hearts to heaven, say, Bonum est esse hic.

"Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly." To him that hath purchased and prepared this glory for us, together with the Father and blessed Spirit, one incomprehensible God, be all praise for ever. Amen.

CONTEMPLATION XIV.-THE PROSECUTION OF THE TRANSFIGURATION.

BEFORE, the disciples' eyes were dazzled with glory; now the brightness of that glory is shaded with a cloud. Frail and feeble eyes of mortality cannot look upon a heavenly lustre. That cloud imports both majesty and obscuration. Majesty; for it was the testimony of God's presence of old: the cloud covered the mountain, the tabernacle the oracle. He that makes the clouds his chariot, was in a cloud carried up into heaven. Where have we mention of any divine representation, but a cloud is one part of it? what comes nearer to heaven, either in place or resemblance? Obscuration; for as it showed there was a majesty, and that divine, so it showed them, that the view of that majesty was not for bodily eyes. Likeas, when some great prince walks under a canopy, that vail shows there is a great person under it, but withal restrains the eye from a free sight of his person: and if the cloud were clear, yet it shaded them. Why then was this cloud interposed betwixt that glorious vision and them, but for a check of their bold eyes?

Had they too long gazed upon this resplendent spectacle, as their eyes had been blinded, so their hearts had perhaps grown to an overbold familiarity with that heavenly object; how seasonably doth the cloud intercept it! the wise God knows our need of these vicissitudes and allays. If we have a light, we must have a cloud; if a light to cheer us, we must have a cloud to humble us. It was so in Sinai, it was so in Sion, it was so in Olivet; it shall never be but so. The natural day and night do not more duly interchange, than this light and cloud. Above we shall have the light without the cloud, a clear vision and fruition of God, without all dim and sad interpositions; below we cannot be free from these mists and clouds of sorrow and misapprehension.

But this was a bright cloud; there is difference betwixt the cloud in Tabor, and that in Sinai: this was clear, that darksome; there is darkness in the law, there is light in the grace of the gospel; Moses was there spoken to in darkness, here he was spoken with in light. In that

dark cloud there was terror, in this there was comfort; though it were a cloud then, yet it was bright; and though it were bright, yet it was a cloud: with much light there was some shade. God would not speak to them concerning Christ out of darkness; neither yet would he manifest himself to them in an absolute brightness: all his appearances have this mixture. What need I other instance, than in these two saints? Moses spake oft to God, mouth to mouth; yet not so immediately, but that there was ever somewhat drawn, as a curtain, betwixt God and him; either fire in Horeb, or smoke in Sinai; so as his face is not more vailed from the people, than God's from him. Elias shall be spoken to by God, but in the rock, and under a mantle. In vain shall we hope for any revelation from God, but in a cloud. Worldly hearts are in utter darkness, they see not so much as the least glimpse of these divine beams, not a beam of that inaccessible light: the best of his saints see him here but in a cloud, or in a glass. Happy are we, if God has honoured us with these divine representations of himself; once, in his light, we shall see light.

I can easily think with what amazedness these three disciples stood compassed in that bright cloud, expecting some miraculous event of so heavenly a vision, when suddenly they might hear a voice sounding out of that cloud, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him." They need not be told whose that voice was; the place, the matter evinced it; no angel in heaven could or durst have said so. How gladly doth Peter afterwards recount it! for he received from God the Father honour 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;

hear him."

It was only the ear that was here taught, not the eye; as of Horeb, so of Sinai, so of Tabor, might God say, ye saw no shape, nor image, in that day that the Lord spake unto you. He that knows our proneness to idolatry, avoids those occasions which we might take to abuse our own fancies.

Twice hath God spoken these words to his own Son from heaven; once in his baptism, and now again in his transfiguration : here not without some oppositive comparison; not Moses, not Elias, but this. Moses and Elias were servants, this a Son: Moses and Elias were sons, but of grace and choice; this is that Son, the Son by nature. Other sons are beloved as of favour and free election; this is the Beloved, as in the unity of his essence. Others are so beloved, that he is pleased with themselves; this so beloved, that in and for him, he is pleased with mankind. As the relation betwixt the Father and the Son is infinite, so is the love: we measure the intention of love by the extension: the love that rests in the person affected alone, is but strait; true love descends (like Aaron's ointment) from the head to the skirts, to children, friends, allies. O incomprehensible large love of God the Father to the Son, that, for his sake, he is pleased with the world! O perfect and happy complacence! Out of Christ, there is nothing but enmity betwixt God and the soul; in him there can be nothing but peace: when the beams are met in one centre, they do not only heat, but burn. Our weak love is diffused to inany; God hath some, the world more, and therein wives, children, friends; but this infinite love of God hath all the beams of it united in

one only object, the Son of his love; neither doth he love any thing, but in the participation of his love, in the derivation from it. O God, let me be found in Christ, and how canst thou but be pleased with me?

This one voice proclaims Christ at once the Son of God, the Reconciler of the world, the Doctor and Lawgiver of his Church as the Son of God he is essentially interested in his love: as he is the Reconciler of the world in whom God is well pleased, he doth most justly challenge our love and adherence; as he is the Doctor and Lawgiver, he doth justly challenge our audience, our obedience. Even so, Lord, teach us to hear and obey thee as our Teacher; to love thee, and believe in thee as our Reconciler and as the eternal Son of thy Father, to adore thee.

The light caused wonder in the disciples, but the voice astonishment; they are all fallen down upon their faces. Who can blame a mortal man to be thus affected with the voice of his Maker? yet this word was but plausible and hortatory. O God, how shall flesh and blood be other than swallowed up with the horror of thy dreadful sentence of death? The lion shall roar, who shall not be afraid! How shall those, that have slighted the sweet voice of thine invitations, call to the rocks to hide them from the terror of thy judgments!

The God of mercies pities our infirmities: I do not hear our Saviour say, Ye lay sleeping one while upon the earth, now ye lie astonished; ye could neither wake to see, nor stand to hear; now lie still and tremble: but he graciously touches and comforts them, "Arise, fear not." That voice, which shall once raise them up out of the earth, might well raise them up from it; that hand, which by the least touch, restored sight, limbs, life, might well restore the spirits of the dismayed. O Saviour, let that sovereign hand of thine touch us, when we lie in the trances of our griefs, in the bed of our securities, in the grave of our sins, and we shall arise.

"They looking up saw no man, save Jesus alone," and that, doubtless, in his wonted form; all was now gone, Moses, Elias, the cloud, the voice, the glory. Tabor itself cannot be long blessed with that divine light, and those shining guests; heaven will not allow to earth any long continuance of glory, only above is constant happiness to be looked for and enjoyed where we shall ever see our Saviour in his unchangeable brightness, where the light shall never be either clouded or varied.

Moses and Elias are gone, only Christ is left; the glory of the law and the prophets was but temporary, yea, momentary, that only Christ remain to us entire and conspicuous: they came but to give testimony to Christ; when that is done, they are vanished.

may

Neither could these raised disciples find any miss of Moses and Elias, when they had Christ still with them. Had Jesus been gone, and left either Moses or Elias, or both, in them ount with his disciples, that presence, though glorious, could not have comforted them; now that they are gone, and he is left, they cannot be capable of discomfort. O Saviour, it matters not who is away, while thou art with us: thou art God allsufficient, what can we want, when we want not thee? Thy presence shall make Tabor itself a heaven; yea, hell itself cannot make us miserable with the fruition of thee.