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    rested on the lid ' of the a ? k > and which appeared at the door of the tabernacle * , At all events , the splendour was sym « bolical of the local presence of Jehovahp and was only reflected on Jesus . The satne transfiguration took place in the instance of Moses f who . on de «

    spending from Mount Sinai , was compelled to put a veil on his face , while speaking to the peopleg because " the skin of his face shone / * Yet no one talks of Moses " being in the form of God / ' As to the strange notion of your Correspondent ; that Jesus might

    have retained this splendour in his persons had he chosen * though the cloud of divine glory which was the cause of it ceased to rest upoa him , it is difficult to speak of it in any other terms than as insufferable trifling : what purpose could it possibly

    answer for the person of Jesus to be constantly irradiated with a supernatural splendour I The fact is assumed merely to prop the argument that ** being in the form of God / alludes

    to the transfigured appearance of Jesus : as if the " taking on him the form of a servant , " referred to his voluntary srelinquishment of this accidental splendour ; declaratory of the local presence of God and of his favour to the

    ** -elect , whom he had chosen . " What Sir ! when Christ is called * ' the brightness of the glory * of God and the * express image of his person / 1 does it mean no more than the

    visible brightness symbolical of the local presence of God , which reflected on the form of Jesus in attestation of his son-ship ? Is not Christ called the 4 power of God and the wisdom of God" ? And is not lie who has

    received of the power and wisdom " tied , manifested in the words and works which he spoke and wrought , not of himself * but by the Father * Whose spirit rested on him , is not this inspired messenger 6 * in the form or likeness of God " ?

    That the word yfyr ^ tra / to literally means thought not of 9 I am by no means convinced : nor do I see any reason for departing from the rational and scholar-like interpretation , adopt-£ d' by the eminent men above alluded to : < 4 Who being in the form of God did not esteem it ft prey tq be equal

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    with Godj , or rather , like to Godsbut divested himself of his . < -glory . " Not surely of *' tlie supernatural splendid form which lie a&supied on the mount : " but of the majesty which he might have displayed ^ had he employed his miraculous powers for his

    own aggrandisement : as he was tempted to do , when undergoing the discipline asid probation in the desert ? described by a scenicat allegory indicative of the process in the mind of Jesus , preparatory to his coming forth into the world as the sent of God * To

    suppose with your expositor , that the " emptying himself of glory , " and the " taking the form of a servant , " refer to the particular circumstances of his ceasing to . exhibit a luminous appearance , and his girding himself to wash the feet of his disciples , is to

    substitute paltry and insignincant allusions for those grand general characteristics of the ministry ' of the Messiah , which the apostle had in Yiew » "He who had not where to lay his head , " might be said without any violence of

    metaphor to be ' * m the form of a servant : " as he who cured madness by a wovd ' and raised the dead , might be described as in the form of God , whose representative and agent he approved himself .

    His being " * in the likeness ofmen " certainly does not refer to the phantastic heresy of the Docetce : a reference which occurs in the " coming in the flesh ' of John : it is in close

    connexion with the foregoing passages ^ and alludes to his unostenta ' - tious use of the power which he received from God ? and which he employed to the glory of the " One God 1

    the Father , ' and for the object of his Messiahship , and never for his own pers onal . advantage . " In the likeness of men , " signifies , " under the appearance of other men , or , " . a common man : " allusive to his

    voluntary obedience in a state of humility and suffering * Samson in Judges xvi . 79 says , that "if they bind him with green withs he shall be weak and be as a man : " which is rendered

    in the common version " as another maw /' CA . E-

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    4 $ SihUeal € ritici $ mo ^ &m o Alexanders Exposition of ' PhtL u . 5—>! I

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1818, page 48, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2472/page/48/