ent forth the twelve to do the like,
_Matth._ x. and at length when he had received a message from _John_, and
answered it, he said to the multitudes, _From the days of _John_ the
Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence_; and upbraided
the cities, _Chorazin_, _Bethsaida_, and _Capernaum_, wherein most of his
mighty works were done, because they repented not, _Matth._ xi. Which
several passages shew, that from the imprisonment of _John_ till now there
had been a considerable length of time: the winter was now past, and the
next Passover was at hand; for immediately after this, _Matthew_, in chap.
xii. subjoins, that _Jesus went on the sabbath-day thro' the corn, and his
disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to
eat,--rubbing them_, saith _Luke_, _in their hands_: the corn therefore was
not only in the ear, but ripe; and consequently the Passover, in which the
first-fruits were always offered before the harvest, was now come or past.
_Luke_ calls this sabbath [Greek: deuteroproton], the second prime sabbath,
that is, the second of the two great feasts of the Passover. As we call
_Easter_ day high _Easter_, and its _octave_ low _Easter_ or _Lowsunday_:
so _Luke_ calls the feast on the seventh day of the unlevened bread, the
second of the two prime sabbaths.

In one of the sabbaths following he went into a Synagogue, and healed a man
with a withered hand, _Matth._ xii. 9. _Luke_ vi. 6. And when the Pharisees
took counsel to destroy him, _he withdrew himself from thence, and great
multitudes followed him; and he healed them all, and charged them that they
should not make him known_, Matth. xii. 14. Afterwards being in a ship, and
the multitude standing on the shore, he spake to them three parables
together, taken from the seeds-men sowing the fields, _Matth._ xiii. by
which we may know that it was now seed-time, and by consequence that the
feast of Tabernacles was past. After this he went _into his own country,
and taught them in their Synagogue_, but _did not many mighty works there
because of their unbelief_. Then the twelve having been abroad a year,
returned, and told _Jesus_ all that they had done: and at the same time
_Herod_ beheaded _John_ in prison, and his disciples came and told _Jesus_;
and when _Jesus_ heard it, he took the twelve and departed thence privately
by ship into a desert place belonging to _Bethsaida_: and the people when
they knew it, followed him on foot