When John was about thirty years of age, in obedience to the heavenly call, he entered on his ministry, by quitting the hill-country, and going down by the wilderness to the plains of Jordan, by proclaiming the kingdom of God, the near advent of the Messiah, and the necessity of preparing to receive him by laying aside sin and superstition, and by an exercise of universal justice, and lastly, by identifying the person of Jesus as the Messiah. He distributed various rules of righteousness among the different classes that attended his ministry. He said to soldiers, Do violence to no man; he exhorted publicans to avoid exaction, and he taught the people benevolence, Let him that hath two coats impart to him that hath none; and he directed all to Jesus as master and Lord, in manifesting whom his ministry was to cease. His dress was plain, his diet abstemious, and his whole deportment grave, serious, and severe. Multitudes, both of provincials and citizens, flocked to hear him, and all held him as a prophet, and such as renounced their former sinful practices, and believed his predictions concerning the Christ, were baptized by him in the river Jordan, but the pharisees and lawyers are to be excepted, for they rejected the counsel of God against themselves, and were not baptized of him.

While John was employed in preaching and baptizing at Bethabara beyond Jordan, various reports were spread abroad of him, and as the people were in expectation of the Christ, all men mused in their hearts whether he were the person or not, and the Jews of Jerusalem sent a deputation of priests and Levites to him to inquire what account he gave of himself. He fully answered all their questions, and informed them that he was not the Christ, but the person, spoken of by Isaiah, sent before to prepare the way of the Lord, who stood then among them, but who was not then known. This was the day of the manifestation of Jesus.

It is uncertain by what means John obtained an interview with Herod; but, certain it is, he reproved him for living in adultery with Herodias his brother Philip's wife, and his language was that of a man who well understood civil government, for he considered law as supreme in a state, and told the king, It is not lawful

for thee to have thy brother's wife. Herodias was extremely displeased with John for his honest freedom, and determined to destroy him; but though she prevailed on the king to imprison him, yet she could not persuade him to put him to death. Two great obstacles opposed her design. Herod himself was shocked at the thought, for he had observed John, was convinced of his piety and love of justice, he had received pleasure in hearing him, and had done many things which John had advised him to do; and, as there is a dignity in innocence, the qualities of the man had struck him with an awe so deep and solemn, that, tyrant as he was, he could not think of taking away the life of John. Herod also dreaded the resentment of the publick, for he knew the multitude held John as a prophet. Herodias therefore waited for a favourable opportunity to surprise the king into the perpetration of a crime, which neither justice nor policy could approve, and such an one she found on the king's birth-day. The story is at large in the gospel. Dreadful is the condition of a country where any one man is above control, and can do what this absolute king did! Whether he felt, or only pretended to feel great sorrow, the fact was the same, he sent an executioner, and commanded the head of the prophet to be brought, and John was assassinated in the prison.

The murder did not sit easy on the recollection of Herod, for, soon after, when he heard of the fame of Jesus, his conscience exclaimed, It is John, whom I beheaded, he is risen from the dead! certainly, John the Baptist will rise from the dead, and Herod the tetrarch must meet him before an impartial Judge, who will reward or punish each according to the deeds done in the body. In the present case the Judge hath declared the character of John. John was a burning and a shining light. Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.

Jesus, speaking of the ill treatment of John, implies that posterity would do his character justice, and, true it is, the children of wisdom have justified John; but mankind have entertained, according to their various prejudices, very different opinions of that in which his

worth consisted (3). The Jews praise his rectitude, and pity his fate, for John was their countryman, and they hated Herod (4). The Arabians celebrate his abstemiousness, and say providence avenged his death (5). The Catholicks have invented a thousand fables, and placed to his account the origin of monachism, and the working of miracles. They have put him among their gods, consecrated waters, built baptisteries and temples to his honour, assigned him a day in the calendar, called themselves by his name, collected his pretended relicks, adorned them with silver and gold and jewellery, and wholly overlooked that which made John the greatest that had been born of women (6). How deplorable is it, that in the seventeenth century, in the enlightened kingdom of France, such a man as Du Fresne, of extensive literature, of amiable manners, an instructor of all Europe in matters of antiquity, should disgrace his pen by publishing a treatise, to prove that his native city of Amiens was in possession of that precious relick the head of St. John the Baptist : found at Jerusalem, carried to Constantinople, discovered again in the city of Emesa, then transported to Comana, carried again to Constantinople, where the French found it when they took the city, and whence they conveyed it to Amiens, where it is now enshrined in all the odour of Saintship. (7). This example, to which a great number more might be added, may serve to shew Protestants, that whatever honour may be due to such learned Catholicks, and much unquestionably is their due, yet very little dependence ought to be placed upon their critical discernment. They are voluminous collectors of all manner of materials, genuine and forged, and so they serve society but it is the province of Protestants in free countries, where there are no licensers of the press, to sit in judgment on their works, and by selecting the (3) Matt. xi. 19.

(4) Joseph Gorion. Lib. v. cap. 45. Ganz Tzemach David. i. xxv. 2, (5) Sale's Koran, chap. iii. The family of Imram [the father of the Virgin Mary.] Chap. xvii the Night Journey. Note b.

(6) Baron. Annal......Acta Sanct...... Paciaudi Antiq. Christ.

(7) Traite Hstorique du chef de S. Jean Baptiste, avec des preuves et des remarqués par Charles du Fresne, Sr. du Cange. Paris, Cramoisy. 1665.

true from the false, wherever they are blended together, to give mankind just ideas of ecclesiastical history.

It was for just and noble reasons, worthy of a wise and benevolent mind, that Jesus estimated John so highly as to pronounce him as great a man as had been born of women to which he added, the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he. It was a comparison between John and his predecessors, and John and his successors, in framing the new economy. He was greater than his predecessors, because he first intro-. duced a moral assortment of Jews, a kingdom of heaven upon earth he was less than the apostles his successors, because under the direction of Jesus, they brought his plan to perfection, by assorting and incorporating Jews and Gentiles in societies expressly united for the improvement of the mind, the meliorating of the heart, and the regulation of the life, a compact practice of piety, and an uniform an uniform course of virtue, and so extending and establishing personal excellence, tending to unite all mankind in one family of universal love; and he who under God gave a sketch of a design so pure, and so generous, ought to be reputed one of the first characters among mankind. How great then must he be, the latchet of whose shoes this great man was not worthy to unloose?

CHAP. II.

OF THE BAPTISM WHICH JOHN ADMINISTERE D.

WHETHER John baptized by pouring on water, or by bathing in water, is to be determined chiefly, though not wholly, by ascertaining the precise meaning of the word baptize. A linguist determines himself by his own knowledge of the Greek language, and an illiterate man by the best evidence he can obtain from the testimony of others, whom by his condition he is obliged to trust. To the latter it is sufficient to observe, that the word is confessedly Greek, that native Greeks must understand their own language better than foreigners, and that they have always understood the word baptism to signify dipping; and therefore from their first embrac

ing of Christianity to this day they have always baptized, and do yet baptize, by immersion. This is an authority for the meaning of the word baptize infinitely preferable to that of European lexicographers; so that a man, who is obliged to trust human testimony, and who baptizes by immersion, because the Greeks do, understands a Greek word exactly as the Greeks themselves understand it; and in this case the Greeks are unexceptionable guides, and their practice is, in this instance, safe ground of action.

The English translators did not translate the word baptize, and they acted wisely, for there is no one word in the English language, which is an exact counterpart of the Greek word, as the New Testament uses it, containing the precise ideas of the evangelists, neither less nor more. The difficulty, or rather the excellence of the word is, that it contains two ideas inclusive of the whole doctrine of baptism. Baptize is a dyer's word, and signifies to dip, so as to colour. Such as render the word dip, give one true idea, but the word stood for two, and one is wanting in this rendering. This defect is in the German Testament, Matt. iii. 1. In those days came John der tauffer, John the dipper; and the Dutch, in those days came John een dooper, John the Dipper.

The

This is the truth, but it is not the whole truth. The Saxon Testament adds another idea, by naming the administrator John Se Fulluhtere, John the fuller. Islandick language translates baptism skirn (1), scouring. These convey two ideas, cleansing by washing; but neither do these accurately express the two ideas of the Greek baptize; for though repentance in some cases accompanies baptism, as it does prayer, yet not in every case. Jesus was baptized in Jordan, but he was not cleansed from any moral or ceremonial turpitude by it, nor was any repentance mixed with his baptism. Purification by baptism is an accident; it may be, it may not be, it is not essential to baptism. The word then conveys two ideas, the one literal, dipping, the other figurative, colouring, a figure however expressive of a real fact; meaning that John by bathing persons in the river Jordan conferred a character, a moral hue, as dyers by

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(1) Kristni Saga, Hafnia 1773, Skirn, baptism, from skir, clean, skire, to cleanse.