r g2 The NEW and COMPLETE LIFE of our BLESSED and was not willing to feem little in the eyes of his guefls, he gave imme- diate orders that John fhouldbe beheaded in private, in the cattle where he was con- fined. The orders were immediately executed, and the bloody head of the prophet was brought into the banqueting room, and given to the damfel. She took ,the cruel prefent to her mother, who beheld, with much fatisfaltion, the full gratification of her great revenge. Thus fell this great and illuflrious perfon. His difciples hearing of his death, came to Herod, and begged the body of their mailer : they buried it in a decent fe- pulchere, and knowing that John had always efleemed JEsus to be the Mel- fiah, they came and informed him of this mournful event. C H A P T E R VIII. CHRÍST after his Baptifm is driven by the Spirit into the Wildern f, where he fafletle Forty Days ; during which Time he is tempted of the Devil feveral Ways, but over- cometh him in all of them: Afterwards Angels adminiller unto him. OUR bleffed Saviour, 'having been baptized in the river Jordan, and having received the teflimony of God, in the moll manifeft and glorious man- ner, amidit vafl: numbers of fpeffators, declaring him to be the Son of the WA High, now prepared to begin his public miniftry, and enter upon the great work for which he came into the world. Jordan, in which our great Redeemer was baptized, was the molt confiderable river in the land of Canaan, and ran almofl from the northern to the fouthern boundaries of. the Holy Land. It ran a great way through the wildernefs ofJudea, which was not called a wildernefsbecaufe it was quite uninhabited, but becaufe it was more wild, uncultivated, and lefs in- habited than the refs of the country. The river Jordan, like the Nile, overflowed it's banks at one feafon of the year: it was much infeffed with lions, and other wild beaffs, who, being driven out of their dens by the riling of the waters, fpread themfelves over the country; hence the allufion in the prophet, he comes likea lionfrom thefzoellings of Jordan. The exalted Saviour of mankind, when he began his public miniflry, did not Peek to aggrandize himfelf, or court the honour or applaufe of men. It_ might have been expelled, that, preceded by his forerunner the Baptift, and with a blaze of divine_ glory round his head he would have went to Jerufalem, the feat of power, and made known himfelf and his pretenfions to the great men, of the kingdom. But the meek and lowlyJEsus, fhunning every thing that was grand and noble, retired to the defart. The cvan- gelift Mark informs us, that he was driven of the Spirit into the wildernefs : it is not to be fuppofed, that he was driven by any irrefifiible power, but by the in-. fluence of that Holy Spirit which defcended on him at his baptifm, and always refided in him. The deign of this retirement, no doubt, was, that by folitude, contem- plation, and fpiritual converfe with his heavenly Father,, he might prepare him- fell
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