This relation of the transfiguration is full of significance, for the Lord's whole life on earth was a type of the states of the church. In His material body He represented the sensual material Jewish church, through which assaults were unceasingly made upon His Divine spiritual nature; and in the sufferings and indignities offered to His material body, was shewn the desecration of the Word in its literal sense, by those who live only in the external senses of their bodies, who see only the kingdoms of this world, who realize only the truths that relate to their outer lives. But the Lord descended to these to reveal to them "the kingdom of God;" to awaken their perceptions to a higher, brighter and more beautiful, inner life; and for this end, He gathered around Him a church upon earth, which loved Him in the external manifestation of Himself, and from this church He selected the representatives of its three ruling principles— Peter or faith; James, or the works of charity; and John, the indwelling principle of charity: and "He went up into the mountain to pray."
Prayer is an opening of our inner consciousness, by which we are brought into the presence of the Divine; and a mountain, as representing an elevation of the mind above the earth, shews in what degree of our being prayer should be made—to wit, from the inmost and highest. With faith and good works, and the heavenly principle of love, we should approach the Divine Saviour, and then He will be revealed in His spiritual glory.
The words of the Lord are infinite and universal in their signification, and that which He addressed to His church eighteen hundred years ago, is a living word
