wrath from which the Baptist warned his hearers to flee was temporal, but like other scriptural warnings it also comprehends the final and unalterable decision of the Day of Judgment.

The opponents of Christianity are pleased to assume as an incontrovertible truth, that Repentance and amendment of life must restore a sinner to the Divine favour; yet reasoning can establish no connection between the two; experience as far as it goes tends to prove, that repentance cannot remove the effects of past transgression, and this conjecture, for it is no more, is contradicted by the natural feelings of mankind, who, under every form of religion savage or civilized, have endeavoured by sacrifices, often even of human victims, to appease an offended Deity, whom conscience represented as an object not of love but of fear. Historians and travellers of all ages prove an universal persuasion, handed down no doubt from tradition, that without shedding of blood there is no remission'. However we may speculate, God alone can determine what He will accept as a satisfaction for the violation of His laws. If Repentance could expiate our transgressions, surely the doctrine would have been revealed by him who came on purpose to preach Repentance. But though he enjoins it as an indispensable duty, he never represents it as meriting pardon, but points to the Lamb of God as taking away the sin of the world. "Those that can imagine the removal of the guilt of the least sin feasible by the choicest and most religious of their own works, never as yet knew God truly, nor themselves, nor their sins; they never understood the fiery strictness of the Law, nor the spirituality of the Gospel.... In Christ alone is that Fountain that is opened for sin and uncleanness. . . . It is from His crucified side that there must issue both Blood to expiate,

1 See Bp. Porteus's Lectures on St. Matthew, vol. i. p. 84.

and Water to cleanse our impieties." Most professors, in all their works of repentance, sorrow, and humiliation, are too, too apt secretly to think that they make God some amends for their sins. But this conception is most dangerous to the soul, and dishonourable to God, as being absolutely and diametrically opposite to the tenor of the Gospel, for it causes us, while we acknowledge a Christ, tacitly to deny a Saviour. And herein is the art and policy of the Devil seen, who will keep back the sinner as long as he can from the duties of repentance and humiliation, and when he can do this no longer, he will endeavour to make him trust and confide in them. But let this persuasion still remain fixed upon our spirits, that repentance was enjoined the sinner as a duty, not as a recompense, and that the most we can do for God, cannot countervail the least we have done against Him. Nothing can cleanse the soul but that Blood that redeemed the soul; and the only repentance that deserves the name, is itself one of the spiritual gifts which Jesus hath been exalted to the right hand of the Father to bestow.

m South's Sermon on 1 John iii. 3.

PART II.

16. Jesus comes to John for Baptism. Matt. iii. Mark i. Luke iii.

WHEN the national expectation had been sufficiently raised by John, this superior Teacher, Whom he came to announce, suddenly offered Himself for Baptism. Jesus was then beginning to be about thirty years of age; we may then conclude, that, as if born in the spring He would have completed that period at the passover of A.D. 27, April 9, He was baptized early in the same year. Being free from sin, He could not repent, and needed no reformation. Notwithstanding, He thought fit to honour the Baptism of John as a divine institution; and though in Himself of immaculate purity, deriving no taint from Adam, it might become Him, as the representative of his corrupt race, to be baptized as well as circumcised. John, conscious both of the purity of character and preeminent dignity of Jesus, hesitated to perform an office, which seemed to mark superiority; nor did he consent, till admonished that it was an ordinance which it became them both to fulfil. The reason has not been recorded, but it may be considered as a formal consecration of the Messiah to His office, in the same manner as, under the ancient dispensation, the high-priest required ablution, previous to his inauguration. When John afterwards announced Him to his disciples as the Lamb of God, he declares that he knew Him not till the Spirit pointed Him out as such, by descending and remaining on Him. Some, taking the expression in the strictest sense, suppose, that, though they were relations, and their mothers friends, it was arranged by Divine Providence that they should have no

personal acquaintance, that the Baptist's testimony might be placed beyond suspicion. Yet, upon this supposition, it is not easy to conceive why he should have hesitated to baptize Him, as the sign was given afterwards, and Jesus must have appeared to him as requiring baptism as much as any other Israelite. The apparent dissonance between the Evangelists Matthew and John may be satisfactorily reconciled, by distinguishing between knowing the person and the office. Thus the Jews knew Jesus as the reputed Nazarene, the son of Joseph, but not as the Christ; Jesus Himself said afterwards, (John xiv. 9.) Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? and in the same manner the Baptist might know Jesus, and know Him so well as to be convinced that, from His moral excellence, He needed not to be baptized, and bring forth fruits of repentance, and yet not be aware that He was born to be King of the Jews. As Jesus went up straightway from the river, He prayed, probably for the influence of the Spirit to render His ministry acceptable and efficacious, when the heavens were opened; which seems to mean, that the glory, or bright light, which usually accompanied a manifestation of the Deity, appeared, and the Holy Spirit descended, as it were a Dove, while a Voice proclaimed, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. Thus, in the Baptism of our great High Priest, there was an exhibition to the senses of the Three Persons in the ever-blessed Trinity, each acting according to the economy of the scheme of Redemption, the Father appointing the Son to be Mediator, the Son accepting the appointment, and the Holy Spirit anointing Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows, and so qualifying Him for the work He had undertaken. It seems to be the general opinion, that a Dove actually appeared, but some refer the resemblance not to the bird itself, but its fluttering motion, and suppose it to have been a lambent flame, such as settled on the Apostles on the day

of Pentecost.

The Spirit of the Lord rested henceforth upon His human nature in all His fulness, being not given to Him by measure, as to His apostles, to whom His gifts were divided. This Voice was again repeated at the Transfiguration, and, for the third time, at the close of His ministry, after He had been proclaimed the Christ by the multitude, when for their sakes, to confirm their faith, He prayed in their hearing, Father, glorify Thy Name. Thus was our Lord consecrated to His high office, by one who was honoured by the whole nation; and God confirmed the appointment, I apprehend, in the presence of the Baptist alone; for it does not seem likely that such a manifestation should have been vouchsafed to the multitude, especially as Jesus afterwards tells the Jews that they had not heard His Father's voice.

17. The Temptation. Matt. iv. Mark i. Luke iii.

An interval of solitary Meditation was a suitable preparation for the duties of His laborious, painful, and difficult course. The Spirit therefore impelled the beloved Son of God to withdraw into the desert; and here, like Moses previous to his receiving the Law, and Elijah when called upon to restore it, He endured a fast of forty days among wild animals, far from the haunts of men.. Fasting and Prayer, which in the Bible are so often found united, have been dissevered in modern times, and it was no doubt the abuse of the former that led to its disuse. Its beneficial moral effect, however, when properly regulated, and its suitability to seasons of private or public calamity, cannot be denied; and we may learn from instances in the life of our great Example, and from the fact that the Christians at Antioch, (Acts xiii. 2.) before they sent forth the first Mission, fasted as well as prayed, that the two would be the