A LIFE OF CHRIST. (Continued from p. 417.) THE "beloved disciple" says, "the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." We are, therefore, not now under the law of Moses, but under grace; being justified freely through the grace of Christ and his redemption, that we may serve God in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. As the time approached for Jesus, who had hitherto fulfilled the humble duties of a village carpenter, to take upon him the office of the apostle of a new profession,-of the Great Shepherd and Bishop of souls,-God sent his messenger before his face to prepare his way. The Pharisees slew old Zacharias between the porch and the altar for affirming constantly that the Christ was born of a virgin. And the Ascalonite, not satisfied with the innocent blood shed at Bethlehem, commenced a similar butchery in the hill country. To preserve the life of her infant, the aged Elizabeth fled into the desert of Apummini, which lies between Jerusalem and Jericho, a district infamous for murders and robberies, as our Saviour himself affirms.1 Here St. John is said to have dwelt in the identical cave which sheltered Elijah when he was fed by ravens near the brook Cherith; and in whose spirit and power he now came to preach repentance. About forty days after his flight into the wilderness, Elizabeth died, and left her son an orphan, exposed to all the cruel machinations of Herod, and the dangers of solitude; but," when father and mother forsake us, then the Lord taketh us up." According to the tradition of the Greeks, God deputed an angel to be his nourisher and guardian as he had formerly done to Ishmael, who dwelt in the wilderness, and to Elias, when he fled from the rage of Ahab; so to this child, who came in the spirit of Elias; to make demonstration that there can be no want where God undertakes the care and provision." Accordingly, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod Antipas the son of Herod the Great was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip was tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, and Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. In obedience to the divine command he left the desert, crossed the Jordan, and entered into the country on the south bank of that river, baptizing all who came to him with the baptism of repentance, as a necessary preliminary for the remission of sins; for "all flesh shall see the salvation of God." His cry was, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" and, in expressly the same words did our Lord begin his ministry upon the cessation of the Baptist's mission. Both the Angel of the new covenant and his herald proclaimed the approach of the same kingdom, and the necessity of repentance and reformation of life for admission into it. In both the ministry was the same in kind, the Baptist's being merely prior to our Lord's in the order of time. So strong was the expectation at this time of the advent of him who should deliver Israel, that the impression was general, that the Baptist was the Messiah, and multitudes flocked to him and were baptized, confessing their sins. The hypocritical generation of vipers listened to his discourses and exhortations with an attention which this man of God would not have received under other circumstances. His hearers made frequent and anxious inquiries whether or not he were the Christ, and, when he constantly affirmed that he was not, they demanded why he ventured to baptize if he were not either the Christ or Elias, or that prophet, which is consistent with the Jewish tradition, " that when the Messiah would come, there should be so many proselytes, that they could not be circumcised but should be baptized." This shows how much the minds of the people were excited with the expectation of the coming of the Messiah, whom John assured them would " baptize them with the Holy Ghost and with fire," and of whom he was the herald or harbinger. "From this time forward, viz., from the days of John the Baptist, the kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and the violent took it by force.' For now the Gospel began to dawn, and John was like the morning star, or the blushings springing from the windows of the east, foretelling the approach of the Sun of Righteousuess, And St. John the Baptist laid the first rough, hard, and unhewn stone of this building in mortification, self-denial, and doing violence to our natural affections; so it was continued by the master builder himself, who propounded the glories of the crown of the heavenly kingdom to them only who should climb the cross to reach it." John's dress was significant; the skins and hair of unclean beasts showed man's degenerate and fallen nature; and the girdle was an emblem of the subjection or mortification of the body recommended by St. Paul, "having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness." John's rough habit and austere manner of life was part and parcel of the office for which he was specially designated and furnished in the spirit and power of Elias. His birth and whole life were miraculous; and, in his death, he was a martyr. Malachi calls him a messenger. Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me and the LORD whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the Messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in ;2 and Isaiah styles him the voice of one crying in the wilderness.' The Baptist preceded our Lord, but, the ministry of both was the same; and Christ began his when John's came virtually to an end by his imprisonment. They both proclaimed the near approach of the kingdom of heaven or the gospel dispensation, which did not appear in point of fact till the day of Pentecost, when the Apostles were baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire. 66 The cry of John to repentance, to lay aside their weighty ceremonies, to offer their hearts as living sacrifices, to change their painful sacrament which had distinguished their nation for two thousand years, and to persuade them to wash in Jordan and be clean, seemed to them to be blasphemy against Moses and against God. The voice of his doctrine and the purity of his life, however, attracted the people from Jerusalem, and all the region round about; even the proud Pharisees and the sceptical Sadducees went out to him, actuated perhaps more by 1 Great Exemplar, sect. viii. 5. 2 Malachi, iii. 1. ostentation and the love of popularity, than with any view of either confessing or forsaking their sins. Now, though Jesus did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; yet, the iniquity of us all, the sins of many, were laid upon him, he was made sin for us, and, therefore, he came to John's baptism to perform the ablution of sinners. Notwithstanding their relationship and the miraculous nature of their births, yet, they had never met, and were perfect strangers to each other; but, God gave the Baptist a sign by which he should know the Messiah. 66 Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is He who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." John, being a prophet, was made acquainted by inspiration with the quality of Jesus when he saw him coming; and at first refused to baptize his Lord, knowing that he had no need of repentance; but, Jesus explained to him that it was necessary for the fulfilment of all righteousness. John was baptizing at Bethabara which once before witnessed the salvation of Israel in the total overthrow of the Midianites by the sword of the Lord and of Gideon; and now at the same place salvation was brought not only to Israel, but to all the world by the spiritual sword of the Son of Man. In the fulfilment of all righteousness the Second Adam came to John's baptism, when he, who knew no sin, was made sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Christ became our righteousness by satisfying the justice of God in our nature and in our stead, and thereby purchasing for us the forgiveness of sins. We put on Christ in our baptism; and the water baptism of John was typical of the spiritual unction the baptism of the Spirit in that holy sacrament of the Christian Church. After John had poured the water of Jordan on the sacred head of our Saviour, the Holy Spirit was poured on him from heaven, and rested on him, and continued with him without measure. Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the Heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. The descent of the Holy Spirit pointed out the office of Christ to the Baptist as him who should baptize with the Holy Ghost. "This was the inauguration and proclamation of the Messiah, when he began to be the great prophet of the new covenant. And this was the greatest meeting that ever was upon earth, when the whole cabinet of the mysterious Trinity was opened and shown, as much as the capacities of our present imperfections will permit: the Second Person in the veil of humanity; the Third in the shape or with the motion of a dove; but the First kept his primitive state : and, as to the Israelites, he gave notice by way of caution, Ye saw no shape, but ye heard a VOICE;' so now also God the Father gave testimony to his Holy Son, and appeared only in a VOICE, without any visible representment." 2 In the delivery of the law at Sinai the Israelites saw no similitude, but only heard a VOICE, which was a gracious reservation, as no man can see God and live; but more especially lest the Israelites should have 1 Luke iii. 21, 22; Mark i. 9-11; Matt. iii. 16-17. made a graven image, or some representation of the "semblance," and have worshipped it. "Take heed, for ye saw NO SHAPE, but ye heard a VOICE;" therefore it is utterly unlawful to make any pictures or images purporting to resemble God the Father, and they are expressly forbidden in Scripture; but our Saviour, being really a man, his picture does not come within this prohibition. "I think, however," says Leslie, "that such pictures of Christ do rather depress and lessen our notion even of his humanity, which is not adorable, but upon the account of his hypostatical union with the divinity, which cannot be expressed in a picture." The Church of Rome, however, represents God the Father in the character and in the similitude of an old man! "1 Besides this glorious Theophany, or wonderful manifestation of the Holy Trinity, there was also a complete and satisfactory attestation of our Lord's divinity, and of the authority with which he preached, by his external commission to the work of the evangelical ministry, an honour which no man is allowed to take on himself without such an authoritative call as Aaron received from Moses who was authorized to call him. We read that "Aaron was separated, that he should sanctify the most holy things, he and his sons for ever, to burn incense before the Lord, to minister unto him, and to bless in his name for ever.' And the manner of this separation is minutely described in the twentyeighth chapter of Exodus, where God commanded Moses to take Aaron and his sons from among the people, and consecrate them with certain ceremonies, and to robe them in holy garments, to minister to God in the priest's office. For any man, who was not of the seed of Aaron, to invade or assume the office for which Aaron and his sons were separated and consecrated, was death, as we learn from the fate of Korah and his company, besides many other examples. This dreadful punishment was for a memorial, that no stranger, who is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense (or sacrifice) before the Lord; and Jude warns us that the sin for which Korah and his company were swallowed up alive may be committed, and we see it daily committed before our eyes in the Christian church. Christ's holiness and fitness for the sacerdotal office will not be disputed by any Christian man, yet he waited till the full canonical age of thirty before he began to preach, and did not even then take the office upon himself till he was audibly and visibly called after his baptism in Jordan, in the sight and hearing of the assembled multitudes. Moses, who was a type of Christ, by divine command called and consecrated Aaron to the priesthood; but here was a greater than Moses or Aaron, in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily, who did not take on himself the new priesthood, after the order of Melchisedeck, till he was anointed with the oil of gladness, and publicly sent to preach the Gospel. He received the kingdom from the Father, and he sent others in the same manner and with the same power as he himself was sent at this time. Our Lord neither had power, nor assumed any, till after his anointing by the Holy Spirit: hence, the apostle's argument that he did not glorify himself to be made an high priest, but he that said unto him (glorified him by saying), "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee thou art -- 11 Chron. xxiii. 13. a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedeck." His baptism was a necessary prelude to his consecration to the priesthood, which was, of course, the visible descent of the Holy Spirit. The consecration of Aaron was the type of our Saviour's, whose baptism supplied the legal ablution; and as Moses was commanded to consecrate Aaron, and to adorn his person with robes of beauty and of holiness, and to anoint him with oil, so John, the greatest of all the prophets, was appointed to baptize the Great Christian High Priest, whose robe of essential innocence and spotless purity supplied more appropriately the Aaronical robes, and the presence of the Holy Spirit compensated for the holy oil, which was a type of the gifts and graces of the spiritual unction. The call of God to the priesthood has always been outward, and by those to whom he has given authority to call and send labourers into his vineyard. No man ought, therefore, to take this sacred office on himself of standing and mediating, or interceding, betwixt God and man in divine matters, for it is not any internal holiness, which may deceive both the party himself and also the people, nor the call of the people, but the designation of those who have the same authority to call labourers into the vineyard, as Moses had to consecrate Aaron, or Christ, to say to his disciples, "Follow me." And Moses the type, and Christ the antitype, received their authority to call Aaron and the apostles immediately from God; because a sacerdotal qualification, that is, an outward call and commission, is requisite to authorize a man to execute any priestly or ministerial act of religion. Here, then, on the banks of the Jordan, Christ was called of God, and anointed by the Holy Spirit, to be our great High Priest, who was a man touched with our infirmities, and tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin-after which he began to preach. The priesthood was now to be changed, and another priest to arise after the order of Melchisedeck, who should not be of the tribe of Levi, nor called after the order of Aaron, and who should bring the figurative economy of the law to perfection under the Gospel. The Christian priesthood is, therefore, a divine institution which had its beginning from God himself who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and who likewise appointed the manner of its transmission to all future ages of the world. The Jewish 1 church commenced with the spiritual covenant made with Abraham as the father of all believers to the end of the world, and with his spiritual children as heirs of his faith; for he is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, "seeing it is one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith." Although the priesthood was changed, yet the church remained the same in substance under the Gospel as it had been under the law, and before its delivery; and Abraham is still the father of the faithful. Believers under the Gospel are as much his children as his natural descendants were under the law. Hence, St. Peter says Christians “ are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that they should show forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.' He also says that before our conversion to Christianity we were not a people, but are now," by "2 |
