his spirit and endowments; but Peter was the author of the two epistles which bear his name. James and John the sons of Zebedee were also fishermen; they dwelt in Capernaum, and seem to have been rather in better circumstances than Peter and Andrew, for the gospels speak of their having hired servants to assist them in their business. John is thought to have been the youngest of all the apostles; yet he was old enough to have been a follower of the Baptist, before he came to Christ.-On this, or some other occasion, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, obtained the sirname of Boanerges, i. e. Sons of Thunder, perhaps because of the vehemence and impetuosity of their tempers. Accordingly, their spirit shewed itself in the desire which they expressed to have the Samaritans destroyed by fire from heaven, because they refused to lodge Jesus in his way to Jerusalem. It appeared also in their ambition to become the great officers of state in their master's kingdom, which they supposed would be a secular one. Besides, John's writings shew that he was a man of a warm and affectionate turn of mind. The warmth of his temper gave him a singular fitness for friendship, in which he was not only amiable above all the disciples, but happy, as it rendered him the object of Christ's peculiar love; a love which will do him honour to the end of the world. As for James, his being put to death by Herod is a proof that his zeal was uncommon, and that it moved him to be more active and bold than the rest in the work of the gospel. Had it been otherwise, he would not have become the object either of Herod's jealousy or resentment. Some indeed are of opinion, that the epithet sons of thunder, was not expressive of the dispositions of the two brothers, but of the force and success with which they should preach the gospel. Yet if that had been the reason of the sirname, it was equally applicable to all the apostles. Philip is said to have been a native of Bethsaida, the town of Peter and Andrew. He was originally a disciple of the Baptist; but he left him to follow Jesus, as soon as he became acquainted with him at Jordan, John i. 44. Bartholomew is supposed to have been the disciple called Nathanael, whose conversion is related John i. 45. And the suppo sition is probable were it for no other reason but this, that all the other persons who became acquainted with Jesus at Jordan when he was baptized, and who believed upon him there, were chosen of the number of the apostles. If so, why should Nathanael have been excluded? He was one of those who believed on Jesus then; and was a person of such probity, that he obtained from Jesus the high character of an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile. In every respect, therefore, he was equally worthy of the honour of the apostleship with the rest. Accord ingly ingly when Jesus shewed himself to the apostles at the sea of Tiberias after his resurrection, Nathanael is expressly mentioned by John among them. Farther, in the catalogue of the apostles given by Matthew, where the apostles are thought to be coupled in pairs as they were sent out to preach, Philip is joined with Bartholomew, which agrees very well with the supposition that Bartholomow was the same person with Nathanael. For from the history of Nathanael's conversion, it appears that Philip was his intimate acquaintance, and the person who first introduced him to Jesus. The difference of names is no objection to the supposition I am contending for. Bartholomew signifies the Son of Tolmai, so may have been a patronymic, and. not this disciple's proper name. Or without having recourse to this solution, why may not Bartholomew have had two names as well as Matthew, who throughout the whole of his own gospel does not design himself by his other name Levi? After the death of Judas Iscariot, when the apostles met to chuse one in his place, Nathanael was not proposed as a candidate for that office. This cannot be accounted for on any supposition, but that he enjoyed the dignity already. For that he was still alive, and continued to associate with the disciples, is evident from John xx. 1. To conclude, the ancients seem to have thought Bartholomew the same with Nathanael; for from what John tells us of the latter, that he was of Cana, chap. xxi. 2. they assign the honour of Bartholomew's nativity to the same town, and add that he was a person skilled in the law.-Matthew was a publican of Capernaum. He was otherwise named Levi, Mark ii. 14. and left a gainful employment for the sake of Christ. He wrote the gospel to which his name is prefixed, and was the son of one Alpheus, Mark ii. 14. of whom we know nothing but the name, excepting that he was a different person from Alpheus the father of James. There is no mention made of Thomas before his conversion. However, it is conjectured that, like the rest, he was of mean extraction. And because he is named among those who went a fishing, John xxi. 2, 3. it is supposed that he was a fisherman by occupation. He obtained the sirname of Didymus, John xi. 16. probably because he was a twin. This apostle made himself remarkable, by continuing longer than his brethren to doubt of Christ's resurrection. In the college of apostles, besides James the son of Zebedee, and brother of John, Judas Iscariot who betrayed his master, and Simon sirnamed Peter, we find James the son of Alpheus, sirnamed the less or younger, Mark xv. 40. to distinguish him from the other James, the son of Zebedee, who was elder than he; also Judas or Lebbeus, sirnamed Thaddeus, the brother of James the less, and Simon sirnamed Zelotes. James the less, Judas Judas Thaddeus, and simon Zelotes, were brothers, and sons of one Alpheus or Cleophas, John xix. 25. compared with Matt. xxvii. 56. and Matt. xiii. 55. and Mark iii. 18 who was likewise a disciple, being one of the two to whom our Lord appeared on the road to Emmaus, after his resurrection. They are called Christ's brethren, Matt. xiii. 55. that is, his cousins, in which sense the word is used, Lev. x. 4. It seems their mother Mary, Matt. xxviii. 56. compared with John xix. 25. was sister to Mary, our Lord's mother, for it was no unusual thing among the Jews, to have more children than one of a family called by the same name. The three apostles, therefore, who go by the name of our Lord's brethren, were really his cousin germans.-James the less, and Judas Thaddeus, wrote the epistles which bear their names. This James was a person of great authority among the apostles. For in the council which met at Jerusalem to decide the dispute about the necessity of circumcision, we find him as president of the meeting, summing up the debate, and wording the decree. Simon, the cousin of our Lord, and brother of James the less, (see the preceding paragraph) is called by Mark the Canaanite. But from the above account of his relations, it is plain that the epithet does not express his descent, otherwise his brothers James and Judas ought to have been termed Canaanites likewise. Luke calls him Simon Zelotes, which seems to be the Greek transla tion of the Hebrew appellation given him by Mark. For from No zelotypus fuit, he was jealous, comes the Chaldaic word p zealotes, a zealot, Buxtorff. in voc. Put the Greek termination to this Chaldaic word, and it becomes avant. Wherefore the appellation of Canaanites, given to Simon by Mark, and Zelotes, the epithet which he bears in Luke, are as perfectly the same as Cephas and Petros, Tabitha and Dorcas. The zealots were a particular sect or faction among the Jews, who in later times, under colour of zeal for God, committed all the disorders imaginable. They pretended to imitate the zeal which Phinehas, Elijah, and the Maccabees expressed in their manner of punishing offenders. But they acted from blind fury, or from worse principles, without regard either to the laws of God, or to the dictates of reason. Some are of opinion that Simon the apostle had formerly been one of this pestilent faction. But as there is no mention made of it till a little before the destruction of Jerusalem, Joseph. Bel. lib. iv. cap. 3. we may rather suppose, that the sirname of Zelotes was given him, on account of his uncommon zeal in matters of true piety and religion. Judas the traitor was the son of one Simon, John vi. 71. He had the sirname of Iscariot given him to distinguish him from Judas Thaddeus, our Lord's cousin. The literal meaning of Iscariot, is a man of Cariot, or Kerioth, which was a town in the tribe tribe of Judah, Josh. xv. 25. In all probability, therefore, this sirname denotes the place of the traitor's nativity. Some pretend that among the Jews no person was sirnamed by the place of his birth, but such as were illustrious on account of their station, and so would have us believe that Judas was a person of some distinction. They think his being intrusted with the bag or common stock purse, preferably to all the rest, is a confirmation of this. But as the other apostles were men of mean condition, these arguments are too trivial to prove that Judas was distinguished from them in that particular. See the reasons why our Lord chose one for his apostle whom he knew would prove a traitor, in the commentary on John vi. 70, 71. § 62. Thus were the foundations of the church laid in twelve illiterate Galileans, who being at first utterly ignorant of the nature and end of their office, and destitute of the qualifications necessary to discharge the duties of it, integrity excepted, were the most unlikely persons in the world to confound the wisdom of the wise, to baffle the power of the mighty, to overturn the many false religions which then flourished every where under the protection of civil government, and in a word, to reform the universally corrupted manners of mankind. Had human prudence been to make choice of instruments for so grand an undertaking, doubtless such as were remarkable for deep science, strong reasoning, and prevailing eloquence, would have been pitched upon; and these endowments probably would have been set off with the external advantages of wealth and power. But lo! the wisdom of God, infinitely superior to that of men, acted quite differently in this matter. For the treasure of the gospel was committed to earthen vessels, that the excellency of its power might in all countries be seen to be of God. Accordingly, the religion which these Galileans taught through the world, without having at all applied themselves to letters, exhibited a far juster notion of the nature and perfections of God, and of the duty of man, than the Grecian and Roman philosophers were able to attain, though their lives were spent in contemplation and study. Hence, by its own intrinsic splendour, as well as by the external glory of the miracles which accompanied it, this religion shewed itself to be altogether of divine original. Besides, it was attended with at success answerable to its dignity and truth. It was received every where by the bulk of mankind with the highest applause, as something they had hitherto been seeking in vain; while the maxims and precepts of the philosophers, never spread themselves farther than their particular schools. It was therefore with the highest wisdom, that the foundations of the church were thus laid in the labours of a few weak illiterate fishermen. For with irresistible evidence it demonstrated that the immense fabric was at first raised, and is still sustained, not by the arm of flesh, but purely by the hand of Almighty God. 3 X VOL. I. § XXXVIII. § XXXVIII. Jesus preaches the sermon on the plain. Luke vi. 17,-49. See § 26. AT length, Jesus and his twelve apostles came down from the mountain to the multitude, which waited for him in the plain below. When he first drew nigh, they pressed to touch him. How well known it was, that to touch but the garment of Christ would produce the cure of any distemper, appears likewise from Matth. ix. 21. xiv. 36. Mark iii. 10. vi. 56. It was little wonder, therefore, that the people gathered round him from all quarters, in such vast crowds as to tread one another down, (Luke xii. 1.) and waited for him whole nights in the fields, as on this occasion, and followed him from place to place, even to the remotest corners of the country. Nor was it the low vulgar only who thus crowded after Jesus. He was followed likewise by persons of the first character and station, who came to converse with him, and to hear his doctrine, and see his miracles. Nay, some of them believing on him applied to him for cures in behalf of their children and servants. Wherefore the character, as well as the multitude of our Lo-l's followers, and the frequent application that was made to him for cures, by persons of all ranks and stations in all parts of the country, shew beyond contradiction how universal the persuasion was that now prevailed concerning the truth of his miracles; a persuasion which could be founded on nothing but the reality of those miracles clearly evident to every spectator. Luke vi. 17. And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be heal. ed of their diseases; 18. And they that were vexed with unclean spirits; and they were healed. 19. And the whole multitude sought to touch him, for there went virtue out of him, and he healed them all. In order to multiply the proofs of his mission, and to render them indubitable, he healed all without exception who came and touched, though it were but his clothes, in expectation of being healed. By this benignity, he put the cure in the power of the diseased themselves, and wrought many more miracles than could have been done, in the way of a formal application to him for a cure. The multitude that pressed to touch Jesus in order to be healed, being quieted, he turned to his disciples, perhaps the twelve apostles lately chosen, and spake a discourse in many particulars like that which he had delivered about half a year ago, (§ 26.) and which, for the importance and variety of matter contained in it, was of all his sermons the most proper to be remembered by the twelve disciples, now that they were constituted apostles, and appointed to preach his gospel *. Luke vi. 20. And he lift ed * The evangelist Matthew having recorded the former sermon in it |