SERMON III.

JOHN THE BAPTIST.

MATTHEW XI. 11.

VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU, AMONG THEM THAT ARE BORN OF WOMEN, THERE HATH

NOT RISEN A GREATER THAN JOHN THE BAPTIST; NOTWITHSTANDING, HE THAT IS LEAST IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS GREATER THAN HE.

WHAT a testimony was this for a man to receive from the Saviour of the world! He is the Judge of character, himself the perfect Man. They who love and serve him have this assurance, that he appreciates and loves every thing in them which is praiseworthy. There is no such honor and happiness as to have the approbation and commendation of Jesus Christ.

As we read this testimony of Christ respecting John, we naturally think of Abraham, and Moses, and Samuel, and David, and Solomon, and Elijah, and Isaiah, seven men who, in their respective classes of character and talent, have no equals in history. But of them, and of all others up to that time, the Saviour says there had not risen a greater than

John the Baptist. Not merely was he the greatest of Prophets, as he certainly was, in being so long predicted and expected; in being the herald of Christ; and in his remarkable knowledge of the Saviour, as expressed in his testimony concerning him; but Christ prefers him to an equality with all who ever lived. He might not, perhaps, write such lyrics as David, or utter such strains of finished eloquence as Isaiah, or possess the quick sagacity of Solomon ; but, taking him altogether, the Saviour says he had never had his superior among men. For, though another evangelist represents Christ as speaking of John as the greatest prophet, we must believe that there were intrinsic elements in his character which made him so, in addition to the outward circumstances of his mission. As a man, not merely as a prophet, no one had been greater than he.

With such brief notices of him as we find in the New Testament, we cannot fully analyze his character and determine in what respects, or for what reasons, in particular, he was equal to any mere man. But we know enough to see that he was truly great.

I. JOHN THE BAPTIST WAS MARKED BY THE GREAT STRENGTH OF HIS NATURAL FACULTIES, SHOWING ITSELF IN ENERGETIC, INTREPID WORDS AND CONDUCT.

It is said of him, " And the child grew, and waxed

strong in spirit, and was in the desert until his showing unto Israel."

It is interesting to notice, in the Scripture biographies, what part solitude had in the formation of character. Abraham goes forth from his home, and dwells in a strange land, a pilgrim and sojourner. Thus his faith grew by living alone with God, and he became the father of all them that believe. Jacob pursues a lonely journey on foot, and sleeps in the field all night; heaven is opened to him, and he vows a vow which, with the vision, decides his whole future life. Moses is a shepherd; he leads his flock to the back side of the desert, and there he comes to Horeb, and sees the burning bush, and, by his solitary meditations and communion with God, is prepared for his eventful work. Elijah was the son of the desert. David had great experience of caves, and dens, and holes in the rock. David's Son and David's Lord must be driven into the wilderness, and be with wild beasts before he can preach. Four, at least, of the first apostles were taken from the solitary and contemplative employment of fishers; and John the Baptist lived in the wilds of Judea, on the locust and the wild honey, covered only with the shaggy cloth of camel's hair, so different from any fabric known to us by that name, his waist girded by no belt from Tyre, or scarf from Persia, but with a leathern thong.

There, in those wilds, from the commencement of

his youth till near the age of thirty, his parents, who were well stricken in years before he was born, being, in all probability, dead, he lived apart from the busy paths of men, not, perhaps, as a hermit, for there were scattered dwellings in that wilderness. He was, however, conversant with the rough face of Nature, in her tangled thickets, dark, pathless woods, overhanging cliffs, swollen streams, diversified, all, with spring-tide beauty, and summer's glory, and autumn's melancholy, and winter's rage; his courage nurtured by darkness and storms, perhaps by conflicts with wild beasts, and by the solemn awe with which solitude and stillness sometimes oppress even the bravest spirit.

Three things, of great importance in his future work, were secured by this solitary life.

He was delivered from the superstitions and corrupting influence of the ecclesiastical rulers, and the sad degeneracy of the times.

He had the best opportunities for religious improvement. He was not idle in that desert; for he, no doubt, spent much time in communion with God

not, perhaps, with frequent enjoyment of visions and dreams, for they, in too great a proportion, would prevent the most vigorous growth of faith; but in fastings, and watchings, and prayers. This prepared him for his work of calling on men to repent. And once more,

His sudden appearance from the desert, with all the marks and influences of an austere life, gave him a power over the popular mind, which he could not have had if he had risen up among those who had been connected with him from childhood. So that he came to the people with all the boldness and authority of a superior being, who had talked with God more than with men.

He came forth, not like the soft, luxurious teachers of his time, nor clothed as they who are in kings' palaces; nor with a supple, pliant spirit a reed shaken by the wind. The melancholy which hunger brings with it, as in the case of Elijah, he had overcome by an austere mode of life, so that, probably, no man was ever more indifferent and superior to the body than he. His parents could not have failed to tell him of the prophecies which accompanied his birth; his mind must have been filled with premonitions and forecastings of the great work to which he was destined, as the greatest of reformers, and the Spirit of God endued him with a disposition and with feelings which fitted him to be a son of thunder to that corrupt age. Every word of his, even to the last, is marked with decision and energy, to which we scarce find a parallel, while the service he performed required an intrepidity of spirit which is never associated but with the noblest nature.