letters from several of the most powerful men in Rome, who had promised to receive Sertorius into Italy, and to put all to death, who should attempt to resist him. Pompey took all the papers, burnt all the letters, by that mean prevented all the bloody consequences, which would have followed such fatal discoveries, and along with them, sacrificed that passion, which many, who are called christians, find the most difficult to sacrifice, I mean revenge.

But this question, Who do men say, that I am? may be put by benevolence. The good of society requires each member to entertain just notions of some persons. A magistrate, who acts disinterestedly for the good of the state, and for the support of religion, would be often distressed in his government, if he were represented as a man devoted to his own interest, cruel in his measures, and governed by his own imperious tempers. A pastor, who knoweth and preacheth the truth, who hath the power of alarming hardened sinners, and of exciting the fear of hell in them, in order to prevent their falling into it, or, shall I rather say, in order to draw them out of it: Such a pastor will discharge the duties of his office with incomparably more success, if the people do him justice, than if they accuse him of fomenting errors, and of loving to surround his pulpit with devouring fire and everlasting burnings, Isai. xxxiii. 14. Benevolence may incline such persons to inquire what is said of them, in order to rectify mistakes, which may be very jurious to those who believe them. In this disposition Jesus Christ proposed the question in the text to his disciples. Benevolence directed all the steps of our Saviour, it dictated all his language, it animated all his emotions; and, when we are in doubt about the motive of any part of his conduct, we

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shall seldom run any hazard, if we attribute it to his benevolence. In our text he established the faith of his disciples by trying it. He did not want to be told the public opinions about himself, he knew them better than they, of whom he inquired: but he required his disciples to relate people's opinions, that he might give them an antidote against the poison that was enveloped in them.

The disciples answered; Some say thou art John the Baptist; some Elias; and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. They omitted those odious opinions, which were injurious to Jesus Christ, and refused to defile their mouths with the execrable blasphemies, which the malignity of the Jews uttered against him. But with what shadow of appearance could it be thought that Jesus Christ was John the Baptist? You may find, in part, an answer to this question in the fourteenth chapter of this gospel, ver. 1-10. It is there said, that Herod Antipas, called the Tetrach, that is, the king of the fourth part of his father's territories, beheaded John the Baptist at the request of Herodias.

Every body knows the cause of the hatred of that fury against the holy man. John the Baptist held an opinion, which now a days passeth for an error, injurious to the peace of society, that is, that the high rank of those, who are guilty of some scandalous vices, ought not to shelter them from the censures of the ministers of the living God; and that they who commit, and not they who reprove, such crimes are responsible for all the disorders, which such censures may produce in society. A bad courtier, but a good servant of him, who hath sent him to prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight, Luke iii. 4. he told the incestuous Herod, without equivocating, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother Philip's wife, Matt.

xiv. 4. Herodias could not plead her cause with equity, and therefore she pleaded it with cruelty. Her daughter Salome had pleased Herod at a feast, which was made in the castle of Macheron, on the birth-day of the king. He showed the same indulgence to her, that Flaminius the Roman showed to a court lady, who requested that consul to gratify her curiosity with the sight of beheading a man. An indulgence, certainly, less shocking in a heathen, than in a prince educated in the knowledge of the true God. It was a common opinion among the Jews, that the resurrection of the martyrs was anticipated. Many thought all the prophets were to be raised from the dead at the coming of the Messiah, and some had spread a report, which reached Herod, that John the Baptist enjoyed that privilege.

The same reasons, which persuaded some Jews to believe, that he, whom they called Jesus, was John the Baptist risen from the dead, persuaded others to believe, that he was some one of the prophets, who, like John, had been put to a violent death, for having spoken with a similar courage against the reigning vices of the times, in which they lived. This was particularly the case of Jeremiah. When this prophet was only fourteen years of age, and, as he said of himself, when he could not speak, because he was a child, Jer. i. 6. he delivered himself with freedom of speech, that is hardly allowable in those, who are grown gray in a long discharge of the ministerial office. He censured without distinction of rank, or character, the vices of all the Jews, and, having executed this painful function from the reign of Josiah, to the reign of Zedekiah, he was, if we believe a tradition of the Jews, which Tertullian, St. Jerom, and many fathers of the church have preserved, stoned to death

at Tahapanes in Egypt by his countrymen there he fell a victim to their rage against his predictions. The fact is not certain, however, it is admitted by many christians, who have pretended that St. Paul had the prophet Jeremiah particularly in view, when he proposed, as examples to christians, some, who were stoned, Heb. xi. 37. whom he placeth among the cloud of witnesses, or, as the words are in the original, among the cloud of martyrs, ver. 1. However uncertain this history of the prophet's lapidation may be, some Jews believed it, and it was sufficient to persuade them that Jesus Christ was Jeremiah.

As Elias was translated to heaven without dying, the opinions, of which we have been speaking, were not sufficient to persuade other Jews, that Jesus Christ was Elias: but a mistaken passage of Malachi was the ground of this notion. It is the passage which concludes the writings of that prophet; Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, Mal. iii. 5. This prophecy was perfectly plain to the disciples of Jesus Christ, for in him, and in John the Baptist, they saw its accomplishment. But the Jews understood it literally. They understand it so still, and, next to the coming of the Messiah, that of Elias is the grand object of their hopes. It is Elias, according to them, who will turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, ver. 6. It is Elias, who will prepare the ways of the Messiah, will be his forerunner, and will anoint him with holy oil. It is Elias, who will answer all questions, and solve all difficulties. It is Elias, who will obtain by his prayers the resurrection of the just. It is Elias, who will do for the dispersed Jews what Moses did for the Israelites en

slaved in Egypt; he will march at their head, and conduct them to Canaan. All these expressions are taken from the Rabbies, whose names I omit, as well as the titles of the books, from which I have quoted the passages now mentioned.

Such were the various opinions of the Jews about Jesus Christ; and each continued in his own prejudice, without giving himself any further trouble. about it. But how could they remain in a state of tranquillity, while questions of such importance remained in dispute? All their religion, all their hopes, and all their happiness, depended on the ecclaircissement of this problem, Who is the man, about whom the opinions of mankind are so divided? The questions, strictly speaking, were these, is the Redeemer of Israel come? Are the prophecies accomplished? Is the son of God among us, and hath he brought with him peace, grace, and glory? What kind of beings were the Jews, who left these great questions undetermined, and lived without elucidating them? Are you surprized at these things, my brethren? Your indolence on questions of the same kind is equally astonishing to considerate men. The Jews had business, they must have neglected it; they loved pleasures and amusement, they must have suspended them; they were stricken with whatever concerned the present life; and they must have sought after the life to come, they must have shaken off that idleness in which they spent their lives, and have taken up the cross and followed Jesus Christ. These were the causes of that indolence, which surprizeth you, and these were the causes of that ignorance, which concealed Jesus Christ from them, till he made himself known to them by the just though bloody calamities, which he inflicted on their nafion. And these are also the causes of that igno