still left in their masters,-they whom Isaiah and LECT. III. Jeremiah would have denounced as infinitely more Godless and heartless than the worshippers of Jupiter? And yet, if there was no one to bring this message, the promise to Abraham meant nothing; the Jewish calling meant nothing; the whole of the Old Testament history was a cunningly devised fable.

Baptist.

dom.

A voice was heard crying in the wilderness, "Repent, John the for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The last words responded to many dreams which all classes of the Jews, at times, were visited by. They hoped for a Jewish king; they believed that such a king must be sent to them from Heaven; they believed that, in some way or other, a true Israelitish kingdom must be a kingdom of God, or a kingdom of Heaven. He who spoke the words was in the deserts of Israel, whither many leaders of insurrections had gone before. But he had none of the tokens of a leader of insurrection, or of a leader at all. Every thing about him was The Kingrough, stern, terrible. The word with which he began Repentance. his preaching was altogether unlike the usual summons to the people to assert their rights, and break loose from the yoke of their oppressors. It seemed to tell them that they were wrong,-that a change must take place in themselves, before they could look for any in the world about them. And presently the preacher spoke to the most religious men in Judæa, the most admired religious leaders of the people, calling them a generation of vipers; asking them who had bidden them flee from the wrath to come; telling them not to say within themselves that they had Abraham to their

LECT. III. father, for that God was able of the stones to raise children to Abraham.

Effect of

up

This message, harsh as it sounded, nevertheless the procla drew all Jerusalem and Judæa and the country about

mation.

Remission of sins.

Jordan to listen to it. That summons to repent was felt by the hearts and consciences of thousands as a call to them from God Himself, the God of their spirits, the God who had made a covenant with their fathers. From whatever lips the message to their outward ear came, this word to their inward ear must come from Him who knew what was within them, to awaken them to the recollection of bad deeds that they had done and bad thoughts that they had thought. It told them that there was something in themselves that had need to be sent away, that they might be true men, true Israelites. For the first time the meaning of God's covenant, the end and intention of circumcision, became manifest to them. They felt that there were fleshly lusts and desires in them which had degraded them, and were degrading the Nation, and which only God could deliver them from. The Baptism for the remission of sins was accepted as a pledge, that He gave them this emancipation. The words which said that the axe was laid to the roots of the trees, that whatever did not bear good fruit would be hewn down and cast into the fire, told them that a sifting judgment was preparing for their own land, and that each one of them must pass through that judgment, and must seek to have his dross burnt up, if he would not be consumed with it. They said at the same time that the reformation

with the

Spirit.

must be a re-formation indeed; that there must be LECT. III. another and better root for their lives than that upon Baptism which they had grown hitherto, if any good was to spring out of them. But John said further, "There is One standing among you whom you know not; He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." That was the message to men craving to find out this new root of their lives, craving to be planted upon it; that the real King and Lord of their hearts was at hand and was about to be revealed; that He was coming to work that change in them and in their nation, perhaps also in those stones out of which God could make children, which they could not work for themselves.

God.

And presently One came to John to be baptized, The Son of to whom he said: "I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" and when Jesus, who had gone down into the water, was rising up from it, the Spirit was seen to descend in a bodily shape and to light upon Him, and a voice from Heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

LECTURE IV.

LECT. IV.

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

We have seen that the Jews had been taught to The sorrows regard themselves as a called nation; that the kings, of the Pro- the priests, the prophets, were taught to believe that

phet.

they were called out to be servants of the nation. The true prophet had to perceive and mourn that the great majority of the nation thought nothing of their calling, that they were not witnesses for God but against Him. Nevertheless, he did not suppose for a moment, when he was in his right mind, when he was under divine teaching, that he was taken out of his nation to have blessings which did not belong to it. He felt that his greatest blessing was to be a member of it, that he must suffer as an Israelite and rejoice as an Israelite; that he could not separate himself from any sorrows that came upon his people; that he could not have any joys which they were not, one and all, entitled to share with him. How could he keep these thoughts in his mind, when he saw his people torn asunder by strifes and hatreds; when each one had a different object from the other; when they were setting up idols each for himself to worship? It was the hardest thing possible to do this. The struggles

which the prophets tell us of, in their own minds, LECT. IV. show us how hard it was. And yet, unless they could do this, they could not really believe in one God and worship Him. The belief in His unity was not a hard dogma that there are not a great many Gods; it was a belief in a Person who was their God, the God of their fathers, the God of the whole earth. If they did not understand that they were one nation, one Israel, they could not hold this faith practically, they could not live by it and act upon it.

lation.

But God enabled them to keep it in spite of all His consothat they saw and heard and felt, which was threatening to destroy it. For as I showed you in my first Lecture, He gradually revealed to them an Elect One, in whom His soul delighted; a King, who was seated on the holy hill of Sion, however the visible kings who were reigning in Jerusalem might be forgetting their calling and their covenant; a Priest who was really uniting men to God, however little the visible priests might understand what was meant by the sacrifices they were offering, the words that were inscribed upon their foreheads, the blessing that they were to pronounce upon the people; a true Prophet, a Divine Word who understood and uttered the full mind of God, however partially true prophets might understand it, however shamefully false prophets might misrepresent it; that there was in one word a Son of God who stood in the most wonderful relation to Men, who was the Ruler of their thoughts, the Light of their consciences, the Awakener of their impulses, the Object of their hopes, who made some aware of