Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

and, as some suppose, in the place where the ark stood, while the Israelites passed over.

S. Did the Jews, who looked upon John as the promised Messiah, interregate him on this head?

T. Yes: and he openly declared that be was not the Messiah; but that this blessed person would come shortly and baptise them with another baptism, namely with the Holy Ghost and with fire.

S. Did Jesus go also among the Tultitudes to Bethabara to be baptised of John?

7. Yes: for when John had prepared the way for his coming and appearance, by preaching and baptising Low for several months; Jesus left his retirement at Nazareth, and came and was also baptised of John in Jorn; that he might perform all the Lighteousness of the law, or whate ver had a tendency to edify the people; and by his public approbation, authorise the baptism of John; that by this rite also he might be initiated as it were to his prophetic office, and Le consecrated to the service of God; and abolish thereby, the ceremony of the Jewish baptism, and more effectually recommend that of his own institution, to which this of the Baptist was an introduction; and more especially, that, in the presence of the Baptists, and all the company resorting to him, he might obtain the testimony of the Holy Ghost, and of his heavenly Father, to confirm John in the belief of his being the promised Massiah, and to induce the people, as soon as he began his ministry, to follow him, and conform to the doctrines he taught.

S. Did John the Baptist know Jesus when he came ?

7 Jolin, by a special revelation, knew that the Messiah was born, and that he was shortly to baptise all men with the Holy Ghost. But he did not know him personally; they having been bred up in different and distant countries. Yet when Jesus approached, John, by an immediate revelation, was assured that this same Jesus was the great person, of whom the world was in such great expectation. And therefore when Jesus presented himself to be baptised, John forbade him, acknowledged his superior dignity, till Jesus satisfied him of the necessity and expediency thereof.

S. Did John baptise him?

T. Yes at which time a most illustrious manifestation is made of God ascending out of the water, and the Blessed Trinity; for the Son of the Spirit of God, in the manner and praying, the heavens are opened, and shape of a dove, descends upon him and the voice of the Father is heard from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleas. ed; and John seeing this bears reccrd that this is the Son of God; and continued to speak of him tọ all people, assuring them that Jesus Christ was the Messiah so often piomised and so greatly desired; and as for himself he frequently and plainly told them that he must decrease in his fame, and be obscured by an infinite surpassing light.

S. What became of Jesus?

7. He immediately withdrew into the wilderness of Judæa, directed thither by the impulse of the Holy Spirit: where, after he had, like Moses, fasted forty days and forty nights, he was tempted of the devil. S. How did the devil tempt Jesus? 7. This proud spirit, taking ad

vantage of his long fasting and hunger, attacked him first with despair, and distrust of God's care of him: but Jesus refuted that blasphemous insinuation with declaring, that God when he pleased, could support and nourish men by extraordinary means. The devil then tried how far he could ensnare him with pride and presumption: he transported him to the top of a pinnacle of the temple, and bade him cast himself down from thence, and try if God would save him from destruction in the fall; for, that there was a promise that the angels should bear him up, so that he should receive no hurt. But Jesus resisted this temptation, by shewing that man must not tempt the providence of God any way, nor venture upon dangers without necessity. When Jesus had foiled him in this second attempt. the tempter at last had recourse to the charms of ambition, a temptation he had practised with too much success ever since the fall of our first parents. Therefore Satan promised to give him all the kingdoms of the world, with all their pomp and splendour, if Jesus would fall down and worship him. This blasphemous insolence and impudence provoked the Lord to exert his divine power, and to command him peremptorily to be gone with this memento, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou

serve.

S. Who is the devil or Satan?

T. As to the import and meaning of the word, it signifies a calumnia. tor, adversary, or accuser; and is used particularly to denote that evil one or chief of the rebel angels, for their pride cast down from heaven, who tempted our first parents; by which, sin and death came into the world, and is at all times the avowed enemy of the servants of God.

S. Where was the desart in which Jesus fasted?

T. It is supposed to be about six hours travel from Jerusalem near the plains of Jericho; and the mountain where the devil represented to our Saviour's view all the glory of the world, is now called the Quarantania.

S. Did John the Baptist follow our Saviour?

T. No: but while Jesus was in the wilderness preparing for his publie ministry, John in his preaching to the multitude declared him to be the true and long expected Messiah.

S. Did not this declaration disturb the state?

T. The Sanhedrim were no sooner informed of the report that the Messiah was come into the world, but they sent a deputation of Pharisees, who believed the transmigration of souls, to enquire of John who he was? To which John explicitly replied, that he was not the Messiah, nor Elias, nor any of the old pro

S. Did the devil obey his com- phets risen from the dead, as their mand?

T. This answer of our Saviour's put him to flight; and Jesus immediately was strengthened in his human nature by heavenly food, brought to him by the holy angels, who came and ministered unto him.

tradition vainly supposed: but that he was that prophet, whom Jere. miah foretold should be, The voice of one crying in the wilderness; make strait the way of the Lord : and that his baptism was only of water, but the efficacy of it de

pended upon one among them, whom they knew not, and whose dignity was so excellent, that he thought himself not worthy to be his servant. And the very next day after the Pharisees had received this answer, John, seeing Jesus coming again towards Bethabara, pointed him out to the multitude, as the true and immaeulate Lamb of God, which taketh away, or is to die for the sins of mankind and then concluded his testimony with a free declaration, that he knew him to be the son of God.

S. Did the people believe this testimony and declaration of John?

T. It does not appear that they as yet gave any great attention to it. But Jesus having left the wilderness, and passed by Jordan, John seeing and crying out to his own disciples, that this was the Lamb of Ged, two of them, Andrew and John, immediately left the Baptist, and followed Jesus. Andrew went and informed, with great joy, his brother Simon, afterwards called Peter, that he had found the Messiah; and he became one of Christ's disciples also. The next day Philip, of Bethsaida, and Bartholomew, of Cana in Galilee, joined themselves to his company.

CHA P. II.

Jesus manifesteth himself to the Jews; clears the Temple of Money-Changers, c. His interview with Nicodemus. Jesus institutes Baptism. John the Baptist's Imprisonment. Jesus converses with a Woman of Sumaria. Fesus at Gana, Nazareth and Capernaum. His cure of a Nobleman's son, the Demoniacs, a Leper and Paralytic.. The Pharasces seek occasion to accuse him Gospel Facts prove! from Jewish and Heathen Authors.

[blocks in formation]

T. A particular accident and the exigencies of some persons gave him a fit opportunity and occasion for it: for soon after he was joined by these five disciples, he, together with them, and his mother, being invited to a in.rriage fast in Cana, a small place in Galilee, not far from Nazareth, the wine not holding out, Jesus immediately by the word of his mouth, turn. ed a large quantity of water into good wine, to the great surprise of the whole company. This public mira

ele both manifested his own divinity, and confirmed his disciples faith.

S. Where did Jesus reside after he came out of the wilderness?

T. At Capernaum, a city built after the Babylonish captivity, on the sea-coast of Galilee, in the Lorders of Zebulon and Nepthalim. Lut tho' it was at that time the metropolis of all Galilee, it is now no more than a village of a few poor fishermen.

S. Did Jesus return from Cana to Capernaum?

T. Yes but it being near the feast of the Passover, which began on the 14th of Nisan, he hasted to

Jerusalem, according to the custom of the Jews.

S. Did he shew himself openly then to Israel?

T. The first act of authority he exercised was to clear the temple of the money-changers, grasiers and hucksters; which he did by driving them out with a scourge.

S. How did these people get admictance into the temple to defile it, by trafficking thercin?

T. You must remember that there were three courts belonging to the temple; the court of the priests, where the altar of incense stood: the court of the Israelites, where the clean Jews, and Gentile proseytes, that were circumcised, and embraced the whole law of Moses, assembled for their devotions; and the court of the Gentiles, where the unclean Jew, and the Gentile, who believed in God, but was not circumcised, were permitted to enter, and worship. Now it was from this last mentioned court that Jesus drove those prophaners of the temple, who, under pretext of having the sacrifices at hand, were permitted by the priests, for their sordid gain, to bring their cattle and other legal sacrifices, and to supply strangers with money at an unreasonable usury.

S. How did the Jews behave on this proceeding of our Saviour?

T. They were very much offended thereat; and though the consciousness of their own guilt made them pay a ready obedience and acquie scence to the command of Jesus, they could not forbear asking by what public authority he did those things? and demanded a sign of this extraordinary commission, he seemed to exercise and act under.

S. Did Jesus satisfy their de mand?

T. He bid them destroy that temple (meaning the temple of his body) and in three days he will raise it up : hereby prophetically foretelling his own death, by the Jews; and his resurrection, by his own power. But the many and amazing proofs he gave of his divine mission, by the miracles he wrought, soon spread his fame a. bout those parts, and among the great people. Among these Nicodemus, a considerable Pharisee, and a mem ber of the Sanhedrim, being much concerned at what he had heard of our Saviour, resolved to know the truth, by conversing with Jesus himself: and to avoid public notice, and the reproach of a too credulous disposi tion, went to him by night, that he might converse freely, and so judge for himself.

S. What passed at this private interview, between Jesus and Nicodemus ?

T. Nicodemus told our Saviour, that the great number of miracles he wrought, left no doubt with him, that he was a master sent from God. But our Saviour after having shewed that we ought not to suffer ourselves to be blinded by the praises of men, informs him that a mere belief of his divinity was not a sufficient qualification to make him his disciple: but that except he was born again of wa. ter and the Holy Ghost, became by baptism a son of God, and admitted to all the spiritual privileges, which were annexed to this holy ordinance, he could not see the kingdom of God; that is, he could not be a true christian here, nor a saint hereafter.Nicodemus, though a chief master in Israel, not being able then to com

prehend it, was much startled at Christ's asserting the necessity of a man's being born again before he could enter into the king. dom of heaven: but our Saviour having proved from scripture the truth of the doctrine of this great article of regeneration, and illus. trated it by the invisible and marvellous effects of the holy Spirit, who breatheth where he pleaseth, like the wind that bloweth where it listeth; whose sound indeed we hear but know not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth; he instantly removed all his doubts, and so illuminated his understanding in other great mysteries of faith, that henceforward he became an eminent convert to the gospel dispensation, a public assertor of its truth, and of of the innocency of the holy author of it, at his death. S. Did Jesus gain no more disci- on the Son hath everlasting life; but ples at Jerusalem ? he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Anon, a place remarkable for springs of water.

S. Were not the followers of John the Baptist jealous on account of this. new baptism being administered by the disciples of Christ?

7. Yes many were persuaded of his Messiahship; and when the passover was ended, followed him about the province of Judea; where he also made many converts, and caused them to be baptised for the remission of their sins.

T. Finding the numbers these drew after them, they complained to John, as though it was an usurpation of his ministry: but he took occasion from a dispute agitated between the Jews and his disciples touching purification, to instruct them very particularly of the person and office of Christ; and made a plain declaration to them, that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, sent from heaven; and that he himself was no more than his fore-runner: and having thus sufficiently proclaimed the Messiah, he closed his commission with these important words, He that believes

S. What became of John the Baptist after this?

T. He baptised no more; but went about as a faithful servant of God, publickly rebukng vice.-And as Herod Antipas was a wibk

S. Did Jesus baptise them? T. No; he commissioned his dis. ed incestuous prince, he was bold eciples to perform that office. nough to go to his court, and to re

S. At what place did Jesus begin buke him for his many enormities; bis baptism?

7. The Evangelists mention no particular place; but it is reasonable to suppose it was at Bethabara, where the baptism of repentance for sins was first administered by John the Baptist.

but more particularly for cohabiting with Herodias, his brother Philip's wife.

S. How did the court relish the Baptist's reproof?

T. Herodias was impatient of his free rebukes on this occasion? and

S. Was John the Baptist removed though Herod paid at first a seeming from Bethabara ? regard to his admonitions, he was 7. Yes: he was now babtising at soon prevailed upon to cast him into

« ForrigeFortsæt »