SERMON XV.

HEROD THE TETRARCH.

ST. MATT. xiv. 1, 2.

"At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus, and said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him."

THE fame of the miracles performed by our blessed Lord, speedily spread abroad throughout the whole country of Judea, and extended to Samaria and Galilee; for they were not wrought in secret, merely in the presence of the disciples, and for the confirmation of their faith, but in the presence of his most inveterate enemies, and very frequently for their

benefit. We need not wonder, therefore, that his preaching and mighty works should have been the subject of general conversation; and that Herod the Tetrarch should have been made acquainted with them. This Herod, surnamed Antipas, was the son of Herod the Great, at whose death the kingdom being divided into four parts, one was allotted to this son. I purpose, as in the case of my remarks on his father, to advert, in the first place, to the narrative of his history contained in the Bible; in the second place, to consider the most prominent vices which disgraced his character; and in the third place, to the important inferences which may be drawn from the subject.

I. Herod the Tetrarch, though perhaps not altogether so depraved as his father, stands preeminently distinguished for two gross acts of barbarity; the one exercised towards John the Baptist, the other towards our blessed Lord. Having married a daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia, he afterwards divorced her, that he might take to wife his sister-in-law and niece Herodias, while her husband Philip was yet alive, inducing her, and her daughter Salome, to become inmates of his palace, by which the express command of the Levitical law was violated.

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Herod had listened for a season with apparent satisfaction to the preaching of the Baptist, attracted doubtless by the novelty of his style, the energy of his appeals, and admitting the full force of many of his arguments. But when he found that his own vices were in turn uncompromisingly censured, and that the dread of his authority did not deter John, or induce him to palliate the enormity of his conduct, when "not dismayed at his face," like Daniel in the presence of Belshazzar, the Baptist denounced against him the judgments of the Most High,-Herod no longer listened gladly. He imprisoned John, and would have put him to death, had he not feared the indignation of the people, by whom John was "regarded as a prophet;" and it was during this imprisonment that the Baptist sent two of his disciples to Jesus, with the inquiry, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" an inquiry made not for the confirmation of his own faith, but of theirs. Whatever were the feelings of Herod towards his faithful monitor, Herodias doubtless longed for a reasonable cause to destroy him, and an occasion speedily presented itself for the execution of this bloody purpose. The birthday of Herod arrived, when a great feast was made, and the nobles were in attendance. Salome, by her dancing, excited the admiration of the tetrarch to

such a degree that he swore to give her what she wished, even "to the half of his kingdom." A fit opportunity now presented itself for Herodias to satisfy her revenge. She instructed her daughter to demand the Baptist's head in a charger. "Herod," says the evangelist, 66 was exceeding sorry." Whether this sorrow was pretended or real, we presume not to affirm, but the path of duty was plain. That conscience indeed could not be duly enlightened, which while it did not suffer him to break an oath, allowed him to perpetrate a barbarous murder. He had obviously acted incautiously in swearing such an oath; it had not improbably been sworn under the influence of intoxication; and had he been desirous of saving his prisoner's life, he would have subjected himself to the reproach of his wife, and the censure of his nobles, rather than have been guilty of an act of the most aggravated cruelty, and put an innocent individual to death, whom he knew to be a "just man, and a holy;" whom he could not doubt to be a messenger from God; and to whose charge no offence could be brought, except the laudable desire of endeavouring to arouse him to a sense of his guilt and danger; of inducing him to flee from the wrath to come; and of leading him to repudiate Herodias: "He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art righteous; him shall the peo

ple curse, nations shall abhor him: but to them that rebuke him shall be delight, and a good blessing shall come upon them." The Baptist, not unmindful of this declaration of the wise man, acted a conscientious part; but the wish of this crafty woman was gratified; the tetrarch sent, and beheaded John in prison.

Some time after this most unjustifiable act, the fame of our Lord's miracles reached the ears of Herod, who, believing that the Baptist had arisen from the dead, sought to hold converse with him. His aim was probably to get Jesus into his power; and of this he had made no secret, for when some of the Pharisees came to our Lord, saying, "Get thee out, and depart hence for Herod will kill thee;" the reply of Jesus indicated a thorough acquaintance with the tyrant's duplicity: "Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected."

An opportunity was at length afforded for gratifying the curiosity of the tetrarch. He was at Jerusalem at the feast of the passover, when Pilate, hearing that our Lord was a Galilean, gladly sent him to Herod, as belonging to his peculiar jurisdiction. Disappointed, however, that Jesus answered not his questions, neither wrought any miracle in his presence, he pro