138

EXPECTATION OF THE MESSIAH.

BOOK I.

exclude from his followers, justice; on the soldiery humanity, and abstinence from all unnecessary violence and pillage. These general denunciations against the vices of the age, and the indiscriminate enforcement of a higher moral and religious standard, though they might gall the consciences of individuals, or wound the pride of the different sects; yet, as clashing with no national prejudice, would excite no hostility, which could be openly avowed; while the fearless and impartial language of condemnation was certain to secure the wonder, the respect, the veneration, of the populace.

But that which no doubt drew the whole population Expectation in such crowds to the desert shores of the

Jordan, was the mysterious yet distinct assertion, that the “kingdom of Heaven was at hand” t. that kingdom of which the belief was as universal as of the personal coming of the Messiah ; and as variously coloured by the disposition and temperament of every class and individual, as the character of the sovereign who was thus to assume dominion. All anticipated the establishment of an earthly sovereignty, but its approach thrilled the popular bosom with mingled emotions. The very prophecy which announced the previous appearance of Elijah, spoke of the “great and dreadful .

of the Messiah.

CHAP. III.

COMING OF THE MESSIAH.

139

day of the Lord," and, as has been said, according to the current belief, fearful calamities were to precede the glorious days of the Messiah: nor was it till after a dark period of trial, that the children of Abraham, as the prerogative of their birth, the sons of God," the inheritors of his kingdoin, were to emerge from their obscurity; their theocracy to be re-established in its new and more enduring form; the dead, at least those

1 who were to share in the first resurrection, their own ancestors, were to rise; the solemn judgement was to be held ; the hostile nations were to be thrust down to hell; and those only of the Gentiles, who should become proselytes to Judaism, were to be admitted to this earthly paradisiacal state.

X

140

LANGUAGE OF THE BAPTIST.

BOOK I.

The language of the Baptist at once fell in with and Mysterious opposed the popular feeling ; at one instant it the Baptist. raised, at the next it crossed their hopes. He announced the necessity of a complete moral change, while he repudiated the claims of those who rested their sole title to the favours of God on their descent from the chosen race, for “God even of tủe stones could raise up children to Abraham.” But, on the other hand, he proclaimed the immediate, the instant coming of the Messiah; and on the nature of the kingdom, though he might deviate from the ordinary language, in expressly intimating that the final separation would be made not on national but moral grounds-that the bad and good, even of the race of Israel, were to be doomed according to their wickedness or virtue—yet there was nothing which interfered with the prevailing belief in the personal temporal reign of the Son of David.

The course of our History will show how slowly Christianity attained the purely moral and spiritual notion of the change to be wrought by the coming of Christ, and how perpetually this inveterate Judaism has revived in the Christian Church, where, in days of excitement, the old Jewish tenet of the personal reign of the Messiah

CHAP. III.

DEPUTATION OF THE PRIESTHOOD.

141

has filled the mind of the enthusiast. Nor were the Jews likely to be more embarrassed than mankind in general by the demand of high moral qualifications; for while one part would look on their own state with perfect complacency and satisfaction, another would expect to obtain from Heaven, without much effort or exertion on their own part, that which Heaven required. God who intended to make them happy would first make them virtuous.

Such was the general excitement at the appearance, the teaching, and the baptizing of John. So Deputation great was the influence which he had obtained of the priestthroughout the country, that, as we shall cerning the speedily see, a formal deputation from the of John. national authorities was commissioned to inquire into his pretensions, and to ascertain whether be limited himself to those of a prophet, or laid claim to the higher title of “ the Christ.” And the deep hold which he had taken upon the popular feeling is strongly indicated by the fact, that the rulers did not dare, on the occasion of a question proposed to them at a much later period, by Jesus, openly to deny the prophetic mission of John, which was not merely generally acknowledged, but even zealously asserted by the people.

How long the preaching of John had lasted before the descent of the Son of Mary to the shores of the Jordan, rests on somewhat uncertain evidence. We can decide with as little confidence on some other more interesting questions. There is no precise information, whether any or what degree of intercourse had been kept up between the family of Zachariah and that of Joseph, who resided at a considerable distance from

, Matt, iii. 13-17; Mark i. 9, 11; Luke iii. 21, 23 ; John i. 15, 18.

142

JOHN'S AVOWED INFERIORITY.

BOOK I.

each other, and were not likely to meet, unless at the periodical feasts ; nor how far John might be previously acquainted with the person of Jesus. But it is undoubtedly a remarkable fact in the history of Christianity, that from the very first appearance of Jesus on the shores of the Jordan, unquestionably before He had displayed his powers, or openly asserted his title to the higher place, John should invariably retain his humbler Avowed in relative position. Such was his uniform lan

guage from the commencement of his career;

such it continued to the end. Yet at this period the power and influence of John over the public mind were at their height; Jesus, humanly speaking, was but an unknown and undistinguished youth, whose qualifications to maintain the higher character were as yet untried. John, however, cedes at once the first place: in the strongest language a he declares himself immeasurably inferior to him, who stood among the crowd, unmarked and unregarded; whatever his own claims, whatever the effects of his initiatory rite, Jesus

feriority of John to Jesus.

а

· The discrepancies between the dif- | self, may have varied during different ferent Evangelists as to the language of passages of his own life. If the whole John, on several occasions, with regard had been more distinct and systematic, to Jesus, appear to me characteristic it would be more liable, according to of the dim and awe-struck state of the my judgement, to suspicion. The acgeneral mind, which would extend to count of John in Josephus is just as the remembrance and the faithful record his character would be likely to appear of such incidents. It is assumed, Ito a writer of the disposition and in think without warrant, that John the situation of the Jewish historian. himselt must have had a distinct or a The remarkable expression, “whose definite notion of the Messiahship of shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unJesus : he may have applied some of loose,” is illustrated by a passage in the prophetic or popular sayings sup- the Talmud. (Tract. Kidduschin, xxii. posed to have reference to the Messiah, 2.) “ Every office a servant will do without any precise notion of their for his master, a scholar should permeaning; and his conception of the form for his teacher, excepting loosing Messiah's character, and of Jesus him- his sandal thong."