312 The NEW and COMPLETE LIFE of our BLESSED LORD topropofe it to their Lord, as the perfon moft likely to fucceed in obtaining an anfwer. Our apoftle endeavoured, in force mea- fure, Go anfwer thefe inflances ofparticular favour, by returns of particular kindnefs and conftancy : for though he at firft de- ferted his Matter on his apprehenfion, yet he loon recovered himfelf, and came back to feek his Saviour, confidently entered the high priest's hall, followed our Lord through the feveral particulars of his trial, and at laft waited on him at his execution, owning him, as well as being owned by him, in the midit of armed foldiers, and in the thickeft crowds of his moo inveterate enemies. Here it was that our great Re- deemer committed to his care his forrow- ful and difconfolate mother, with his dying breath. And certainly the holy JEsue could not have given a more honourable teftimony of -his particular refpef and kindnefs to St. John, than by leaving his own mother to his trail and care, and fùbflituting him to fupply that duty he himfelf paid her, while he relded- in this vale of forrow amongft men. St. John no fooner heard of our Lord's being rifen from the chambers of the dull, than he, in company with Peter, haflened to the fepulchre. There feems indeed to have been a pecgliar intimacy between thefe two difciples ; it was Peter that St. John introduced into the palace of the high- priefl; it was Peter to whom he gave no- tice of CHRIST'S appearing when he came to them at the tea of Tiberias, in the habit of a oranger ; and it was for St. John that Peter was fo folicitoufly inquifitive to know what was determined concerning him, when our Saviour expreffed himfelf fomewhat ambiguoufly refpeaing that difciple. After the afcenfion of the Saviour of the world, when . the apoflies made a divi- lion of the provinces amongrl themfelves, that of Arta fell to the (hare of St. John, though he did not immediately enter upon his charge, but continued at Jerufalem till the death of the bleflèdVirgin, which hap- ,: pened about fifteen years after our Lord' afcenfion: being releafed from the trutl committed to his care by his dying Matter, he retired into Alta, and induftrioufly ap- plied himfelfto the propagating Christianity, preaching where the gofpel had not yet been known, and confirming it where it was already planted. Many churches of note and eminence were of his founding, particularly thofe of Smyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodocea, and others ; but his chief place of re- Hence was at Ephefus, where St. Paul had many years before founded a church, and conflituted Timothy bifhop of it.. Nor can we fuppofe that he confined his mini- firy entirely to Alta Minor ; it is highly reafonable to think that he preached in other parts of the Raft, probably to the Parthians, his firft epiftle being anciently direéted to them; and the Jeluits affure us, that the inhabitants of the kingdom of Bar- fora in India affirm, that, according to a tradition handed down from their anceflors, St. John planted the Chriflian faith in their country, where the Chriftians are called by his name. Having fpent feveral years at Ephefus, he was accufed to Domitian, who had be- gun a perfecution againft the Chriflians, as an eminent afferter ofAtheifm and im- piety, and a public fubverter of the religion of the empire; fo that by his command, the proconful fent him bound to Rome, where he met with the treatment that might have been expeted from fo barbar- ous a prince, being thrown into a caldron of boiling oil: but the Almighty, who re- ferved himfor further fervicesin the vineyard of his Son, refirained the heat, as he did in the fiery furnace of old, and delivered him from this feemingly unavoidable de flru&fion. And furely one would have thought that fo miraculous a deliverance would have been futficient to have per- fuaded any rational man that the religion he taught was from God, and that he was protefted from danger by the hand of Omnipotence: but miracles themfelves were
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