Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." But we must pass on to the description which is given of the transfiguration of Jesus. "His face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light." On this we can say but little, for no imagination can conceive, nor can words express the exact nature of that splendid scene which is here so slightly glanced at. The Holy Spirit has employed the most concise mode of description in order to restrain our fancy within proper limits. We are, therefore, altogether incompetent to expatiate on a subject so sublime, for we know nothing, beyond what is written, of the glory which is associated with spiritual bodies. When Paul was led to speak of a state of future enjoyment, he could only express himself in the language of conjecture, and say, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." And when, on another occasion, he was anxious to comfort the church by a description of the resurrection-body into which the Saviour shall change the vile bodies of his people, he could only describe it by the use of words which merely implied a direct contrast between what we now are and what we shall be. Our present bodies are earthly, natural, mortal, and corruptible; our resurrection bodies shall be celestial, spiritual, immortal, incorruptible: but these latter expressions are only negations of the former; as to any positive apprehension of the nature of glorified bodies, "it doth not yet appear what we shall be." And there is much wisdom in this reserve: there is enough told us upon the subject to encourage us to persevere in our endeavours to attain to the joy that is set before us, but not as much as would, in the meantime, render us too much discontented with our present state. We must, however, carefully note that the Holy Spirit, in so far describing the Saviour's transfiguration, has given a literal account of a real transaction. There is no cunningly-devised fable here. There was nothing visionary in the exhibition itself; there is nothing fanciful in the description of it. Jesus was actually metamorphosed; "his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light," and, as on all ordinary occasions in the days of his flesh he was God manifest in the nature of man, so, during the continuance of this splendid scene, he exhibited his human nature manifested in and encompassed by the brightness and glory of his Godhead.