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84. That he was yet cautious of owning himself to his apostles positively to be the Messiah, appears further from the manner wherein he tells Peter, that he will build his church upon that confession of his, that he was the Messiah. I say unto thee, Thou art Cephas,' or a rock; 'and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' Words too doubtful to be laid hold on against him, as a testimony that he professed himself to be the Messiah, especially if we join with them the following words: And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and what thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and what thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.' Which, being said personally to Peter, rendered the foregoing words of our Saviour (wherein he declares the fundamental article of his church to be the believing him to be the Messiah) the more obscure and doubtful, and less liable to be made use of against him; but yet such as might afterwards be understood. And for the same reason he yet here again forbids the apostles to say that he was the Messiah.

85. The probability of this, viz., that he had not yet told the apostles themselves plainly that he was the Messiah, is confirmed by what our Saviour says to them, John, xv.: ' Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; but I have called you friends;' viz. in the foregoing verse; for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you.' This was in his last discourse with them after Judas was gone out; wherein he committed to them the great secret, by speaking of the kingdom as his, as

appears from Luke, xxii. 30, and telling them several other particulars about it, whence he had it, what kingdom it was, how to be administered, and what share they were to have in it, &c. From whence it is plain, that till just before he was laid hold on, the very moment he was parting with his apostles, he had kept them as servants in ignorance; but now had discovered himself openly as to his friends.

86. From this time,' say the evangelists, 'Jesus began to show to his disciples (that is, his apostles, who are often called disciples) that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders, chief-priests, and Scribes; and be killed, and be raised again the third day.' These, though all marks of the Messiah, yet how little understood by the apostles, or suited to their expectation of the Messiah, appears from Peter's rebuking him for it in the words, Mat. xvi. 22. Peter had twice before owned him to be the Messiah, and yet he cannot here bear that he should suffer, and be put to death, and be raised again; whereby we may perceive, how little yet Jesus had explained to the apostles what personally concerned himself. They had been a good while witnesses of his life and miracles, and thereby being grown into a belief that he was the Messiah, were in some degree prepared to receive the particulars that were to fill up the character, and answer the prophecies concerning him. This, from henceforth, he began to open to them, (though in a way which the Jews could not form an accusation out of,) the time of the accomplishment of all, in his sufferings, death, and resurrection, now drawing on: for this was in the last year

of his life; he being to meet the Jews at Jerusalem but once more at the passover, and then they should have their will upon him, and therefore he might now begin to be a little more open concerning himself; though yet so as to keep himself out of the reach of any accusation that might appear just or weighty to the Roman deputy.

87. After his reprimand to Peter, telling him that he'savoured not the things of God, but of man, Mark, viii., he calls the people to him, and prepares those who would be his disciples, for suffering; telling them, 'Whoever shall be ashamed of me and my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels' and then subjoins two great and solemn acts, wherein he should show himself to be the Messiah, the king; for the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall render every man according to his works.' This is evidently meant of the glorious appearance of his kingdom, when he shall come to judge the world at the last day; described more at large, Matt. xxv. 'When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. Then shall the King say to them on his right hand,' &c.

88. But what follows in the place above quoted. Matt. xvi. 28: Verily, verily, there be some standing here who shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom,'-importing that dominion, which some there should see

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him exercise over the nation of the Jews,-was so covered, by being annexed to the preceding verse, 27, (where he spoke of the manifestation and glory of his kingdom at the day of judgment,) that though his plain meaning here, in verse 28, be, that the appearance and visible exercise of his kingly power in his kingdom was so near, that some there should live to see it; yet if the foregoing words had not cast a shadow over these latter, but they had been left plainly to be understood, as they plainly signified, that he should be a king, and that it was so near, that some there should see him in his kingdom, this might have been laid hold on, and made the matter of a plausible and seemingly just accusation against him by the Jews, before Pilate. This seems to be the reason of our Saviour's inverting here the order of the two solemn manifestations to the world of his rule and power; thereby perplexing at present his meaning, and securing himself, as was necessary, from the malice of the Jews, which always lay at catch to entrap him, and accuse him to the Roman governor; and would, no doubt, have been ready to have alleged these words, Some here shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom,' against him as criminal, had not their meaning been, by the former verse, perplexed, and the sense at that time rendered unintelligible, and not applicable by any of his auditors to a sense that might have been prejudicial to him before Pontius Pilate for how well the chief of the Jews were disposed towards him St. Luke tells us, chap. xi.: Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him: which may be a reason to sa

tisfy us of the seemingly doubtful and obscure way of speaking used by our Saviour in other places; his circumstances being such, that without such a prudent carriage and reservedness, he could not have gone through the work which he came to do; nor have performed all the parts of it, in a way correspondent to the descriptions given of the Messiah, and which would be afterwards fully understood to belong to him, when he had left the world.

89. After this, Matt. xvii., he, without saying it in direct words, begins, as it were, to own himself to his apostles to be the Messiah, by assuring them, that as the Scribes, according to the prophecy of Malachi,' rightly said, that Elias was to usher in the Messiah; so indeed Elias was already come, though the Jews knew him not, and treated him ill : whereby they understood that he spake to them of John the Baptist.' And a little after, he somewhat more plainly intimates that he is the Messiah in these words: Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to the Messiah.' This, as I remember, is the first place where our Saviour ever mentioned the name of Messiah; and the first time that he went so far towards the owning, to any of the Jewish nation, himself to be him.

90. In his way to Jerusalem, bidding one follow him who would first bury his father, 'Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead; but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.' And, sending out

'Chap. iv. 5.