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First, This was done by the ministry of Angels; for an Angel announced to the shepherds "the glad tidings of great joy "which should be to all people;" and a "multitude of the heavenly host sang

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Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will toward men.'

Secondly, It was done by the ministry of Men; for illustrious persons, divinely directed, came from a far country, to offer gifts, and to do honour to the new-born King.

Thirdly, It was done by the ministry of Nature. Nature herself was commanded to bear witness to the presence of the God of Nature. A Star, or Divine Light, pointed out significantly from heaven the spot upon earth where the Saviour was born.

Thus it pleased the Divine Wisdom, by an assemblage of heavenly testimonies, to glorify the incarnation of the Son of God.

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All these testimonies were appropriate; but the Journey of the Eastern Sages had in it a peculiar fitness. We can hardly imagine a more natural mode of honouring the event than this, that illustrious persons should proceed from a far country to visit the child that was born Saviour of the world. They came, as it were, in the name of the Gentiles, to acknowledge the heavenly gift, and to bear their testimony against that nation which rejected it. They came as the representatives of all the heathen; not only of the heathen in the East, but also of those in the West, from whom we are descended. In the name of the whole world, lying, "in "darkness, and in the shadow of death," they came inquiring for that Light which they had heard was to visit them in the

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young child was.

"And the Star which

East went before them,

stood over where the

And when they were

come into the house, they fell down and worshipped him; and when they had "opened their treasures, they presented "unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense, " and myrrh."

Do you ask how the Star of Christ was understood in the East? or why Providence ordained that peculiar mode of intimation?

Christ was foretold in old prophecy, under the name of the "Star that should arise out of Jacob;" and the rise of the Star in Jacob was notified to the world by the appearance of an actual Star.

We learn from authentic Roman his

tory, that there prevailed" in the East" a constant expectation of a Prince, who should arise out of Judea, and rule the world. That such an expectation did exist, has been confirmed by the ancient writings of India. Whence, then, arose this extraordinary expectation, for it was found also in the Sybilline books of Rome?

The Jewish expectation of the Messiah had pervaded the East long before the period of his appearance. The Jews are called by their own prophet the "Expecting people,"* (as it may be translated, and as some of the Jews of the East translate it) the " people

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looking for and expecting One to come.' Wherever, then, the tribes of Israel were carried throughout the East, they carried with them their expectation. And they carried also the prophecies on which their

* Is. xviii. 2. "The people meted out," in our translation.

expectation was founded.

Now, one of

the clearest of these prophecies runs in these words: "There shall come a Star out of "Jacob."* And, as in the whole dispensation relating to the Messiah, there is a wonderful fitness between the words of prophecy and the person spoken of, so it was ordained, that the rise of the Star in Jacob should be announced to the world by the appearance of an actual Star. A divine intimation of its nature and object, was, no doubt, given at the same time. And this actual Star, in itself a proper emblem of that " Light which was to lighten the Gentiles," conducted them to Him who was called in a figure the Star of Jacob, and the "glory of his people Israel."†

* Numbers xxiv. 17.

+ The Jews used to speak of their Messiah under the appellation of Bar Cocab, or, " the Son of the Star;" and false Christs actually assumed that name.

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