the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost"." About the time, place, and manner of our Saviour's baptism, the Evangelists are all silent. St. Luke says, He "began to be about thirty years old." This was the age required for the priests of the Temple, before they were allowed to officiate in their ministry 3. As to the place no more is said than that it was in Judæa and in Jordan, but by the word "Bethabara" meaning a place of passage, it is supposed that it was the place where the Israelites, under Joshua, passed the river *. Modern pretenders have, indeed, fixed upon a spot, and profess a miraculous efficacy in the waters there. It is thought, however, that John did not baptize any more after the baptism of our Lord, since the Scriptures are silent about it, and St. Luke appears to infer, that Jesus did not come to his baptism "until all the people were baptized." Of the manner of Christ's baptism we have no further mention, than that it was by water and prayer'; but, when He came out of the water, a manifest declaration that Jesus was the Son of God was made from heaven, and the Holy Ghost visibly descended upon Him with a bodily appearance: not that it is meant that there was an actual dove, as is often pictorially represented as hovering above

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His head, but that the light or glory by which the Holy Spirit manifested Himself had a bodily appearance, and descended upon Jesus, 'like a dove," that is, in the same manner that a dove descends to the earth. When our Saviour was baptized by John in Jordan, there was a plain manifestation of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. The heavens were opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him: and a voice from heaven was heard, which said, "This is My beloved Son." Here we have three Persons most clearly distinguished. God the Holy Ghost visibly descended. Christ, on whom He descended, was praying amongst the people, and as these two in their bodily shapes could not but be seen, so the third Person, who was not seen, was yet distinctly heard, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased "."

It may surprise us that the holy Jesus should submit to this ordinance of the Baptist, which He could not Himself use as a Sacrament of repentance; but it is probable that He thereby designed to dedicate Himself most solemnly to the service of God, and He calls upon all his disciples to the same ordinance with this object, and that they all might become the "Sons of God;" He also probably designed to put an honour on the ministration of John, so as to

6

Bishop Pearce.

Howell.

leave his disciples an example of that obedience which He meant to require to His own future Institution. He who knew no sin, but was to take away the sins of all other men, presented Himself in the crowd of sinners as one of them, and solicited the baptism of repentance; not that water might sanctify Him, but that He might sanctify water to the mystical washing away of sin. We learn from this example to reverence God's ordinances, and to seek in them further communications of his grace. Let none neglect them, and pretend that they are not profitable. Though the benefit of baptism may not be perceived immediately, though an increase of grace may not always be experienced from it, or from attendance at the other sacrament, though men may fancy that the liveliness of devotion is not heightened by the assembling of ourselves together, still they are Divine ordinances, and thus "it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness'." SECT. XIII.-The Temptation of Christ.- Matt. iv. 1—12; Mark i. 12, 13; Luke iv. 1-13.

THE temptation of our Lord in the wilderness is the first circumstance recorded of His life after He had been fully and publicly initiated into his holy office by His baptism in Jordan. Immediately afterwards, in that moment of exaltation when He was acknowledged by a voice from heaven to be the Son of God, and

when the Spirit of God had taken full possession of His soul, Jesus went forth under the guidance of the same Spirit, in full confidence of the Divine power, into the wilderness, to encounter the prince of this world. In other words, it is probable, that our Saviour, now about to enter upon the great task of man's redemption, with a mind filled with holy thoughts and a heart overflowing with benevolence, wished for temporary privacy and seclusion from the world, and therefore sought retirement. In the wilderness He found it. Our Lord was now entering upon His ministry, a most arduous undertaking, that was to fulfil the original prophecy, and "bruise the serpent's head." The dominion of Satan had too long prevailed, and men were led captive by him at his will. "The Son of God was manifested" that He might break this sway. But Satan, we must believe, was aware of this Divine purpose; he knew that "the Word was made flesh," and was dwelling among men, and "was in form and fashion as a man." Therefore, as he had heretofore prevailed over flesh and blood," although made in the likeness of God and after his image," so he thought he might now prevail again and retain the world in his power. power1. In the wilderness, as we are informed, Satan found

Jesus, in a place where no human being was,

2

Bp. Porteus.

3 Pickering.

4

Abp Sumner.

but wild beasts only. Perhaps, at the first, the devil tempted Him invisibly, as he doth other men, by presenting sinful suggestions to his mind; but he could find nothing to work upon to advance his designs; and therefore, finding this course of none effect, the tempter came to Him in an apparent visible form ". The place of our Saviour's temptation was a mountainous desert, a dry barren place, consisting of high rocky hills so torn and disordered, as if the earth had suffered some great convulsion. On descending from these desolate heights into the plain, is seen the foot of Mount Quarantania, which, they say, is the mountain from which the Devil tempted our Saviour with the visionary scene of all the glory of the world. It is an "exceedingly high mountain," as St. Matthew calls it, and, in its ascent, difficult and dangerous'. The name of Quarantania has been given to this mountain in allusion to the forty days' fast of our Lord, from an ancient opinion that the wilderness around it was that in which Christ was tempted. There are said, on the authority of a well known traveller, to be very few deserts in the world so frightful as this for melancholy. Even the vast solitudes of Arabia Petræa, which he had traversed in his journey from Egypt to Sinai, were altogether pleasant in comparison • Dr. Lightfoot.

5 Dr. Wells.

7 Maundrell.