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sible taint of selfishness. The second trial lay in the offer of temporal dominion. This, at the time, had special attraction for the mind of a patriotic Jew; for Israel, in bondage to Rome, was panting to be free, and if encouraged in its Messianic expectations, might overcome its tyrant and seize the sceptre of the world. Satan offered his own world to Jesus on condition that Jesus would worship him, its master. Again a refusal, a refusal grounded on the highest considerations-Jehovah is the only God: worship Jehovah alone.' The third trial related to the manner in which the Messiah should offer himself to Israel. The Jews expected a sign (Matt. xii. 38) from heaven, that the Son of Man would literally 'come in the clouds of heaven' (Dan. vii. 13). Proceeding on this belief, Satan urged Jesus to cast himself down from a summit of the temple, in order that, alighting unharmed among the crowds assembled in its lowest court, he might command attention and challenge belief. But the Christ was to be no mere wonder-worker. His miraculous agency was to be kept free, as from selfishness, so from display. The same Providence which he trusted for food, he would also trust in its general workings, nor venture to tempt God by exacting the intervention of his mighty hand. The import of the second and third temptation is the same, namely, that God only is to be loved, trusted, served, with no view but for the fulfilment of his will and the execution of his purposes. This grand truth is a generalisation of the life of Christ, the principal of whose being was, 'all for God,' and 'all as God wills,' 'all within God's appointed sphere, and all after God's appointed manner.'

The conquest thus achieved was a conquest for life. The only possible struggle was over. The lower world in its most attractive form having been overcome, Jesus had before him nothing but God and eternity. In truth, the victory was won; redemption was achieved. In thought, all was finished; there remained only the outward act in its several particulars, which, how important soever in themselves, flowed as so many natural consequences from the lofty, pure, and divine fountains of the triumphant mind of Christ. Accordingly, with a deep insight into the essential and very important import of the temptation, Milton, who was a great divine as well as the most sublime of poets, makes Paradise to be Regained when Jesus has foiled the tempter and risen superior to the temptation.

It deserves notice that the miraculous enters as an essential element into the temptation, which in one sense may be considered as an epitome of the life of Christ; that it enters in such a manner that without it the narrative would lose its substance as well as its form; and that, obviously, one end of the temptation was to guard the exertion of that power from any possible misuse.

There can, then, be no longer any question as to the character

in which Jesus is about to appear before his people. Not as a social reformer, not as a learned rabbi, not as a political enthusiast; but as the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, the triumphant champion of goodness, the conqueror of sin in its latent sources,-in this, and not that, character did Jesus go forth, preaching the good tidings and healing all manner of diseases, to suffer and die for man.

CHAPTER III.

JESUS OPENS HIS COMMISSION IN GALILEE-RETURNS TO, AND IS PROCLAIMED BY JOHN AT, BETHABARA-GAINS FIVE DISCIPLES, WHO ATERWARDS BECOME APOSTLES.

From the desert of temptation, Jesus proceeded to Galilee. In doing so, he returned to his native province. Such a step was the act of one who was conscious of being what he professed to be. Home is the last place to the scrutiny of which pretenders expose their claims, for Jesus himself has borne witness that a prophet has no honour amongst his kinsmen (Matt. xiii. 57).

The deputies from the Sanhedrim came to John, and received his solemn testimony to Jesus as the Christ. The great Sanhedrim or Synedrium, termed also the Council, was the highest temporal and spiritual tribunal among the Jews. It found its model in the body of seventy elders established by Moses in the wilderness (Numb. xi. 16), and was formed by John Hyrcanus, 135 before Christ. It consisted of seventy members, at whose head was the high-priest, and among whom there sat by election the presidents of the twenty-four courses of priests, also called high-priests, scribes, or men learned in the law, and heads of the chief families. The general president of the assembly bore the title of Nasi, or prince; next to him was the vice-president, or Abbethdin, 'father of the court of justice;' the third in honour had the name of Hakam, or the sage. The other members bore the designation of 'elders,' or councillors The place in which the Sanhedrim met, was a large circular hall bordering on the great gate of the temple, which led from the court of the Women into the inner court. Here the council held daily meetings, at which the members sat in the form of a half-moon, with the Nasi in the middle, the Abbethdin on his right hand, and the Hakam on the left. The rest took their seat in a determinate order. Before them were two secretaries—one on the right, the

other on the left-who wrote down the decisions and the sentences. The determinations of the council were final in all civil and spiritual concerns. Before them came appeals from lower courts. They only had power over life and death. An important part of the duties of this tribunal was to watch over the religion of the State in all its relations, and consequently to take cognizance of all new religious teachers. Hence its mission to John the Baptist, and the frequency of its interference with Jesus and his apostles. The attestation which John gave to Jesus was full and emphatic. It was an attestation given in a perfectly orderly manner, having been elicited from the Baptist by messengers sent from the council at Jerusalem. It was entirely disinterested. John gained nothing thereby, except the satisfaction of his mind in having borne testimony to his Lord. It was also valid. John and Jesus were cousins. The former was acquainted, if not with the person, yet with the history and family relations of the latter. Well must John have been convinced that Jesus had been chosen and sent of God, ere he committed his word and character in attesting his undertaking. Observe, also, the bearing of that testimony; it bore directly on the priests, the levites, the Sanhedrim. It set the claims of Jesus distinctly before their eyes; it preferred those claims on reliable guarantees. There could no longer be any mistake. The Sanhedrim knew what John and Jesus professed to be, and what were their mutual relations. If they believed John, the Christ had come. If he had not come, John, as well as Jesus, was a deceiver. The claim was made. Against that claim they might array themselves; but should it prove of God, they could never plead that they were less culpable because left in ignorance or doubt as to the nature of the claim, and as to who the claimant was. It was clearly against Jesus of Nazareth, who had been recognised of John as the Messiah, that the spiritual authorities of the land began and continued a stern, unyielding, and at last too successful, opposition.

Be'thabara, the place where these interesting preliminary scenes took place, lay on the east bank of the Jordan, or in Pere'a, at a point where the brook Jazer falls into the Jordan. It bore also the name of Be'thany, and must not be confounded with the Bethany which is near Jerusalem. Both names are of similar import: the first signifies a place of transit, passage; the second, a ferry. It is not certain whether the place was any thing more than a cluster of residences inhabited by ferrymen, who carried across the Jordan in their skiffs persons that were travelling from Perea into Judah, or the reverse. There are no remains of Be'thabara, and we cannot, therefore, determine the exact spot where Jesus received baptism.

Two places, however, lying at no great distance from each other, dispute for the honour,- -one patronized by the Greek,

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the other by the Latin church. Thither every spring thousands flock to bathe in the Jordan, and carry away with them a portion of its highly-prized water. The occasion is one of great festivity, though the rapidity of the stream often causes fatal accidents.

The day after that on which the members of the Sanhedrim had visited John, Jesus again appeared before him and received another marked testimony from his lips. The ensuing day, John took pains to direct the eyes of two of his disciples to Jesus, employing the significant expression, 'Behold the Lamb of God!" (John i. 36). The testimony induced the disciples, who were John and Andrew, to follow Jesus. The result was the conversion of these two, together with Peter. The day following, Philip is added to the small circle. The conversion of Philip

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led to the conversion of Nathanael, or Bartholomew (Matt. x. 3). Thus, as the immediate consequence of the testimony of John, were five persons led to take part with Jesus. Of these five, four, namely, John, Andrew, Peter, and Philip, were Galileans; three belonged to one town, namely, Bethsaida. John and Andrew were disciples of the Baptist. We note these facts,

because they show that the first buddings of the cause of Christ were natural. From Jesus and John as a centre, the rays of the

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new life gradually went forth on society. There was nothing forced or unnatural, nothing sudden or artificial, in the laying of the first stones of the church of Christ. Teachers influenced disciples; fellow-townsmen converted their neighbours; relatives communicated the new light one to another. Yet does there by no means appear to have existed any such close connection and concert between these persons as might suggest the idea of collusion. The disciples now made seem to have repaired to their ordinary occupations. John and Jesus parted, never to meet again. As, however, the new disciples went up and down to their several duties, they sowed the seed and prepared the way for the coming of their Master; and doubtless the three Galileans, having probably been attracted to Jesus in part by what they had known or heard of him at home, would, in returning thither, spread the news that the carpenter of Nazareth had already received wonderful attestations to his Messiahship, and was on his way to lay before his countrymen credentials of a kind to command assent (John i. 19-45).

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