Next, in St Matthew’s gospel, the Baptist’s buttressing argument, or imminent motive for the change he is pressing upon the people is, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand:  ’Because the king of heaven is coming, you must give up your sinning.’  The same argument for immediate action lies in his quotation from Isaiah,—­’Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’  The only true, the only possible preparation for the coming Lord, is to cease from doing evil, and begin to do well—­to send away sin.  They must cleanse, not the streets of their cities, not their houses or their garments or even their persons, but their hearts and their doings.  It is true the Baptist did not see that the kingdom coming was not of this world, but of the higher world in the hearts of men; it is true that his faith failed him in his imprisonment, because he heard of no martial movement on the part of the Lord, no assertion of his sovereignty, no convincing show of his power; but he did see plainly that righteousness was essential to the kingdom of heaven.  That he did not yet perceive that righteousness is the kingdom of heaven; that he did not see that the Lord was already initiating his kingdom by sending away sin out of the hearts of his people, is not wonderful.  The Lord’s answer to his fore-runner’s message of doubt, was to send his messenger back an eye-witness of what he was doing, so to wake or clarify in him the perception that his kingdom was not of this world—­that he dealt with other means to another end than John had yet recognized as his mission or object; for obedient love in the heart of the poorest he healed or persuaded, was his kingdom come.

Again, observe that, when the Pharisees came to John, he said to them, ‘Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:’  is not this the same as, ‘Repent unto the sending away of your sins’?

Note also, that, when the multitudes came to the prophet, and all, with the classes most obnoxious to the rest, the publicans and the soldiers, asked what he would have them do—­thus plainly recognizing that something was required of them—­his instruction was throughout in the same direction:  they must send away their sins; and each must begin with the fault that lay next him.  The kingdom of heaven was at hand:  they must prepare the way of the Lord by beginning to do as must be done in his kingdom.

They could not rid themselves of their sins, but they could set about sending them away; they could quarrel with them, and proceed to turn them out of the house:  the Lord was on his way to do his part in their final banishment.  Those who had repented to the sending away of their sins, he would baptize with a holy power to send them away indeed.  The operant will to get rid of them would be baptized with a fire that should burn them up.  When a man breaks with his sins, then the wind of the Lord’s fan will blow them away, the fire of the Lord’s heart will consume them.