conviction, they must come to e. conolneion th,re he e.bode. 1 How long, we know not. which the gre11t assertion," I e.nd the Father The repose was i,oon broken. are one," finally confirms. Vere. 41, 42.-"The posthumous fruit of Ver. 89.-(Therefore 1) they sought ( a.gain 1) John's laboill's" (Bengel). Many oame to to seize him, and he escaped out of their him, and they 1e.id, one to anothoir, rather hands. This oppeal roused their animosity, than to the Lord, John indeed did no sign. and, though they dropped their stones, they It we.s not John's function to work miracles were prepo.ring to lay violent hands on him. or startle the world with visible proofs of The ,..,l,._,,, points back to eh. vii. 30, 32, 44. his Divine commission. John stood on the Hie escape was facilitated by the strange natnral sphere, found a place in contem- moral power he could exert to render their poraneous history, and exerted all his influ- e.ss11ults upon him vain. They stretched ence by the force of hie prophctio word. out hands which dropped harmlessly at But e.s a remarkable confirmation of the thoir side-another confirmation of the whole revelation enacted by the life and solemn etatt1ment of ver. 18. There is no deeds of Christ, we read, But all things that need to suppose a miracle, still less to justify John spake of this Jrla.n were true. The the preposterous notion that the body of testimonies of John were to the effect that Jesus was, in John's Goepel, docetic merely Jesus was "mightier" than he-that he (of. eh. viii 59; Luke iv. 30; Mark xi. was the Son of God, the" Baptizer with the 18). Holy Ghost and with fire," and "the Lamb Vera. 40-42.-{4) Beyond Jordan. The of God, that taketh away the sin of the ,uaceptibility of those who had been pre- world." The absence of the miraculous pared /w hia Wwd by the early ministry of nimbus from the record of John's ministry John. is one of t,,e subsidiary evidences we possess Ver. 40.-And he went e.we.y a.gain (see eh. of the supernatural power wielded by our i. 28, note) beyond J'ordan, to the place where Lord Je;us Christ. John was a historic J'ohn at first baptized; e. pie.ea enriched for contemporary of Jesus, whose following sur- him by many solemn associations. There he vived for some centuries, but not until com- submitted to baptism, to fasting, and tempta- paratively recent times dicl credulity or the tion. There he had heard the first testimonies mythopcaic tendency clothe him in a snper- of John. There he he.d gathered round nature.l glory. He was believed to be the him his most susceptible and appreciative Elijah of the new covenant, but he was hee.rers. There Andrew e.nd Simon, Jo.mes not supposed to have gone to heaven, like and John, Philip e.nd Bartholomew, came his prototype. A rumour grew up that under his mighty spell. There the first Jesus was John raised from the dead, but intuition of his Messiahship dawned on the nothing came of it. There was e.11 the noblest of his followers. The entire sug- material for a splendid myth, bnt no evolu- gestion is unquestionably historic. That tion of one. The reasoning, therefore, is special scene of our Lord's ministry was fe.ir-siace Jeana 11 r norted by John's dis- 0
indelibly impressed on the memory of the ciples to have wrought great signs; these beloved disciple. The place where John at reports e.re not to be put down to credulity ftrst baptized ,· i.e. the place occupied by or fiction. The evangelist distinctly asserts John before he came to <Enon, and there- that all these testimonies which he had fore in the district where he delivered his himself recorded in eh. i., when followed up most solemn testimonies to the people, to by the visible and wonderful presence of the the Sanhedrin, to the first disciples. And Son of God himself, were held to be true. W o need not wonder, then, that many believed. 1 The authorities are divided about the on him there. oiTv, ~ and B being opposed. Tischendorf (8th edit.) accepts; RT.omit; Westcott and 1 Westcott and Hort here read ({µ.evev) in Hort bracket. Ticlll.111 is omitted by Tischen- the imperfect, on the authority of B, a, b, c; dorf, and preserved by R.T. and Tregelles. all the other o.uthorities read tf'«v•v.
HOMILETICS. Vere. 1-6.-The allegory of the shepherd. Our Lord contrasts the religious guide.nee of the Phnrisees, as the shepherds of the Jewish fold, with that afforded b; himself in respect of loyal devotion and obedience. I. THE SHEEPFOLD. This is the Jewish theocracy. 1, The Lord represented himself to the old prophets as the Shephe,•d of Israel. (Isa. xi. 11; Ezek. uxv.) 2. He had isolated Israel from all the nations of the earth that he might train her for himself. 8. The flock consists of two classes, which are distinguished in New Testament times 64 'l'HE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. (ell. X. 1-42.