doctrine, and gave them also particular instructions, together with their temporary commission for that journey.

6. "For Jesus sent them out by two and two, giving them power over unclean spirits, and to heal all manner of sickness and diseases; telling them they were the light, and the eyes, and the salt of the world, so intimating their duties of diligence, holiness, and incorruption; giving them in charge to preach the gospel; to dispense their power and miracles freely, as they had received it; to anoint sick persons with oil; not to enter into any Samaritan town, but to go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; to provide no viaticum for their journeys, but to put themselves upon the religion and piety of their proselytes. He arms them against persecutions; gives them leave to fly the storm from city to city; promises them the assistances of his Spirit; encourages them, by his own example of long-sufferance, and by instances of divine Providence, expressed even to creatures of smallest value, and by promise of great rewards, to the confident confession of his name; and furnishes them with some propositions, which are like so many bills of exchange, upon the trust of which they might take up necessaries; promising great retributions, not only to them who quit any thing of value for the sake of Jesus, but to them that offer a cup of water to a thirsty disciple: and with these instructions they departed to preach in the cities."

7. And Jesus returning to Capernaum, received the address of a faithful centurion of the legion called "the iron legion," (which usually quartered

Dio. Hist. Rom. lib. lv.

in Judea,) in behalf of his servant, whom he loved, and who was grievously afflicted with the palsy; and healed him, as a reward and honour to his faith and from thence going to the city Nain, he raised to life the only son of a widow, whom the mourners followed in the street, bearing the corpse sadly to his funeral. Upon the fame of these and divers other miracles, John the Baptist, who was still in prison, (for he was not put to death till the latter end of this year,) sent two of his disciples to him by divine providence, or else by John's designation, to minister occasions of his greater publication, inquiring if he was the Messias. To whom Jesus returned no answer, but a demonstration taken from the nature of the thing, and the glory of the miracles; saying, Return to John, and tell him what you see; for the deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the lepers are cleansed, and to the poor the gospel is preached" which were the characteristic notes of the Messias, according to the predictions of the holy prophets.

8. When John's disciples were gone with this answer, Jesus began to speak concerning John, "of the austerity and holiness of his person, the greatness of his function, the divinity of his commission; saying, that he was greater than a prophet, a burning and shining light, the Elias that was to come, and the consummation or ending of the old prophets. Adding withal, that the perverseness of that age was most notorious in the entertainment of himself and the Baptist: for neither could the Baptist, who came neither eating nor

Isaiah, xxxv. 4, 5, 6.

drinking, (that by his austerity and mortified deportment he might invade the judgment and affections of the people,) nor Jesus, who came both eating and drinking, (that by a moderate and an affable life, framed to the compliance and common use of men, he might sweetly insinuate into the affections of the multitude,) obtain belief amongst them. They could object against every thing, but nothing could please them. But wisdom and righteousness had a theatre in its own family, and is justified of all her children. Then he proceeds to a more applied reprehension of Capernaum and Chorazin and Bethsaida, for being pertinacious in their sins and infidelity, in defiance and reproof of all the mighty works which had been wrought in them. But these things were not revealed to all dispositions; the wise and the mighty of the world were not subjects prepared for the simplicity and softer impresses of the gospel, and the downright severity of its sanctions. And therefore Jesus glorified God for the magnifying of his mercy, in that these things, which were hid from the great ones, were revealed to babes; and concludes this sermon with an invitation of all wearied and disconsolate persons, laden with sin and misery, to come to him, promising ease to their burdens, and refreshment to their weariness, and to exchange their heavy pressures into an easy yoke, and a light burden."

9. When Jesus had ended this sermon, one of the Pharisees named Simon, invited him to eat with him into whose house when he was entered, a certain woman that was a sinner, abiding there

1 Luke, vii.

in the city, heard of it: her name was Mary. She had been married to a noble personage, a native of the town and castle of Magdal, from whence she had her name of Magdalen, though she herself was born in Bethany. A widow she was, and prompted by her wealth, liberty, and youth to an intemperate life and too free entertainments. She came to Jesus into the Pharisee's house; not (as did the staring multitude) to glut her eyes with the sight of a miraculous and glorious person; nor (as did the centurion, or the Syro-phoenician, or the ruler of the synagogue) for cure of her sickness, or in behalf of her friend, or child, or servant; but (the only example of so coming) she came in remorse and regret for her sins. She came to Jesus to lay her burden at his feet, and to present him with a broken heart, and a weeping eye, and great affection, and a box of nard pistic, salutary and precious. For she came trembling, and fell down before him, weeping bitterly for her sins, pouring out a flood great enough to wash the feet of the blessed Jesus, and wiping them with the hairs of her head after which she brake the box, and anointed his feet with ointment. Which expression was so great an ecstasy of love, sorrow, and adoration, that to anoint the feet even of the greatest monarch was long unknown, and in all the pomps and greatnesses of the Roman prodigality, it was not used till Otho taught it to Nero, in whose instance it was by Pliny reckoned for a prodigy of unnecessary profusion: and in itself, without the circumstance of so free a dispensation, it was a present for a prince, and an alabaster box

Plin. Natur. Hist. lib. xiii. c. 3. Vide Athen. Deipnosoph. lib. xii. c. 30. Herodotus in Thalia.

of nard pistic was sent as a present from Cambyses to the king of Æthiopia.

10. When Simon observed this sinner so busy in the expresses of her religion and veneration to Jesus, he thought with himself that this was no prophet, that did not know her to be a sinner, or no just person, that would suffer her to touch him. For although the Jews' religion did permit harlots of their own nation to live, and enjoy the privileges of their nation, save that their oblations were refused; yet the Pharisees, who pretended to a greater degree of sanctity than others, would not admit them to civil usages, or the benefits of ordinary society; and thought religion itself, and the honour of a prophet, was concerned in the interests of the same superciliousness. And therefore Simon made an objection within himself; which Jesus knowing (for he understood his thoughts as well as his words) made her apology and his own in a civil question, expressed in a parable of two debtors, to whom a greater and less debt respectively was forgiven; both of them concluding, that they would love their merciful creditor in proportion to his mercy and donative. And this was the case of Mary Magdalen, to whom, because much was forgiven, she loved much, and expressed it in characters so large, that the Pharisee might read his own incivilities and inhospitable entertainment of the Master, when it stood confronted with the magnificency of Mary Magdalen's penance and charity.

11. When Jesus had dined he was presented with the sad sight of a poor demoniac, possessed with a blind and dumb devil; in whose behalf his friends entreated Jesus that he would cast the devil out: