tisms might be, and so met with the Baptist’s own doctrine, touching baptisms, mentioned in Mat. iii. Mark i. Luke iii. and John i. (for all the evangelists make mention of this, it being a matter of so great concernment) and Luke makes mention of the ground of this doctrine of the Baptist, chap. iii. 15. “ As the people were in expectation,” saith he, “and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ or not, John answered, saying,” &c. The people, it seems, had great and high thoughts of John, because he was the son of the high priest, conceived after an extraordinary manner, his parents being both well stricken in age, and past children by the course of nature : and then the manner of his life was strange, for he lived in the wilderness, out of the ordinary converse of the world ; and his apparel and diet were unusual, being raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his meat, locusts and wild honey; but especially his ministry was mighty, being in the spirit and power of Elias; and his baptism new and famous; so that all the people stood in great expectation of some work or event from him, that should manifest him to be the Christ: wherefore John, to take them off from that gross and dangerous mistake, plainly told them all, and that openly, that he was not the Christ; but that there was a great deal of difference between himself and the Messias, and that both in regard of his person and office. First for his office. For he begins to shew the difference from thence, because the newness of his baptism was the occasion of the people’s conceiving that he was the Messias; whereupon he vilifies his own baptism in respect of Christ’s, saying, “ I indeed baptize you with water;” that is, my baptism is but water baptism, that washes the body only with a corporeal element; “ buL one mightier than I comes,” for I am but a creature, he the Power of God ; I but a servant, he the Lord of all; and one so infinitely excellent above all that I am, that “ the latchet of his shoes I am not worthy to unloose that is, I am unworthy to perform the meanest and lowest office for him. And having thus first spoken meanly of his own baptism, and then magnified Christ’s person above his own, now he proceeds also to magnify Christ’s
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