of what we read in Gen. xii. 5, concerning faithful Abraham and his family,-"They went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came." Oh that the faith of Abraham and of Joseph may be ours throughout our earthly pilgrimage! "Did we but look upon the world as our Egypt, the place of our bondage and banishment, and heaven only as our Canaan, our home, our rest, we should as readily arise, and depart | thither, when we are called for, as Joseph did out of Egypt." Being warned of God in a dream. -This took place after Joseph had quitted Egypt, and was a farther intimation of the divine pleasure for the direction of his steps. Does it appear surprising that full instructions were not given to him at first, when the angel bade him arise, and depart? This is not really strange. God mercifully leads his people in the right way, from one stage of their progress to another; and he requires that they shall continually wait upon him, in the way of faith, of prayer, and of duty, in order to be guided and protected, from time to time, according to their circumstances and their need. Being warned-he turned aside.God may sometimes see fit to bring his people into positions of difficulty or danger; but he never does so without a cause, or unless it be, in some way or other, good for them to be thus afflicted. He rather withdraws them from needless danger;and he teaches them not to rush into it of their own accord. He shall be called a Nazarene.-It was for our sake that the blessed Redeemer endured reproach, as well as pain. Let us not be unwilling to endure endure unmerited reproach and scorn, for his name's sake, if we should at any time be exposed to sufferings of this kind. "Let us go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing city; but we seek one to come." Heb. xiii. 13, 14. HYMN. (Job viii. 11-22.) The rush may rise where waters flow, So is the sinner's hope cut off; Or, if it transient rise, From ev'ry breath that flies. His house, and all its props, decay ; The tott'ring frame gives way. Fair, in his garden, to the sun His boughs with verdure smile; And, deeply fix'd, his spreading roots Unshaken stand awhile. But forth the sentence flies from Heaven, Lo! this the joy of wicked men, Who Heav'n's high laws despise; They quickly fall, and in their room, As quickly others rise. But for the just, with gracious care, God will his power employ; S 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. 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: P 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 3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, "The voice of one cry-worthy to bear: 'he shall baping in the wilderness, Prepare tize you with the Holy Ghost, ye the way of the Lord, make and with fire: his paths straight. e 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? 8 Bring forth therefore || fruits meet for repentance: 9 And think not to say with 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.- Mark i. 6. g2 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. 26. 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. 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 something as a public crier,-speaking, aloud, by authority, and inviting | to "one like the Son of Man." general attention, like a herald. He was, indeed, a herald of the King of kings. 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. It was a mountainous 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. 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 Dan. ii. 44; vii. 13, 14. In the apocryphal book of Wisdom (x. 10), we find the expression "kingdom of God;" and in later Jewish writings, the terms "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" are common. 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 being part of his description of the 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 preci Theophilus. The application of the prophecy which the Evangelist quotes appears obvious and simple. I suppose it involves no peculiar difficulty.pices to be digged down, and the hollows Reader. It is taken from the pro- to be filled up; and, at a great exphecies of Isaiah, or as the name is pense, she made a shorter and more here given, in the Greek form, expeditious passage, which, to this Esaias (xl. 3). In its primary sense, day, is called The Road of Semirait refers to the return of the Jews to mis. Afterwards, she went into Pertheir own country after their libera- sia, and all the other countries of tion by the king of Persia. In its Asia subject to her dominion; and, secondary and farther signification, wherever she went, she ordered the -equally according to the prophetic mountains and precipices to be levelled, design of the Holy Spirit,-it points raised causeways in the plain country, to John the Baptist, in his work of and, at a great expense, made the preparing the Jews to receive Christ, roads passable." 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 passage? 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 extract 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 grovelling minds of the carnal and thoughtless, 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); | tration of a proselyte by another -and our blessed Lord said expressly, concerning John, "This is Elias which was to come." Mat. xi. 14. Reader. You must not be surprised 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 person, had not previously existed, and that nothing more than ceremonial ablutions-the act of the individuals themselves-had been in use. -Perhaps there are no sufficient 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 |