;T, 892 The NEW and COMPLETE LIFE of our BLESSED LORD St. PHILIP the APOSTLE. CT. Philip was a native of Bethfaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. He had the honour of being firfi called to be a difciple of the great Meffiah, which hap- pened in the following manner. Our blef- fed Saviour, foon after his return from the wildernefs, where he had been tempted by the Devil, met with Andrew and his brother Peter, and after fome difcourfe parted from them. The next day, as he was palling through Galilee, he found Philip, whom he prefently commanded to follow him, the confiant form he made ufe of in calling his difciples, and thofe that infeparably attended him : fo that the pre- rogative of being first called, evidently belongs to St. Philip, he being the El of our Lord's difciples ; for though Andrew and St. John were the first that came and converfed with the Saviour of the world, yet they immediately returned to their oc- cupation, and were not called till a whole year afterwards. - Our apofile was not idle after the ho- nour he had received of being called to attend the Saviour of the world ; he imme- diately imparted the glad-tidings of the Meffiah's appearance to his brother Na- thanael, and conduétedhim to Jesus : fo ready is a good man to conduit others in the paths that lead to happinefs and peace ! We have very little recorded of St. Philip by the evangelifts, after his being called to the apofilefhip. It was, however, to him that our Saviour propofed the quef- tion, where they fhould find bread fuffi- cient to fatisfy the hunger of fo great a multitude? To which Philip anfwered, that it was not eafy to procure fo large a quantity ; not confidering, that it was 3 equally eafy for Almighty Power to feed double the number, when it pleafed to exert itfelf. Itwas alfo to the fame apofile, that the Gentile profelytes, who came up to worfhip at Jerufalem, applied, when they were defirous to fee the Saviour ofthe world: and it was with him our Lord had the difcourfe a little before the pafchal fupper, when he was about to fuffer. While the holy and compaffionate JEsus was fortifying the minds of his difciples with proper confiderations againP his de- parture from them, and had told them, that he was going to prepare for them a place in the manfions of the heavenly Ca- naan ; that he was the way, the truth, and the ; that no man could come to the Father but by him; and that knowing him, they both knew and had feen the Father: Philip, not thoroughly underfianding the force of his Mailer's reafonings, begged of him that he would Phew them the Fa- ther. We can hardly fuppofe that Philip should have fuch grofs conceptions of the Deity, as to imagine the Father inverted with a corporeal and invifible nature ; but CHRIST having told them that they had feen him, and knowing that of old God frequently appeared in a vifible íhape, he only defired that he would manifeft him -. felf to them by force fuch appearance. Our Lord gently reproved his ignorance, that after attending fo long to his infiruitions, he fhould not know, that he was the image of his Father, the exprefs characters of his infinite wifdom, power, and goodnefs, ap- pearing in him ; that he faid and did no- thing but by his Father's appointment, which, if they did not believe, his miracles were a fufficient evidence ; that fuch demands
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