And besides that," to call on a danger is to tempt God, and to invite the devil (and no man is sure of a victory): it is also great imprudence to create a need, that we may take it away again; to drink poison, to make experiment of the antidote; and, at the best, it is but a running back to come just to the same place again: for he that is not tempted, does not sin but he that invites a temptation that he might overcome it, or provokes a passion that he may allay it, is then but in the same condition after his pains and his danger: he was not sure he should come so far. THE PRAYER. O dearest God, who hast framed man of soul and body, and fitted him with faculties and proportionable instruments to serve thee according to all our capacities, let thy Holy Spirit rule and sanctify every power and member, both of soul and body, that they may keep that beauteous order which, in our creation, thou didst intend, and to which thou dost restore thy people in the renovations of grace; that our affections may be guided by reason, our understanding may be enlightened with thy word, and then may guide and persuade our will; that we suffer no violent transportation of passions, nor be overcome by a temptation, nor consent to the impure solicitations of lust; that "sin may not reign in our mortal bodies," but that both bodies and souls may be conformable to the sufferings of the holy Jesus; that in our body we may bear the marks and dying of our Lord, and in our spirits we may be humble and mortified, and like him, in all his imitable perfections; that we may die to sin, and live to righteousness, and, after our suffering together with him in this world, we may reign together with him hereafter: to whom, in the Unity of the most mysterious Trinity, be all glory, and dominion, and praise, for ever and ever. Amen. Vide Disc. of Temptation. SECTION IX. Of Jesus being baptized, and going into the Wilderness to be tempted. 1. Now the full time was come, Jesus took leave of his mother and his trade, to begin his Father's work, and the office prophetical, in order to the redemption of the world; and when "John was baptizing in Jordan, Jesus came to John, to be baptized of him." The Baptist had never seen his face, because they had been, from their infancy, driven to several places, designed to several employments, and never met till now. But immediately the Holy Ghost inspired St. John with a discerning and knowing spirit, and at his first arrival he knew him, and did him worship. And when Jesus desired to be baptized, "John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?" For the baptism of John, although it was not a direct instrument of the Spirit for the collation of grace, neither find we it administered in any form of words, not so much as in the name of Christ to come (as many dream),a (because, even after John had baptized, the Pharisees still doubted, if he were the Messias; which they would not, if, in his form of ministration, he had published Christ to come after him; and also because it had not been proper for Christ himself to have received that baptism, whose form had specified himself to come hereafter; neither could it consist with the revelation which John had, and the confession which he made, to baptize in the name of Christ to come, whom the Spirit marked out to him to come already, and himself pointed at him with his finger), yet it was a ceremonious consignation of the doctrine of repentance," which was one great part of the covenant evengelical, and was a Divine institution, the susception of it was in order to the fulfilling all righteousness; it was a sign of humility, the persons baptized confessed their sins; it was a sacramental disposing to the baptism and faith of Christ: but therefore a Gabriel, Sotus, Scotus, &c. • Προοίμιον τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς χάριτος - Acts, xix. 4. C John wondered, why the Messias, the Lamb of God, pure and without spot, who needed not the abstersions of repentance, or the washings of baptism, should demand it, and of him, a sinner, and his servant. And in the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew, which the Nazarenes used at Beroa (as St. Hierom reports), these words are added: "The mother of the Lord and his brethren said unto him, John Baptist baptized to the remissions of sins, let us go and be baptized of him. He said to them, what have I sinned, that I should go and be baptized of him?" And this part of the story is also told by Justin Martyr. But Jesus wanted not a proposition to consign by his baptism proportionable enough to the analogy of its institution; for as others professed their return towards innocence, so he avowed his perseverance in it; and though he was never called in Scripture a sinner, yet he was made sin for us; that is, he did undergo the shame and the punishment; and therefore it was proper enough for him to perform the sacrament of sinners. 2. But the holy Jesus, who came (as himself, in answer to the Baptist's question, professed)" to fulfil all righteousness," would receive that rite, which his Father had instituted in order to the manifestation of his Son. For although the Baptist had a glimpse of him by the first irradiations of the Spirit, yet John professed, that he therefore came baptizing with water, that "Jesus might be manifested to Israel;" and it was also a sign given to the Baptist himself, that "on whomsoever he saw the Spirit descending and remaining," he is the person, "that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." And God chose to actuate the sign at the waters of Jordan, in great and religious assemblies, convened there at John's baptism; and therefore Jesus came to be baptized, and by this baptism became known to John, who, as before he gave to him an indiscriminate testimony, so now he pointed out the person in his sermons and discourses; and, by calling him the Lamb of God,f prophesied of his passion, and preached c Quæst. ad Orthod. 37. d Dial. 3. advers. Pelag. • Εβαπτίσθη δὲ καὶ ἐνήστευσεν (Ἰησοῦς,) οὐκ ἀυτὸς ἀπορυπώσεως ἢ νηστείας χρείαν ἔχων ἢ καθάρσεως, ὁ τῇ φύσει καθαρὸς καὶ ἅγιος, ἀλλ ̓ ἵνα καὶ Ἰωάννῃ ἀλήθειαν προσμαρτυρήσῃ, καὶ ὑμῖν ὑπογραμμὸν παράσχηται. Clem. Constit. Apost. lib. vii. c. 23. Symbolum supplicii crucis.-Just. Mart. him to be the world's Redeemer, and the sacrifice for mankind. He was now manifest to Israel; he confirmed the baptism of John; he sanctified the water to become sacramental and ministerial in the remission of sins; he by a real event declared, that to them who should rightly be baptized the kingdom of heaven should certainly be opened; he inserted himself, by that ceremony, into the society and participation of the holy people, of which communion himself was Head and Prince; and he did, in a symbol, purify human nature, whose stains and guilt he had undertaken. 3. As soon as John had performed his ministry, and Jesus was baptized, he prayed, and the heavens were opened, and the air clarified by a new and glorious light;" "and the Holy Ghost, in the manner of a dove, alighted upon" his sacred head, and God the Father gave "a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This was the inauguration and proclamation of the Messias, when he began to be the great Prophet of the new covenant. And this was the greatest meeting that ever was upon earth, where the whole cabinet of the mysterious Trinity was opened and shewn, as much as the capacities of our present imperfections will permit; the second person in the veil of humanity, the third in the shape, or with the motion of a dove; but the first kept his primitive state; and as to the Israelites he gave notice by way of caution, "Ye saw no shape, but ye heard a voice;" so now also God the Father gave testimony to his holy Son, and appeared only in a voice, without any visible representment. 4. When the rite and the solemnity was over, "Christ ascended up out of the waters, and left so much virtue behind him, that, as Gregorius Turonensis reports, that creek of the river, where his holy body had been baptized, was endued with a healing quality, and a power of curing lepers that bathed themselves in those waters in the faith and with invocation of the holy name of Jesus. But the manifestation of this power was not till afterwards, for as yet Jesus did no miracles. 6 Καὶ εὐθὺς περιέλαμψε τον τόπον φῶς μέγα.—Evang. Elion. Luke, iii. 22. 5. As soon as ever the Saviour of the world was baptized, had opened the heavens, which yet never had been opened to man, and was declared the Son of God, "Jesus was by the Spirit driven into the wilderness," not by an unnatural violence, but by the efficacies of inspiration, and a supernatural inclination and activity of resolution; for it was the Holy Spirit that bare him thither; he was led by the good Spirit to be tempted by the evil: whither also he was pleased to retire, to make demonstration that, even in an active life, such as he was designed to and intended, some recesses and temporary demissions of the world are most expedient, for such persons especially whose office is prophetical, and for institution of others, that, by such vacancies in prayer and contemplation, they may be better enabled to teach others, when they have in such retirements conversed with God. 6. In the desert, which was four miles from the place of his baptism, and about twenty miles from Jerusalem, as the common computations are, he did abide "forty days and forty nights," where he was perpetually disturbed and assaulted with evil spirits, in the midst of wild beasts, in a continual fast, without eating bread or drinking water; "and the angels ministered to him," being messengers of comfort and sustentation, sent from his Father for the support and service of his humanity, and employed in resisting and discountenancing the assaults and temporal hostilities of the spirits of darkness. 7. Whether the devils appeared in any horrid and affrighting shapes is not certain; but it is more likely, to a person of so great sanctity and high designation, they would appear more angelical and immaterial, in representments intellectual, in words and ideas, temptations and enticements, because Jesus was not a person of those low weaknesses to be affrighted or troubled with an ugly phantasm, which can do nothing but abuse the weak and imperfect conceptions of persons nothing extraordinary. And this was the way which Satan, or the prince of the devils, took, whose temptations were reserved for the last assault, and the great day of trial; for at the expiration of his forty days, Jesus being hungry, the tempter invited him only to eat bread of his own providing, which might refresh his humanity, and prove his Divinity, hoping that his hunger, and the desire of convincing the |