pears he lived with great austerity. For he drank neither wine nor strong drink; a rule frequently observed by the Jews, when they devoted themselves to the stricter exercises of religion. And his meat was locusts and wild honey: such simple food as the desert afforded to the lowest of its inhabitants. For eating some sorts of locusts was not only permitted by the law of Moses, but, as travellers inform us, is common in the east to this day. The clothing of the Baptist was no less simple than his diet. His raiment, we are told, was of camel's hair, with a leathern girdle about his loins; the same coarse habit which the meaner people usually wore, and which sometimes even the rich assumed as a garb of mourning. For this raiment of camel's hair was nothing else than that sackcloth which we so often read of in Scripture. And as almost every thing of moment was, in those nations and those times, expressed by visible signs as well as by words, the prophets also were generally clothed in this dress, because VOL. I. F one one principal branch of their office was to call upon men to mourn for their sins. And particularly Elias or Elijah is described in the second book of Kings as a hairy man*, that is, a man clothed in hair cloth, or sackcloth (as John was) with a eathern girdle about his loins. Even in outward appearance therefore John was another Elias; but much more so, as he was endued, according to the angel's prediction, with the spirit and power of Elias. Both rose up among the Jews in times of universal corruption; both were authorized to denounce speedy vengeance from Heaven, unless they repented; both executed their commission with the same intrepid zeal; both were persecuted for it: yet nothing deterred either Elias from accusing Ahab to his face, or John from rebuking Herod in the same undaunted manner. But here an apparent difficulty occurs, and the sacred writers are charged with making * 2 Kings, i. 8. + Luke, i. 17. making our Lord and St. John flatly contradict each other. When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask John who he was, and particularly whether he was Elias; his answer was, I am not*: But yet our Lord told the Jews that John was the Elias which was to comet. How is this contradiction to be reconciled? Without any kind of difficulty. The Jews had an expectation, founded on a literal interpretation of the prophet Malachi‡, that before the Messiah came, that very same Elias or Elijah, who lived and prophesied in the time of Ahab, would rise from the dead and appear again upon earth. John therefore might very truly say that he was not that Elias. But yet as we have seen that he resembled Elias in many striking particulars; as the angel told Zacharias that he should come in the spirit and power of Elias; and as he actually + Matt, xi. 14. * John, i. 21. actually approved himself, in the turn and manner of his life, in his doctrine, and his conduct, the very same man to the latter Jews which the other had been to the former, our Saviour might with equal truth assure his disciples that John was that Elias, whose coming the prophet Malachi had in a figurative sense foretold. This difficulty we see is so easily removed, that I should not have thought it worth noticing in this place, had it not been very lately revived with much parade in one of those coarse and blasphemous publications which have been dispersed in this country with so much activity, in order to disseminate vulgar infidelity among the lower orders of people, but which are now sinking fast into oblivion and contempt. This is one specimen of what they call their arguments against Christianity, and from this specimen you will judge of all the rest. But to return. The abstemiousness and rigour of the Baptist's life was calculated to produce very important effects. It was fitted to excite great attention and reverence in the minds of his hearers. It was well suited to the doctrine he was to preach, that of repentance and contrition; to the seriousness he wished to inspire, and to the terror which he was appointed to impress on impenitent offenders. And perhaps it was further designed to intimate the need there often is of harsh restraints in the beginning of virtue, as the easy familiarity of our Lord's manner and behaviour exhibits the delightful freedom which attends the perfection of it. At least, placing these two characters in view of the world, so near to each other, must teach men this very instructive lesson; that though severity of conduct may in various cases be both prudent and necessary, yet the mildest and cheerfullest goodness is the completest; and they the most useful to religion, who are able to converse among sinners without risking their innocence, as discreet physicians do among the sick, without endangering their health. |