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§ X.

CHAP. III. 1—12.

John preacheth. His office, life, and baptism. He reprehendeth the Pharisees and Sadducees.

In those days came "John the Baptist, preaching 'in the wilderness of Judæa,

2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

4 And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was "locusts and 'wild honey.

5 Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judæa, and all the region round about Jordan,

6 'And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from "the wrath to come?

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in yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

10 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: " therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit

is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: 'he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

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12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will 'burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

a Mark i. 4, 15. Luke iii. 2, 3. John i. 28. b Josh. xiv. 10.-c Dan, ii. 44. ch. iv. 17, & x. 7.-d Is. xl. 3. Mark i. 3. Luke iii. 4. John i. 23. e Luke i.76.-f Mark i. 6. g 2 Kin. i. 8. Zech. xiii. 4. h Lev. xi. 22. il Sam. xiv. 25, 26.-k Mark i. 5. Luke iii. 7.- Acts xix. 4, 18.-m ch. xii. 34, & xxiii. 33. Luke iii. 7, 8, 9. n Rom. v. 9. 1 Thess. i. 10.- Or, answerable to amendment of life.-o John viii. 33, 39. Acts xiii. Romans iv. 1, 11, 16.-p ch. vii. 19. Luke xiii. 7, 9. John xv. 6.-9 Mark i. 8. Luke iii. 16. John i. 15, 26, 33. Acts i. 5, xi. 16, & xix. 4. r Is. iv. 4, & xliv 3. Mal. iii. 2. Acts ii. 3, 4. 1 Cor. xii. 13.-s Mal. iii. 3, t Mal. iv. 1. ch. xiii. 30.

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Reader. "In those days," namely, while our Lord continued to reside at Nazareth, John began his remarkable and divinely-appointed minising;" that is, according to the force try. He came, we are told, "preachof the original, proclaiming some9 And think not to say with- thing as a public crier,-speaking

8 Bring forth therefore || fruits meet for repentance:

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aloud, by authority, and inviting | to one like the Son of Man.' general attention, like a herald. He Dan. ii. 44; vii. 13, 14. In the was, indeed, a herald of the King of apocryphal book of Wisdom (x. 10), kings. we find the expression "kingdom of God;" and in later Jewish writings, the terms "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" are common.

Theophilus. Does the appearance of John in the wilderness of Judea give any sanction to the lives of hermits or recluses?

Reader. Certainly not. Their retirement into a wilderness is no imitation of the Baptist; at least, it is a following of the example of this holy man no farther than it is an adoption of the conduct of a certain seducer of whom we read in Acts xxi. 38; for it is said that he "led his followers into the wilderness."

The place in which John preached was not altogether uncultivated or uninhabited. and thinly-populated part of Judea, but it contained hamlets and even towns. Thus, in Joshua xv. 61, 62, we read of six cities or towns in a part of the country called the desert or wilderness.

It was a mountainous

Theophilus. While you were reading the second verse, it occurred to me that, although we often find the expression "kingdom of heaven" or "kingdom of God" in the New Testament, yet we never meet with it in the Old.

Reader. This phrase, which became current among the Jews after the completion of the Old Testament Scriptures, appears, however, to have been founded by them upon certain expressions in the prophecies of Daniel, in which it is said that the "God of heaven" should "set up a kingdom," and that "dominion, and glory, and a kingdom," were given

Theophilus. What are we to understand by these expressions in the New Testament?

Reader. Sometimes they describe the Church on earth, and sometimes the perfection and happiness of the future state. Or rather, I would say, they present to our minds one great idea, under various phases or modifications. They denote the divine supremacy over men's wills and persons throughout the whole course of its development, beginning within men's hearts, and extending to their outward circumstances and to external nature,-beginning with individuals, and spreading through the whole mass of mankind, or over the whole surface of society. Or, to speak at once more fully and precisely, by the kingdom of God, or of heaven, we are to understand the Church of Christ in all the various stages of its progress towards perfection ;—that state of things in which God in Christ is acknowledged and served by a body of faithful people, and which will eventually issue in the complete establishment and universal acknowledgment of divine authority, perfect conformity to the divine will, and abundant manifestation of the divine glory,-in one word, in the holiness and happiness of heaven. "The kingdom of heaven," says Baxter, "is a special go

vernment of God by a Saviour sent | being part of his description of the

from heaven to lead men to heaven."

We may thus apprehend the full meaning of this general and most significant expression. Of course, the precise import of the term must vary a little in different places where it occurs, according to its connection, and according to the prominence which may be given to some particular part of the whole complex idea.

Theophilus. The application of the prophecy which the Evangelist quotes appears obvious and simple. I suppose it involves no peculiar difficulty.

march of Semiramis into Media and Persia; which I will read to you, as containing a lively illustration of this passage of Holy Scripture.— "In her march to Ecbatane," says the historian, "she came to the Zarean mountains, which, extending many furlongs, and being full of craggy precipices and deep hollows, could not be passed without fetching a great compass. Therefore, being desirous of leaving a lasting memorial of herself, as well as of shortening the road, she ordered the precipices to be digged down, and the hollows to be filled up; and, at a great expense, she made a shorter and more expeditious passage, which, to this day, is called The Road of Semiramis. Afterwards, she went into Persia, and all the other countries of Asia subject to her dominion; and, wherever she went, she ordered the mountains and precipices to be levelled, raised causeways in the plain country, and, at a great expense, made the roads passable."

Reader. It is taken from the prophecies of Isaiah, or as the name is here given, in the Greek form, Esaias (xl. 3). In its primary sense, it refers to the return of the Jews to their own country after their liberation by the king of Persia. In its secondary and farther signification, -equally according to the prophetic design of the Holy Spirit,-it points to John the Baptist, in his work of preparing the Jews to receive Christ, by exhorting them to repentance, and by bearing testimony to his person as the Messiah.-Do you understand the allusion to an oriental custom which runs through this pas-ling minds of the carnal and thoughtsage?

Theophilus. The reference is to the work of pioneers employed in opening the passes, levelling or raising the roads, and removing obstructions for a monarch when about to march through a marshy or mountainous district.

Reader. I have before me an ex tract from Diodorus Siculus (lib. 2),

In like manner, the ministry of John was appointed for the purpose of bringing down the haughty spirit of the proud, and raising the grovel

less, and thus preparing them for the reception of the great God and their Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The mention of the Baptist's dress and appearance, in the fourth verse, reminds us of what is said concerning one of the old prophets in particular. Can either of you tell me to which prophet I allude?

Mary. His hair-cloth and girdle

remind us of Elijah (2 Kings i. 8); -and our blessed Lord said expressly, concerning John, "This is Elias which was to come." Mat. xi. 14.

tration of a proselyte by another person, had not previously existed, and that nothing more than ceremonial ablutions-the act of the individuals themselves-had been in use.

Reader. You must not be surprised-Perhaps there are no sufficient

at reading that John ate locusts; for we are told by several authors, ancient and modern, that there is a kind of locust in the East which is used as an article of food, especially by poor people. Indeed, the permission anciently given to the Jews to adopt this kind of food proves that the use of it existed from very early times. Read Lev. xi. 22.

Mary. "Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind."

Reader. You can easily understand what the wild honey was, which the Baptist used. It was such as was found in the clefts of rocks, or in the hollow parts of trees; and in this, as some suppose, the dried locusts were fried, when prepared for food.

Theophilus. I believe the ceremony of baptism was not entirely new and unknown at this time.

Reader. Some suppose that it had been already in use among the Jews on occasion of receiving proselytes, especially such proselytes as did not submit to circumcision. And therefore, say they, by baptizing Jews, and thus treating them as proselytes, John marked his ministry as the introduction of a new economy. Others, however, think that baptism, properly so called, that is, the lus

means of determining this question. -At all events, the baptism performed by John was not any arbitrary act, or one of his own invention; for he was "sent to baptize with water." John i. 33.

As the mention of Pharisees and Sadducees occurs for the first time in this passage, I will request Theophilus to read a page to which I point, containing an account of these two leading Jewish parties.

Theophilus. "THE PHARISEES derived their name from the Hebrew word Pharash, which signifies to set apart, or to separate,' because they separated themselves from the rest of their countrymen, to peculiar strictness in religion. Their leading tenets were the following:-that the world is governed by fate, or by a fixed decree of God; that the souls. of men were immortal, and were either eternally happy or miserable beyond the grave; that the dead would be raised; that there were angels, good and bad; that God was under obligation to bestow peculiar favour on the Jews; and that they were justified by the merits of Abraham.

They were proud and selfrighteous; and they held the common people in great contempt. John vii. 49. They sought the offices of the state, and affected great dignity. They were ostentatious in their religious worship, and even in their

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dress; praying at the corners of the were zealots for the ceremonies, for streets, and seeking publicity in the the power of the church, and the trabestowment of alms. They sought | ditions of the elders; the Sadducees principally external cleanness; and ran into the other extreme, and were dealt much in ceremonial ablutions little better than deists, denying the and washing. existence of spirits, and of a future state."

"In addition to the written law, they adhered to the traditions of the elders, which they vainly supposed to have been handed down from Moses. They were, in general, a corrupt, hypocritical, office-seeking, haughty class of men. There were, however, some among them of a better character. See Acts v. 14.

"THE SADDUCEES are supposed to have taken their name from Sadoc, who flourished about 260 years before the Christian era. He was a pupil of Antigonus Sochæus, president of the Sanhedrim, or great council of the nation. He had taught the duty of serving God disinterestedly, without the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment. Hence Sadoc, incorrectly, drew the inference that there was no future state of rewards or punishments; and on this belief he founded the sect..... They held that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit (Matt. xxii. 23; Acts xxiii. 8); and that the soul of man perishes with the body;..... and they rejected all traditions."

Reader. The Pharisees, as they appear before us in the New Testament, are to be regarded as representatives of superstition, hypocrisy, and self-righteous pride; the Sadducees, of worldliness, sensual indulgence, and unbelief." The Pharisees," says a judicious commentator,

When St. John saw these men come to his baptism-(the Æthiopic version adds, privately)—he addressed them in language strongly expressive of his abhorrence of their character as the very personification of inveterate and malicious wickedness. And he inquired, with astonishment, who had warned them to flee from the impending wrath. Hence, then, it appears that neither of these parties came in a right disposition of mind, or with proper views. The Pharisees were proud of their supposed superiority in piety and virtue, and of their relation to Abraham; the Sadducees were vain of their fancied wisdom and philosophical attainments; and all were alike unprepared to become disciples of the uncompromising Baptist, or of the meek and lowly Jesus.

Theophilus. Did the Baptist allude to any particular stones or rocks, when he said what we read in the ninth verse?

Reader. Perhaps he then pointed to the stones which lay scattered about in the rough and rocky desert. Or, as he was baptizing at the ford of Jordan, where Israel passed over, some have thought that he alluded to the twelve stones which were set up as a memorial of that event. Josh. iv. 20. But before we could adopt the latter opinion, we should

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