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Rh to prepare them for the kingdom of the Messiah, now shortly expected to appear, but a readiness to believe in and obey him whenever he should evidently make himself Known. 'The law and the prophets,' says Christ, 'were until John. Since that the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.' The baptism of John and that of Jesus were essentially the same, one into a profession of belief in the Messiah yet to come, and the other into a possession of belief in the Messiah already come.

"Thus John's baptism began to do what his words began to predict, to separate the righteous from the wicked, to prepare the righteous for eternal life, and leave the wicked to the consequences of their sins; began to establish the kingdom of God, whose initiatory rite was baptism, just as circumcision was the initiatory rite of God's ancient church. Thus the kingdom of God came not with observation. While men were saying, 'Lo here, and lo there,' the kingdom of God was in the midst of them.

"But after all this knowledge of the nature of the kingdom, or Christianity, which was possessed by John the Baptist, and after baptizing Jesus with his own hands, and receiving the Divine testimony of which he had been forewarned, so possessed was he with the Jewish prejudices, of the temporal splendor and power of the Messiah, and so discouraged by his long imprisonment, that he sent two of his disciples to inquire if he were actually the Messiah. Jesus sent them back to tell all they saw and heard, and to leave him to form his own judgment, adding