DISSERTATION V.

On the ministry of John the Baptist.

OF the two questions, which naturally belong to the con

sideration of this subject, first, the question of the entire duration of the ministry of John-and secondly, that of the order or distribution of its parts-the former has been in a great measure anticipated. The entire duration of the ministry of John was necessarily comprehended between the feast of Tabernacles, when we supposed it to have begun, and the day of his imprisonment-both in the thirteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar.

The precise day of the imprisonment of the Baptist may justly be regarded as unknown, and as likely always to be so; yet we have seen sufficient reason to believe that it must have fallen out sometime before the midsummer of A. U. 780. in the last half of Tiberius' thirteentha; and it may be shewn hereafterb that, whensoever it fell, it fell on some day between the Passover, John ii. 13. and the feast. of Pentecost, next after that; which being the case, even the day itself may not improbably be conjectured.

The ministry of John being entirely preparatory to the ministry of Jesus Christ, the close of the one is either virtually or actually the commencement of the other; and, conversely, the commencement of the one determines either virtually or actually the close of the other. Now the ministry of Jesus Christ had a twofold commencement-once in Judæa, at the Passover, John ii. 13. before the imprisonment of John, and again in Galilee, after it; at the former of which the ministry of John was over virtually, and at the latter, it was over actually. Answerable to this twofold beginning, the ministry of Christ had a twofold conclusion

Vol. i. Diss. viii. Appendix.

b Dissert. vii.

also one, at the Passover in the sixteenth of Tiberius, when he suffered-and another, on the day of the ascension, before which he was not finally removed into heaven. The interval between these two, which was a period of forty-one days, was similarly employed, according to St. Luke, with the whole course of his ministry preceding; viz. in shewing himself to the Apostles, and telling them of the things which concerned the kingdom of Gode: and, consequently, though the personal ministry of Christ, after his death and resurrection, until his reception into heaven, might be strictly confined to his own disciples, and no longer transacted in public, yet, as regards this one particular, the preparation for the future dispensation of the Gospel, which had always been its object before-it must be considered as the same in kind still.

Between the first beginning and the first termination of his ministry, there was an interval of exactly three yearsand between the second beginning and the second termination, if they both coincided with ascension-day, there would be the same. Now this duration of the ministry of Christ, from whatever point of time we deduce its commencement, seems to have been a necessary consequence, in order to the fulfilment of prophecy. If, then, it was finally and properly closed on the day of the ascension, in the sixteenth of Tiberius, A. U. 783. we may infer that it finally and properly began at the same time, in his thirteenth, A. U. 780. But it did not finally and properly begin, except after the imprisonment of John. I advance it, therefore, as a probable conjecture, that the day of the imprisonment of John, A. U. 780. was the same day in that year, on which our Saviour ascended into heaven three years after, A. U. 783. This is, in each case, about the forty-first day from the fourteenth of the Jewish Nisan. The entire duration of his ministry must be determined accordingly; and if we date its commencement from the feast of Tabernacles preceding, it would occupy about seven months in all. On this point, however, something more will be said hereafter.

© Acts i. 3.

The second question, or that which concerns the order and distribution of the parts of the ministry of John, supposes the whole to have been directed to more than one purpose and the separate discharge of its functions in general to have begun at different periods: and as this appears to me to be the truth of the case, I shall enter upon its consideration somewhat at large.

With this view I observe that, if the ministry of John the Baptist was really subservient to distinct offices, both what these were, and in what they differed from each other, is presumptively to be collected from what the accounts of this ministry describe him to have done; and the presumption is so far confirmed by the matter of fact, that, little as each of the Evangelists in particular has recorded of it, that little is substantially the same in all, and furnishes the evidence of more than one effect, and, consequently, of more than one purpose, of his mission; which, whether they could be discharged at the same time, or not, were manifestly distinct in kind.

I. One, and the first, character, upon the public assumption of his ministerial office, in which they represent him, is the character of a xñρuž тoû eủαyyεxíou; that is, of a herald, or proclaimer, of the tidings of the kingdom, accompanied by the conditions of faith, that is, belief in the tidings, and of repentance, or reform of life, as a consequence of the belief. In those days cometh John the Baptist, xnpúσowv, proclaiming, in the wilderness of Judæa, and saying, Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matt. iii. 1. 2.

II. His next character is the character of a baptizer. Then began to go forth unto him Jerusalem, and all the land of Judæa, and all the country round about the Jordan, and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. Matt. iii. 5. 6.

III. Another, and a third, character is that of a teacher of morals, as well as of a preacher of the kingdom: nor is it any objection that his moral instructions are represented as conveyed not in long or set discourses, but in short and fa

miliar rules of duty, applicable to the parties addressed, and easily retained in mind. Luke iii. 10—14.

IV. A fourth, and the last, character is that of a harbinger of the Messias, or of one commissioned to bear express testimony to the approaching advent of the Christ. And he proclaimed, (exńpuče,) saying, There is coming after me He who is mightier than I; the thong of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop and unloose. I, indeed, have baptized you in water, but he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost. Mark i. 7. 8.

Besides these characters we meet with no more; and of these, the first and the last alone are really distinct; the intermediate two are not so much different from, as natural consequences of, the first. The character of a preacher of repentance could not fail to include the character of a moral teacher also; and the doctrine of the kingdom, as preached by John, being accompanied by the requisition of repentance, grounded upon faith in the approach of this kingdom, baptism was administered as the sign and seal of both. For the baptism of John was invariably either preceded, or attended, by the confession of sins; whence, it is manifest, it was designed to attest and confirm the sincerity of the receiver's professing his belief in the prediction of the approaching kingdom, and, in the assurance of that belief, of the truth of his purpose to lead a new life.

The administration of baptism, then, without any regard to the use of this rite among the Jews, in the admission of proselytes, was a necessary part of the office of John—whether as a prophet of the kingdom, or as a teacher of morality—in which might be supposed comprehended the sum and effect of his ministry as both. The reception of baptism at his hands was the last and most decisive step, to declare the faith of the recipient in both the message and the authority of John. Hence it is that the final end of his mission, so far as these objects were contemplated by it, might be fitly described as simply and solely to baptize: that his ministry, regarded in the complex, might be called his baptism; that his personal denomination, both in the

Gospels, and out of them, was John i Banτiors-John the baptizer-that St. Mark and St. Luke have each concisely expressed both his first, and his second, office, in this one description, that John came, preaching or proclaiming the baptism of repentance, unto remission of sins-and that St. Paul, in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch, employs the same language: John having proclaimed, before the face of his entrance, baptism of repentance to all the peopled.

Now the character, in which the Baptist would first appear, it is presumptively certain, would be his true and his proper character; a character which, whatever other he might also combine with it afterwards, he could never thenceforward lose, but must have retained to the last. This character was the character of an herald of the kingdom: and the same character, it may be shewn, is the character subsequently assumed by our Saviour. 'Atò tóte, says St. Matthew, that is, from the time of the return into Galilee after the imprisonment of John, and the choice of Capernaum as the place of our Lord's abode, йpέato 'Inooũs κηρύσσειν, καὶ λέγειν· Μετανοεῖτε ἤγγικε γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.

It was in this identical form of words, that he set forth and described just before the office and ministry of John : Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, was his account of the ministry of John; Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, is his account of the ministry of Christ. It is the same character of the heralds or proclaimers of the gospel-tidings, in which he exhibits both; it is the same kingdom of heaven, and as still future, or not yet come, which he makes to be announced by both; it is the same practical inference of the necessity of repentance, and reformation of life, as grounded upon the futurity, and the belief in the futurity, of this kingdom, which he shews to have been inculcated by both. If these words, then, were a correct description of the ministry of John, they must be a correct description of the ministry of Christ; and