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MATT.

MARK

LUKE

JOHN II.

And they bare it." 9 Now when the president tasted the water that had been made wine, and knew not whence it was, (but the servants who drew out the water knew); the president calleth the bridegroom, 10 and saith unto him, "Every man first setteth forth the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the worse: thou hast kept the good wine until now."

This beginning of his miracles Jesus made at Cana of Galilee, and thus manifested his glory; and his disciples believed on him.

12 After this, he went down to Capernaum, himself, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples : and they abode there not many days.*

• From Capernaum, as we immediately find, our Lord went to the Passover, which this year occurred on the 19th of March. (See the Supplement to the Fourth Dissertation). Capernaum, according to the usual route through the Peræa, was about 90 miles from Jerusalem-say five days' journey. We may suppose our Lord to have left Capernaum on the 14th, and to have arrived there from Cana, (one day's journey), on the 6th, the day after the sabbath. We may place his First Miracle on the 4th, and suppose that he reached Cana on the 2nd. This will place the call of Nathanael on the 27th of February; the reception of Andrew, John, and Peter on the 26th, which was the sabbath; the return of Christ to the Baptist, on the 25th, which was preceded by the arrival of the Deputation from the Sanhedrim, the day before, on which day we may suppose that our Lord left the mountains near Jericho which had been the scene of his temptation. Reckoning back forty days from Feb. 24th, we come to the 15th of January, which we may fix for the Baptism of our Lord. (In the 1st Edition it is placed on the 20th). If deemed preferable, a still earlier date may be assumed. The Baptist would re-commence his ministry soon after the short winter of Palestine was over; and, in the plain of Jordan, he might do this in the early part of January. This re-commencement appears to have been selected by our Lord as the suitable time to present himself at the baptism of his Forerunner.

The following Part of the Gospel Records, commences our Lord's public annunciation of his divine mission; with which he began his prophetic year. This "the acceptable year of Jehovah"-may be surveyed under the six following leading divisions.

I. During the first half of this year-beginning with the Passover and ending with the Tabernacles, it seems to have been his special object, to afford proofs of his divine authority to the Priests and Rulers at Jerusalem, and to prepare the inhabitants in general for the reception of his doctrine. For this purpose, while few avowed followers were around him, he taught at three successive national festivals, with peculiar solemnity, and wrought miracles, not numerous, but well fitted to impress the minds of the well-disposed. In the period preceding the Tabernacles, he made preparation, by preaching in the synagogues of Galilee, and by occasional miracles, for the next period.

II. That public and most striking announcement of his claims and communication of his doctrine, which immediately followed the imprisonment of the Baptist, and occupied most of the interval between the Tabernacles and the Dedication. At the close of this, he selected and sent forth the Twelve, the scene of whose mission was Galilee; and afterwards the Seventy, who appear to have been principally sent into the Peræa, to prepare for his subsequent abode there.-This part of the year was singularly adapted, by the settled state of the weather, and the moderate temperature, and by the pause from agricultural labours which succeeded the vintage, for this grand employment of it; while, in the interval between the Pentecost and the Tabernacles, (owing to the completing of the harvest at the beginning, the labours of the vintage at the close, and the intense heat of the other months), it would not have been possible to collect the people, and to travel from place to place attended by numbers, as Jesus actually did.

III. Our Lord's ministry in Judæa and the Peræa, commencing with the Dedication, when he again presented himself to the Priests and the Rulers in the Temple, and ending with the resurrection of Lazarus, ten or eleven weeks before the Passover, by which he afforded the Jews a new and striking demonstration of his Messiahship. The whole of the interval, from the later part of November to the middle of January, he speut in the Peræa; and there also taught his heavenly doctrines, and afforded proof by miracle of their divine origin. While in the Peræa, some of the Apostles, and many of the Seventy, came back to him.

During the whole of the last two periods, the Baptist was in imprisonment at Macharus, where Herod was then residing; but thongh this fortress was in the Peræa, it was quite in the south, and out of the sphere of our Lord's ministry.

Immediately after the resurrection of Lazarus, our Lord retired for a short time to the south-east of Samaria, where he was out of the jurisdiction both of Herod and of the Sanhedrim; and then again went to Galilee, at the time of the Baptist's death, which was shortly followed by Herod's return to Tiberias, and by the rest of the Apostles rejoining our Lord.

IV. From the return of Christ to Galilee, to his leaving it for the last Passover, during which all the Twelve were with him. Throughout the whole of this period, he was continually moving to different parts of North Palestine, in order to avoid the insidious purposes of Herod; sometimes being on the east of the Jordan, sometimes in the region of Tyre and Sidon, and always either at a distance from Herod, or out of his jurisdiction. V. Our Lord's last journey to Jerusalem, which he purposed to make direct through Samaria, but actually pursued on the east of the Jordan, entering Judæa above Jericho, proceeding to Bethany, and thence entering Jerusalem publicly as the Messiah.

VI. The solemn, earnest, and most impressive exercise of his ministry in the days preceding the Passover, by public teaching in the Temple, by prophetic declarations to some of the Apostles, by consolatory exhortations to them all and prayer in their presence, by anguish and devotion when accompanied only by select witnesses, by his dignified conduct before the High Priest and the Sanhedrim, by his "good confession" before Pontius Pilate, and by his endurance of the ignominy and agony of the cross, till his work on earth was "finished."

RECORDS OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY.

PART II.

FROM THE FIRST PASSOVER, INCLUSIVELY, TO THE APPROACH OF THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.

SECT. I.

At the FIRST PASSOVER, Jesus authoritatively expels the Traders, from the Temple-Court, and predicts his Death to the Rulers.

MATT.

MARK

LUKE

JOHN II.

παντας

Ps. 69; 9.

13 AND the passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 And he found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: 15 and making a scourge of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep and the oxen; and poured out the money of the exchangers, and overthrew their tables; 16 and said unto those who sold doves, "Take these things hence; make not the house of my Father a house of merchandise." 17 But his disciples remembered that it is written, 'Zeal for thy house consumeth me.'

18 The Jews, therefore, answered and said unto him, "What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?" 19 Jesus answered and said unto them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 20 The Jews therefore said," Forty and six years was this temple in building,† and thou wilt raise it up in three days!" "But he spake concerning the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had spoken.

Boothroyd (2d Ed.) has, "he drove all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen;" but Taντag opposes this rendering.-The making and waving of the scourge, was merely an emblein of what be required by prophetic authority.-The ropes, as oxoiviov denotes, were made of rushes; and bad probably been used to fasten the cattle.

+ See Dissertation I. Sect. i. And compare the Septuagint of Ezra v. 16.

SECT. II.

During the Passover many believe in him: Conference with Nicodemus: Observations of the Evangelist.

MATT.

MARK

LUKE

JOHN II. III.

23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the passover, during the feast, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. 24 But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, because he knew all men, 25 and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.

CH. III. Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to him by night, and said unto him, "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: + for no one can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." Jesus answered and said unto him, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus saith unto him, "How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Verily, verily, say unto thee, Unless a man be born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. 7 Wonder not that I said unto thee, 'Ye must be born again.' The wind bloweth where it willeth, and thou hearest the sound of it, but thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the spirit." 9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, "How can these things be?" 10 Jesus answered and said unto him, "Thou art a teacher of Israel, and knowest thou not these things! " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that which we know, and testify that which we have seen; and ye receive not our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things? 13 And no one hath ascended up to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, the Son of Man," who is in heaven. 14 "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must

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• This Evangelist employs the word onμɛlov, sign, to denote miracle: duvaμç is not used by him.

+ Lit., that thou hast come as a teacher from God.

The original has the same word, πvevμa, for wind and spirit.

MATT.

MARK

LUKE

JOHN III.

the Son of man be lifted up: 15 that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." *

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that every one who believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world that he might condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. 19 Now this is the condemnation, that the light hath come into the world, and yet men have loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his deeds may not be reproved. " But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

SECT. III.

Last-recorded Testimony of the Baptist: Observations of the Evangelist.

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• Here the account of the conference with Nicodemus appears to terminate. The general tenor of the next six verses, the repetition of the 15th verse, and the use of μovoyevns, only, or only-begotten, which is never used in our Lord's discourses, are the basis of this opinion: indeed the 18th verse implies a progress in the communication of evidence which is far beyond the period of the conference. English commentators and translators in general are adverse to this opinion; yet it seems most probable.

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