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him, and prefent to him the richest and the choiceft gifts they had to offer; well may we, when this child of the Moft High is not only grown to maturity, but has lived, and died, and rifen again for us, and is now set down at the right hand of God (angels and principalities. and powers being made fubject to him) well may we not only pay our homage, but our adoration to the Son of God, and offer to him oblations far more precious than gold, frankincense and myrrh; namely, ourselves, our fouls and our bodies," as a reasonable, holy and lively facrifice unto him ;" well may we join with that innumerable multitude in heaven, which is continually praifing him and faying; "Bleffing, and honor, and glory be unto him, that fitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."*

* Rev. v. 13.

LECTURE III.

MATTH. CHAP. iii.

THE

HE fubject of this lecture will be the third chap ter of Saint Matthew, in which we have the hiftory of a ve ry extraordinary perfon called JOHN THE BAPTIST; to dif tinguish him from another John mentioned in the New Teftament, who was our Saviour's beloved disciple, and the author of the Gospel that bears his name; whence he is called JOHN THE EVANGELIST.

As the character of John the Baptift is in many refpects a very remarkable one, and his appearance bears a strong teftimony to the divine miffion of Chrift and the truth of his religion, I fhall enter pretty much at large into the particu lars of his hiftory, as they are to be found not only in the Gofpel of St. Matthew, but in the other three Evangelifts; collecting from each all the material circumstances of his life, from the time of his first appearance in the wilderness to his murder by Herod.

St. Matthew's account of him is as follows:* In those days came John the Baptift, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of heav en is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Ifaiah, faying, " Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths ftraight. And the fame John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his meat was locufts and wild honey. And there went out to him Jerufalem and all Judea, and all the regions round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan confeffing their fins."

Here then we have a perfon, who appears to have been fent into the world, on purpose to be the precurfor of our

*Matth. iii, 1-6.

Lord, to prepare the way for him and his religion, here called the kingdom of heaven, and as the prophet expresses it, to make his paths ftraight. This is a plain allufion to the custom that prevailed in eaftern countries, of fending meffengers and pioneers to make the ways level and straight before kings and princes and other great men, when they paffed through the country with large retinues, and with great pomp and magnificence. They literally lowered mountains, they raifed valleys, they cut down woods, they removed all obftacles, they cleared away all roughneffes and inequalities, and made every thing smooth and plain and commodious for the great perfonage whom they preceded.

In the fame manner was John the Baptift in a spiritual fenfe to go before the Lord, before the Saviour of the world, to prepare his way, to make his paths ftraight, to remove out of the minds of men every thing that oppofed itself to the admiflion of divine truth, all prejudice, blindness, pride, obftinacy, felf-conceit, vanity, and vain philofophy; but above all, to fubdue and regulate thofe depraved affections, appetites, paffions, and inveterate habits of wickedness, which are the grand obstacles to converfion and the reception of the word of God.

His exhortation therefore was, "Repent ye;" renounce those vices and abominations which at prefent blind your eyes and cloud your understandings, and then you will be able to see the truth and bear the light. This was the method which John took, the inftrument he made ufe of to extirpate out of the minds of his hearers all impediments to the march of the Gof pel, or, as the prophetic language most fublimely expresses it, "He cried aloud to them, Prepare ye the way of the Lord make ftraight the highway for our God. Let every valley be exalted, and every mountain and hill be made low; let the crooked be made ftraight, and the rough places plain; and the glory of the Lord fhall be revealed, and all flesh fhall fee it."

What a magnificent preparation is this for the great founder of our religion! What an exalted idea must it give us of his dignity and importance, to have a forerunner and a har Ifaiah, xl. 3-5.

binger fuch as John to proclaim his approach to the world, and call upon all mankind to attend to him! It was a dif tinction peculiar and appropriate to him. Neither Mofes nor any of the prophets can boast this mark of honour. It was referved for the Son of God, the Meffiah, the Redeemer of mankind, and was well fuited to the transcendant dignity of his perfon, and the grandeur of his design.

Theplace which St. John chofe for the exercife of his miniftry was the wilderness of Judea, where he feems to have lived conftantly from his birth to the time of his preaching; for St. Luke informs us," that he was in the wilderness till the time of his fhewing unto Ifrael." Hear it appears he lived with great aufterity. For he drank neither wine nor ftrong drink; a rule frequently obferved by the Jews, when they devoted themselves to the ftricter exercifes of religion. And his meat was locufts and wild honey: fuch fimple food as the defert afforded to the lowest of its inhabitants. For eating fome forts of locufts was not only permitted by the law of Mofes, but as travellers inform us, is common in the east to this day. The clothing of the baptift was no less fimple than his diet. His raiment, we are told, was of camel's hair with a leathern girdle about his loins; the fame coarse habit which the meaner people ufually wore, and which fometimes even the rich affumed as a garbe of mourning. For this raiment of camel's hair was nothing else than that fack-cloth which we so often read of in Scripture. And as almost every thing of moment was, in those nations and thofe times, expreffed by vifible figns as well as by words, the prophets alfo were generally clothed in this dress, becaufe one principal branch of their office was to call upon men to mourn for their fins. And particularly Elias or Elijah is defcribed in the fecond book of kings as a hairy man,t that is, a man clothed in hair-cloth or fack-cloth (as John was) with a leathern girdle about his loins. Even in outward appearance therefore John was another Elias; but much more fo as hewas endued, according to the angel's prediction, with the Spirit and power of Elias. Both rofe up among the Jews in times of universal corruption; both were authorized to denounce speedy vengeance from Heaven, unless they repented; both executed their commiffion with the fame intrepid * Luke, i. 80. † 2 Kings, i. 3, Luke, i. 17.

zeal; both were perfecuted for it: yet nothing deterred either Elias from accufing Ahab to his face, or John from rebuking Herod in the fame undaunted manner.

But here an apparent difficulty occurs, and the facred writers are charged with making our Lord and St. John flatly contradict each other.

When the Jews fent priests and Levites from Jerufalem to ask John who he was, and particularly whether he was Elias ; his anfwer was, I am not :* But yet our Lord told the Jews that John was the Elias which was to come. How is this contradiction to be reconciled? Without any kind of difficulty. The Jews had an expectation founded on a literal interpretation of the prophet Malachi, ‡ that before the Meffiah came, that very fame Elias or Elijah, who lived and prophefied in the time of Ahab, would rife from the dead and appear again upon earth. John therefore might very truly fay that he was not that Elias. But yet as we have feen that he refembled Elias in many ftriking particulars; as the angel told Zacharias that he should come in the spirit and power of Elias; and as he actually approved himself, in the turn and manner of his life, in his doctrine and his conduct, the very fame man to the latter Jews which the other had been to the former, our Saviour might with equal truth affure his difciples that John was that Elias, whofe coming the prophet Malachi had in a figurative fenfe foretold. This difficulty we fee is fo eafily removed, that I fhould not have thought it worth noticing in this place, had it not been very lately revived with much parade in one of thofe coarfe and blafphemous publications which have been difperfed in this country with fo much activity, in order to diffeminate vulgar infidelity among the lower orders of people, but which are now finking faft into oblivion and contempt. This is one fpecimen of what they call their arguments against Christianity, and from this fpecimen you will judge of all the reft., But

to return.

The abftemioufnefs and rigour of the Baptift's life was calculated to produce very important effects. It was fitted * John, i. 21. + Matth. xi, 14, Malachi, iv. 5.

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