of the same family and house with themselves. On this occasion Joseph and Mary, being of the house and lineage of David, were obliged to repair to Bethlehem: whither Mary was no sooner arrived, but she was providentially delivered of the Messiah, who is Christ the Lord. S. Was the birth of this great person immediately made known to the world? T. Not to all the people. For the city at that time was so crouded with strangers, that the holy pair were content to lodge in a stable; where she was delivered, and the immacu. late Son of God, at his first entrance into the world, was laid in a manger, secreted as it were from the sight of all men, except a few peor shepherds; who, as they attended their flocks in the neigbouring plains, being certified of this birth of Christ by a company of the heavenly host, repaired to the stable, and adored the newborn babe. th Israel: but God was pleased to discover him to an honest, plain, devout man called Simeon, one who waited for the consolation of Israel; and to Anna, an ancient widow of exemplary piety and devotion: who, coming in when the child Jesus was brought into the temple, filled with the spirit, prophetically acknowledged him to be the true Messiah, and gave thanks to Cod for what he saw in that excellant canticle, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, &c. And not long after the celebrating these legal performances, before Joseph and Mary had left Bethlehem, we read of the arrival of three wise men from the East; who, being conducted by an uncommon star, and perhaps informed by some good an, gel, that it denoted the birth of the Messiah, or king of the Jews, proceeded to Jerusalem, in quest of him to pay him their homage; where S. Did his parents do for him ac- losing the sight of the star for the precording to the law? sent, they enquired for the new-born king of the Jews T. Yes they had him circumcis. ed on the eighth day: not that he stood in any need of circumcision, as this is considered as a remedy against original sin; because in his incarnation he had contracted no pollution; but, as he was made under the law, and came to fulfil all righteousness, it became him to receive the sign, which God had ordained to distinguish the Jews from all other nations. And when he was forty days old, his mother went up to the temple to purify herself, and to present her first-born son. 5. Did they find him out? T. Their enquiry raised grea jealousy in Herod, and filled the city with surprise; and Herod having consulted the Sanhedrim thereon they told him that the Messiah, according to the prediction of the prophet Micah, should be born at Bethlehem in Judah. Herod re solving with himself to cut him off, if possible, privately asked the wise men the exact time when the star appeared; and desired they would go and search diligently at Bethle S. Did the child Jesus still remain hem for the young prince, and when unnoticed? they had found him, bring hing T. He was not as yet manifested word, that he might go and pay homage to him likewise. Having received these instructious, they departed; and, in their way, were a. greeably surprised with the appearance a-new of the same miraculous star, that bad served to conduct them hitherto, and which now guided them to Bethlehem, and to the very house where Jesns was. that was so cruel to put his own wife and children to death? Ti Yess and soon after the murder of these innocents, he was se. verely visited by God. He fell into a lingering fever, and was punished with grievous ulcers in his entrails and bowels; a violent cholic; an insatiable appetite; venomous swel S. How did they behave to the ling in his feet; convulsions in his child Jesus? T. They prostrated themselves, and paid adoration to him in the most humble manner; ackowledged him to be the Son of God, and presented him with gold, frank incense and myrrh. 5. Did they obey Heord's direc tions, in returning and giving him notice where the child was? T. No: God who knew the secret purpose, and wickedness of Herod's heart, to confound his vain wisdom, directed them in a dream not to return to Jerusalem, but to go back into their own country by some other road. And soon after Joseph was expressly commanded by an angel, to retire by night with Mary and Jesus into Egypt, and to rem in there till he should receive word again from him. S. How did Herod behave when he found himself mocked of the wise men? T. Being no less enraged at his own disappointment, than want of respect in them, he set forth and slew all the children, that were in Bethlehem, and the coasts thereof, from two years old and under; intending by so general a massacre, inevitably to destroy this young prince, and thereby all the expectations of the Jews. S. Is not this the same Herod, nerves; a perpetual asthma, and stinking breath; rottenness in his joints, and privy members, accom panied with prodigious itchings, crawling worms, and inteirerable smells; so th..t he was a perfect hospital of incurable and loathsome diseases. Yet though he could not be insensible that it was the hand of God that pursued him by such a horrid variety of pains and torments, instead of preparing for death, and endeavouring a reconciliation with the Almighty, his heart was so hardened, that to prevent the general joy, which he was conscious would appear all over his dominions at his death, he devised the most horid project that ever entered into the mind of man, for celebrating his death. For, while he thus lay sick at Jericho, he summoned all his nobles to attend him there; and having thereby got them within his power, commanded his soldiers to shut them up in the Hippodrome ; and calling his sister Salome and her husband Alexas, with some other of his friends and confidents, he enjoined them, that the moment he expired, the soldiers should put all those persons confined in the Hippodrome to the sword; and then, and not before, to publish his death. S. Was this command executed? No: for as soon as he was dead, they opened the Hippodrome, and permitted all the prisoners to return home. S. Who succeeded him? T. Having left three sons, Archelaus, Philip and Herod Antipas, he by will divised his dominions after this manner. To Archelaus he gave Judea, Idumæa and Samaria to Philip the government of Auronitis, Trachonitis, Parea and Batanea Herod Antipas had the command of Galilee and Petræa left him; and to his sister Salome he left some particular cities, with a considerable sum of money. T. The gospel takes no notice of any thing that past from his infancy to his baptism, (excepting that he increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man) till he was twelve years of age. His parents were accustomed to go up to Jerusalem once a year to the feast of the Passover. And being now twelve years old, Jesus went up with them: but, after the octave of the feast was accomplished, and his parents were returning home with a great company of their neighbours and acquaintance, he without his parents knowledge remained be. S. Did Joseph return from Egypt hind. As it might be customary upon the death of Herod? T. He was on that event. ordered in a vision to return into the land of Israel, but when he arrived in Juden, and found that Archelaus, who inherited the cruel temper of his father, succeeded to the government in those parts, he to accomplish the prophecy which foretold our Saviour should be called a Nazarene, retired to Nazareth, the city where he had before resided, and which was under the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas. S How did Archelaus rule? T. So badly, that his subjects impeached him to the Roman emperor; who after a full conviction of his guilt, deprived him of his government, confiscated all his goods; banished him to Vienna in Gaul, and reduced his dominions to the form of a Roman province under the management of a procurator, who in some cases was subject to the president or governor of Syria. S. Did our Saviour give any extraordinary marks of his divine mission in his infancy? D d for the children to associate with some of their acquaintance in the day-time, they supposed he was in the company; but when night came on, and the child Jesus was not to be found, his parents were sore afraid that some accident had hap pened to him, and returned in quest of him to Jerusalem; and after three days they found him in the temple, seated among the members, of the great Sanhedrim, propound. ing questions to them, and answer.. ing such as they asked, in so extraordinary a manner, and with so much skill and prudence, that he raised the admiration of all that heard him. It is not to be con ccived what joy and surprise it was to his disconsolate parents to find him in that place and circumstance; but they could not but gently com plain of his withdrawing himself without their knowledge; but he without making any apology, aŋ.swered their complaints, with say ing, Know you not, that I must be employed in my Father's busi ness. 5. Did Jesus return home with been acknowledged, and practised, as an emblem of purification from his parents? 7. Yes, he returned with them past guilt, and a rite of entering solemnly into a covenant with God. immediately to Nazareth. S. Does it appear in what state he It is supposed to have been practised was brought up? by all the congregation before the giving of the law on Sinai? and all heathen proselytes were obliged to receive the same, as an evidence of their repentance for past offences, and a profession of their future obedience. T. Most probably he assisted his father in the trade of a carpenter, till the 30th year of his age, when he manifested himself to Israel. S. Who reigned at Rome at this time? T. Augustus Cæsar was yet alive but he died about six years after, in the 44th year of his reign; and was succeeded by Tiberius Cæsar, the son of his wife Livia by a former husband; who was of a quite contrary disposion to his predecessor; and who in the second year of his reign, recall ed Rufus, and appointed Valerius Gratus, who after eleven years was succeeded by Pontius Pilate, a man, like his master, of a fierce, cruel, covetous and irreconcileable spirit, in the government of Judæa. S. Was John's baptism the same in substance with the Christian? T. No: for John neither did, nor could baptise his disciples in the name of the Holy Ghost, because the Holy Ghost was not yet given. Nor did he baptise them in the name of Christ; for then there had been no need of that question, whether he himself were the Christ or not? But faith being as necessary a qualification for baptism, as repentance, John propounded our Lord for the object of faith to all, who were baptis S. How did John the Baptist ap-ed by him, saying, that they should pear to be the fore-runner of Christ, our Saviour? T. In the 15th year of Tiberius, John who had hitherto lived in the desart state of solitude, began to make his public appearance on the banks of the river Jordan, and in the wilderness, preaching repentance, and baptising those that came to him; commanding them to repent, for the kingdom to heaven is at hand; and that he was the person spoken of by the prophet Isaias, who was to prepare the way of the Lord, &c. S. Was this the first instance of baptising among the Jews? 7. No: baptism was no new thing among the Jews; it had long believe in him, who should come after T. He had led a retired, autsere and holy life; and when he began to preach, he enforced his doctrine of repentace by the example of his own mortifications; eating only of what nature produced in desart places, and being cloathed with the skin of a wild beast. S. Did he gain any proselytes? T. The brightness of his virtue, and the austerity of his life, needed no miracles to gain him belief; for all ranks and degrees of the people, and some of the Pharisees, Sadducees and publicans, looking upon him ás more than a man, and judging him to be the Messias, resorted to him to be baptised of him. S. Who were the Pharisees? T. They were the most considera. ble sect among the Jews; and took their name from a Hebrew word, which signifies division or separation; for they affected to distinguish themselves from the other Israelites by a more strict manner of life. They were very numerous; and their learning, exact observance of the ceremonial law, and their works of supererogation, gained them great credit and influence mong the people in our Saviour's days. They imputed much to the eternal decrees of God and to fatality; but like the Stoics, left to men a liberty of doing good actions, or not. Their power and credit filled them with pride. And by their own inventions or traditions they rendered the commandments of God of none effect. And therefore our Saviour, in the course of his ministry, upbraids them with ostentation, hypocrisy, self-love, and corrupting and perverting the scriptures of God. But as they believed the immortality of the soul; admitted a kind of transmigration of the souls of good men, which might pass from one body to another, and acknowledged the existence of angels and spirits; so they believed the resurrection of the dead, and all its consequences. S. Who were the Sadducees? and powerful from the days of the high-priest, John Hyrcanus, who was drawn over to their principles and party, as I have remarked before. In the days of Alexander Jannæus, the sadduces got possession of all the officers of the San hedrim. Caiaphas the high-priest who condemned Christ to death, was a sedducec, as was also Ananus the younger, who put to death James, the brother of our Lord. They maintained the mortality of the soul; denied a resurection of the same body, and the existence of angels and spirits. They denied all fatality, and by presuming that God did not attend to the evil that is done in the world, and making man the absolute master of all his own actions; they really denyed God's universal and particular providence over his creatures. S. Who were the Publicans? T. They were the tax-gatherers, deputies or collectors to the farmers of the public revenue under the Roman emperor; and this tax being a badge of subjection and dependence, the collectors thereof were most hateful to the people, and were looked upon by them as a prophane set, and who made no conscience of the exactions and frauds which their office gave them an opportunity to commit. The Jews carried their dislike to those of their own nation, who accepted of this employment, so far, as to rank them with the heathen, and to exclude them from even the common courtesies and offices of life. S. Where did John baptise those that came to him? T. At Bethabara, the fording place over Jordan, not far from Jericho; |