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ney, following, walked home and abode with Him certain
ours, He proposed to call formally, at another time, and
ames and Simon also, but the latter He set apart, by naming,
he moment He saw him. This reader of the face, as well as
he heart of man, saw at a glance that Simon was of quick and
owerful apprehension, capable of deep and strong convictions,
onest also, and bold and impulsive; and hence prompt to
peak his convictions with frankness and energy. He saw,
o, that when persuaded of the true character of his Messiah,
imon would proclain it plainly and emphatically, without fear
r favor, and therefore was the very man to take up, after His
nd John's departure, their united cry of "Repent" and "Be-
eve," and sound it as the alarum of the new dispensation.
But, being under law, the Messiah was a Son in His minority.
lence He ever consulted the will of His Father in heaven.
t is not too much then to assume that with the quick com-
munication between God and men called "prayer," He imme-
liately asked, while intently regarding him, and instantly
eceived the promise of this man as the one to whom should
e revealed the highest nature of His Person. This being the
case, it was just as instantly decreed that Simon Bar-Jona
hould be the first-born, in order to be the first confessor of
The incarnate LORD. And, if so decreed, why should not the
at be spoken at once?

It is true Simon was not yet "converted," though by birth and circumcision a member of the Jewish Church. Indeed as far as the knowledge of the promised Christ and His work was concerned, he was a very child. He had not even received the baptism of John, for, though the Scripture says John and Andrew were the Baptist's disciples, they nowhere intimate Chat Simon was such. Had he been, Andrew would scarcely have needed to bring him to Jesus with the words: "We have Found the Messias." He, too, could have heard of Him from he Baptist. How then, not being a disciple of his, could he know from conviction, and for a certainty, that revelation which was the very purpose of John's baptism-Jesus as the

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sinless Messiah and the Lamb of God? However, he true child of the ancient covenant, and an honest Jew adhered strictly to the faith of his fathers. "I have n eaten anything that is common or unclean," he could do less say in a moral as well as literal sense, and therein equal to St. Paul, who "as touching the law was blamele and the young man who had "kept all the commandment God from his youth up." Unlike that "generation of vipe who, fleeing “from the wrath to come," applied to John baptism without repentance and avowal of their guilt, needed not the reform preached to these as a fit preparat for their spiritual amendment. He was righteous in his o eyes, it is true, but it was the self-righteousness of innocer and ignorance, not of deceit and hypocrisy. His conscien was clear of any outward transgression of the law. A go man, he could recognize a better when he saw him, and strongly attracted by him. As he stood then for the first tin before his Messiah, gazing with admiring eyes, and hea yearning toward Him, the latter, seeing that though hone and sincere he was profoundly ignorant of his state by natur and sorely needed that baptism of awakening which was t convince of sin and teach of God, gave it to him, at once, i the words: "Thou art Simon the son of Jonas, thou shalt b called Cephas (a stone)."

"The Spirit of the Lord" coming strongly and suddenly on the Messiah, was not to be resisted, and Simon, caught in its embrace, was held without his knowledge or intention. "Jesus," the Scripture says, "baptized not, but His disciples." That is, He baptized not visibly. Of course not. What need had He of water, or the intervention of men! Had He not submitted to this ordinance officially, for the very purpose of being able to dispense with both, and baptize invisibly? Without question, His ministers are ordained for the visible rite, but there are countless numbers whom these can never reach. How then shall they obtain that which God has enjoined on every soul of man as absolutely necessary to his

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lvation-re-birth through baptism? How, if not in this very ay? Surely for those who in no wise neglecting nor rejectg, but who, longing for, cannot obtain it, Jesus received sible baptism; and also for the millions of heathen who ever hear of Him in this life! Therefore, on the one hand, it are not be said that such as have not received the outward rdinance are not saved. And on the other, it must be said hat every one who is saved has been baptized, either visibly r invisibly, with the double baptism of Jesus, as He has made he two one in the declaration: "Verily, verily, I say unto hee, Except a man be born again, ‘of water and the Spirit, e can not enter into the kingdom of God."

Every act of the Redeemer was official as well as personal, nd the first public act of His ministry was as important and ecessary for man as any other. Not alone for Himself, but o obtain all the virtue of baptism for His people, had the siness One gone down into the Jordan, and by the very act o sking for it, assumed, to the dismay of John, the character of sinner, and seeker of light and knowledge, repentance and aith! John, recognizing him as holier than he, shrunk rom implication and act, and "forbade Him," saying: "I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?" But when Jesus returned the significant words: "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness," "he suffered Him." But though John demurred, the Father saw In this impulse and movement the first official act of Jesus, as the Saviour of men, robed in the sins of His people, and publicly approving by the "voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased," He sent Him forth from the hands of the Baptist with a new name, "Christ," "the Son of God," and bearing the gifts of a new Name and a new Sonship, for the sole purpose of giving them to others.

What, then, was to hinder the Head of the Christian church, "mightier" than John, from bestowing on the visitor who loved Him at sight, of His own baptism of water, and that which would henceforth go with it-His life sinless and holy,

the revealing power of which would cause him, in tim know himself and repent of his sins, and know the Chris trust in Him as a Saviour-indeed, of giving him also they could not be separated) of His accompanying baptis the Spirit, which, carrying likewise the life of the LORD in nate, would enable him to recognize "the Christ" as Son of the living God," even though humiliated, or fett and bound by the restraints and limitations of His mortal manity 1 It is true the Christian church was not yet oper nor Christian baptism ordained, and until now the two not been united-John's and the Father's-"the water a the Spirit" having been, in the case of Jesus, separate. T was the first intimation of their union, and, in the person Peter, peculiarly appropriate, since he was to announce it formally opening the new church in the words: "Repent, a be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ f the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Ho Ghost." However, the Head of that church can do wha none of His ministers can, or may do,-anticipate His ow laws, and even set them aside; and this He will do, on extra ordinary occasions, for like extraordinary purposes. therefore, as "Jesus baptized not" visibly, in the simple bu pregnant words: "Simon, son of Jonas, thou shalt be called Cephas," the first-born of the Christ was baptized invisibly by his King and Messiah, and called by Him, the Father of all who believe, with the new name of Cephas, a Stone, after His own Name of Christ, the Stone of Israel, including therein the higher name of Peter, a Rock, yet to be unfolded in all its significance.

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"The Lord hath need of him," would be an all-sufficient answer, but it may be said that as John's "baptizing with water was not only "unto repentance," but that Jesus "might be made manifest to Israel as their true and actual Messiah," so Jesus' baptizing of Peter with water and the Spirit was that the Messiah might be made manifest to him (who was to be the first of all the future new-born Israel) in

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Christ" and "the Son of the order that as such he might

His wonderful Person of "the iving God;" but this, only in confess Him. This done, Peter was to go back and learn the ull lesson in its regular order. At present, it was just so nuch knowledge in advance as would enable him to do that work of confessing, without which the visible Jewish church could not have been closed, nor the Christian opened.

"When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask John, Who art thou? he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as said the prophet Esaias." Only a "voice" he claimed to be, nothing more; not the great "Messenger of the Lord," whose birth and career an angel announced; and a voice, too, which John thought would die when he died, and never be heard again. The fearless tongue, that cost him his head, was indeed silenced by Herod, but his work was taken up by a greater than he, and lo! the Baptist is still preaching to men in the wilderness: "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," and his voice crying: "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!" "He must increase, but I must decrease," said the man of great humility, when told that "Jesus made and baptized more disciples than he," and "this my joy, therefore, is fulfilled." His humble baptism of water he supposed would be set aside by the Messiah's greater one of the Holy Ghost, but Jesus gave it immortality by making it the channel of His own, and John still goes before, baptizing with water unto repentance, while Christ accompanies, baptizing with the Spirit unto

Life.

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