the glad tidings of the gospel, and the near approach of the great Messiah's kingdom; not a temporal, but a spiritual empire, consisting of righteousness and peace.

To inure them to those hardships and dangers, which were to attend them in their preaching, after the death of their Master, our Lord forbade them to provide any thing for their journey: teaching them to rely wholly on the providence of God, for support, in every distress, and to have recourse to his protection, in every danger.

Our Lord's disciples had, perhaps, flattered themselves with the pleasing expectation, that the glad tidings they were going to publish, and the miraculous cures they were enabled to perform, would procure them an honourable reception, wherever they came. Their Master, however, told them the event would not in any manner answer their expectations but that they were every where to be despised, persecuted, delivered into the hands of the rulers, and punished as wicked men. But at the same time, he promised them the aid of the Almighty, and gave them instructions for their behaviour, in every particular. He added, that those who rejected their message, should be treated with severity, by the great Judge of all the earth; but those who received them kindly, and gave even a cup of cold water to the least of his disciples, for their Master's sake, should not fail of receiving a large reward.

Having received this commission, the apostles visited all parts of Palestine, where the Jews inhabited, preaching the gospel and the doctrine of repentance, working miracles for its confirmation, and particularly healing the sick, while our blessed Saviour continued the course of his ministry in Galilee.

The apostles being returned from the tour, Jesus went to Nain, a town situated near Endor, about two miles south of Mount

Tabor, attended by many of his disciples, and a great multitude of people.

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On their coming to the entrance of the city, a melancholy scene presented itself to the eyes of Jesus and his followers. Behold there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." Luke vi. 12. Who would not have imagined, that God had indeed " førgotten to be gracious, and in his anger shut up his tender mercies" from this poor widow, suffering under the heaviest load, and labouring under the most oppressive burden of distress? deprived of her son, in the flower of his youth, when he might have repaid his mother's toils, and been to her in the place of a husband; of that husband she had long since lost, and whose loss was. supportable only through the comfort of this child, the surviving image of his departed father, the baim of all her grief, the hope of her afflicted soul: Who now shall administer consolation to this solitary widow, to this lonely parent, bereaved of her husband, deprived of her child? what misery can be more complicated? what can be more natural, than that she should refuse to be comforted, that she should go down to the grave with mourning, and visit the chambers of death, the residence of the beloved remains of her husband, and her son, with sorrow.

Towards the receptacle of mortality, that dreary waste of forgetfulness, the mournful funeral was now with slow and solemn pomp advancing, when the compassionate Redeemer of Mankind met the melancholy procession, composed of a long train of her weeping neighbours and relations, who pitied her distress, sympathized with her in this great affliction, and were melted with compassion at her deplorable circumstances; but sighs and tears were all they had to offer, relief could not be expected from a human being; their commiseration, though grateful to her oppressed soul, could neither restore her husband, nor the son: submis

sion and patience were the only lessons they could preach, or this afflicted daughter of Isruel learn.

But though man was unable to relieve the distresses of this disconsolate widow, the Saviour of the world, who beheld the melancholy procession, was both able and. willing to do it. There was no need of a powerful solicitor to implore assistance of the Son God, his own compassion was abundantly sufficient: When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her." He both sought the patient, and offered the cure, unexpectedly. "Weep not," said the kind reliever of misery, to this afflicted woman. Alas! it has been wholly in vain to bid her refrain from tears, who had lost her only child, the sole comfort of her age, without administering the balm and comfort to heal her broken spirit. This our benevolent Redeemer well knew; and therefore, immediately advancing towards the corpse, "he touched the bier." The pomp of the funeral was instantly stopped, silence closed every mouth, and expectation filled the breast of every spectator. But this deep suspense did not long continue. That glorious voice which shall one day call our dead bodies from the grave, filled their ears with these remarkable words, "Young man, I say unto thee, arise." Nor was this powerful command uttered without its constant effect." He spake, and it was done." called with authority, and immediately, "he that was dead, sat up, and began to speak; and be restored him to his mother." He did not shew him around to the multitude; but by a singular act of modesty and humanity, delivered him to his late afflicted, now astonished and rejoicing mother, to intimate, that in compassion to her distress, he had wrought this stupendous miracle.

Here it must be observed, that as this miracle is liable to no objection; it therefore abundantly proves, that the power of the blessed Jesus was truly and absolutely divine. He met this funeral procession by accident. It was composed of the greatest part of the inhabitants of the city, who bewailed the disconsolate state of the afflicted widow, and therefore well knew that the youth was really dead. The powerful word which called the breathless body to life, was delivered in an audible voice, before all the company, and even at the very gate of the city, the place of public resort. This miracle, with others amply attested, abundantly evince the truth of our Saviour's mission, and that he was indeed the Son of God, the Redeemer of mankind.

CHAP. XI.

The Character of John the Baptist cleared and justified, by the blessed Jesus. Display of our Lord's Humility and Condescension, by conforming to the custom of the Age and Place where he lived,

He

A holy and an awful fear fell on all who heard and saw this astonishing event: “and they glorified God, saying, that a great Prophet is risen up among us; and that God had visited his people."

honest freedom of the Baptist, reproving his adulterous (commerce with Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, had cast him into prison; and in this state he still continued, though his disciples were suffered to visit and converse with him. In one of these visits they had given him an account of our Saviour's having elected twelve apostles to preach the gospel, and of his miracles, particularly of his raising to life the daughter of Jairus, and the son of the widow Nain.

portant question; "Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?"

Accordingly, the disciples of John came to Jesus; and proposed the question of their master, at the very time when he cured many of their infirmities, and of evil spirits, and to many that were blind he gave sight.

Jesus, therefore, instead of directly answering their question, bid them return, and inform their master what they had seen; "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. Matt. ix. 4, 5. Go, tell your master, that the very miracles the prophet Isaiah so long since foretold should be wrought by the Messiah, you have yourselves seen performed."

It appears from scripture, that the Baptist, through the whole course of his ministry, had borne constant and ample testimony to our Saviour's divine mission: that he exhorted those who came to him to rest their faith, not on himself, but on him that should come after him: and, that as soon as he was acquainted who Jesus was, by a visible descent of the Holy Ghost, and a voice from heaven, he made it his business to dispose the Jews in general, and his own disciples in particular, to receive and reverence him, by testifying every where, that he was the

Son of God, the Lamb of God, who came down from heaven, and spake the words of God, and to whom God had given the spirit, without measure."

The Baptist, therefore, well knew who Jesus was; and consequently, he did not send his disciples to ask this question, to solve any doubt in his mind concerning the Saviour of the world.

But it will be demanded, what else could induce the Baptist to ask such a question?

To this some answer, that he had no other intention than to satisfy his disciples that Jesus was the Messiah, so long expected among the Jews; and to engage them to follow a more perfect Master, especially as he himself was now on the point of leaving the world.

This solution is doubtless partly right, but it does not seem to remove the whole difficulty, as it is plain, from the very account recorded by the Evangelist, that the question had actually some relation to himself: and therefore we must remove the difficulty, by some other method. In order to which, it must be remembered, that John had been long confined in prison; and being persuaded that it was necessary for him to preach the gospel, and prepare men to receive the kingdom of the Messiah; and for that reason, from the very time of his imprisonment, earnestly expected that the Messiah would exert his power to procure his release. But on hearing that Jesus had chosen twelve illiterate fishermen to preach the gospel and furnished them with miraculous powers, in order to enable them to perform so great a work; and that two persons of no consequence were raised from the dead, while he was suffered to remain in prison, he began to think himself neglected, and his services disregarded. He therefore sent two of his disciples to ask him this question, "Art thou he that should come; or, look we for another ?? Not that he entertained any doubt of his being the true Messiah, intending nothing more by making the demand, but to com plain that Jesus had not acted the part which he thought the Messiah should have acted and that this was really the case seems sufficiently plain, from the caution added by our Saviour himself. "And blessed is he whomsoever shall not be offended in me." As if he had said, when you have informed your Master of what you have seen and heard, tell him that he would do well not to be offended, either at the choice of