our invaders would soon have delivered us. But, alas, how poor a consideration is it to Christians, that they have been refined into civility and good manners, taught arts and commerce, and improved in industry and learning! Allow these advantages the great value and commendation really due to them, yet still, I say, how little and insignificant are even all these polishings, in comparison of those benefits which come from the knowledge, the obedience, the hopes, and the precious promises of the Gospel! The exalting our minds with this most holy faith, enlarging our ideas of God, giving us a prospect of heaven, seasoning us with a true taste of good and evil, and forming our lives upon the most perfect model of justice and holiness, and order and peace, and all that can procure or preserve the tranquillity and happiness of ourselves and the whole world: this was, in a literal sense, to bring light out of darkness; and (praised be God) no part of his church is blessed with clearer and

purer day than ours. This is our glory, this ought to be our joy.

Since then we also are, with these Eastern forerunners, happily conducted to Christ, let us, as they did, fall down and worship Him. We see him not, indeed, like them, in arms and infancy, but, which is at once a tragical and yet most comfortable prospect, dying upon a cross for us; nay, risen again, gone up on high, shedding his gifts and graces down, and perpetually at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. Let us, then, approach with reve

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid;
Star of the east, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our Infant Redeemer is laid.

HEBER.

be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt have I called my

son.

13 And when they were departed, behold the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

14 When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:

15 And was there until the death of Herod that it might

m Hos. xi. 1.

Reader. Egypt was at this time a Roman province, in which Herod. had no authority. It was the residence of a large number of Jews; many of that people having settled there in the days of Jeremiah, and many more having been attracted thither in later times by various circumstances, especially, perhaps, by the celebrated Temple which had been erected there by Onias IV. Such was the place which God selected as the refuge of the infant Jesus, when his life was sought by a wicked prince. "Egypt had been a house of bondage to Israel, and particularly cruel to the infants of Israel; in Egypt, as much as in Ramah, Rachel had been weeping for her children; yet that is appointed to be a place of refuge to the holy child Jesus. Thus God, when he pleases, can make the worst of places serve the best of purposes." And "all places will be to us what Divine Providence may be pleased to make

it may contain, in the way of conversation; and then to point out, as far as I can, the practical inferences and lessons to be deduced from the whole, in the way of a concluding address.

Have you any questions to propose concerning the interpretation of the passage now before you, or with reference to the history which it contains?

Theophilus. We are told here, very briefly, that Joseph took the young child and his mother, and departed into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod. Have we means of ascertaining any farther particulars respecting this interesting portion of our Saviour's life on earth?

Reader. None whatever. The Holy Spirit has not thought fit to record such particulars; and therefore we may be well content to be ignorant concerning them. Vain tradition, indeed, always ready to satisfy men's curiosity, to amuse the fancy, and to feed the soul with chaff instead of wheat, has been very inventive and loquacious in this matter. It pretends to inform us of the name of the place in which the holy family sojourned; namely, Matarea, not far from the place in which the Temple of Onias stood. But the truth is, that we do not know the place of their abode. Another story, equally unfounded, and therefore equally unprofitable, is derived from the same unsatisfactory source. It was the practice of early writers, first to suppose, or take for granted, that such or such a prophecy received its ful

had in mind, and then to invent or propagate some suitable or corresponding tale. Thus, it is written. in Isa. xix. 1, "The Lord shall come into Egypt, and all the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence;" and on this was founded the fictitious narrative, that Joseph and Mary, on their entrance into Egypt with the holy child, went into a certain temple, and immediately the images of the idols were overthrown by a supernatural power, and fell before the infant Saviour, as Dagon once fell before the ark. Of course, priests who had the power of inventing and propagating such interesting narratives easily acquired great power over the minds of an ignorant people, naturally prone to propose vain and frivolous questions.

The legends concerning our Saviour's sojourn in Egypt filled a volume. "There is an apocryphal work in Arabic," says one of our modern commentators, "called 'The Gospel of the Infancy,' which pretends to relate all the acts of Jesus and Mary while in Egypt. I have taken the pains to read this through, and have found it to be a piece of gross superstition, having nothing to entitle it to a shadow of credibility.” -How great is our privilege in belonging to a scriptural Church which has rejected the fables and traditions of the church of "the fathers," and has retained, in its purity and its integrity, the inspired word of God! How deep is our responsibility, in possessing this blessing, unknown to our credulous and less enlightened

ancestors in the Christian faith! And how earnest should be our endeavour, by divine grace, to use the gift aright!

Theophilus. I think I have heard or read that this narrative is important as fixing the date of our Saviour's birth.

Reader. It does fix the date of that great event very nearly; for by means of it we connect it with an event the exact date of which is easily ascertained. From the fact that Jesus was born before the death of Herod, we learn that the date of his birth is at least three years earlier than the common era, called "The Birth of Christ." And, although we do not know how long this event took place before the death of Herod, yet, as it seems probable that the space of time which intervened was not very great, we may conclude that the Redeemer was born about the time which I have mentioned.

Theophilus. I am not quite sure that I rightly understand the application of the prophecy quoted in the fifteenth verse.

Reader. Read the whole verse in which it occurs; namely, Hosea xi. 1. Theophilus. "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt."

Reader. With this compare Exod. iv. 22, 23.

Theophilus. "Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my first-born. And I say unto thee, Let my son go that he may serve me.”

Reader. And Numbers xxiv. 8. Theophilus. "God brought him forth out of Egypt."

Reader. It is plain that the words of Hosea, in their original connection, referred to the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt under Moses. In the Gospel they are applied, say some, by the way of analogy, to Christ, the Head of the church; and it is probable that, when St. Matthew wrote, the passage was generally regarded by the Jews as relating, in some way or other, to the Messiah. Perhaps the more correct way of stating the case may be as follows. The words refer, in the first instance, to the people of Israel, spoken of as one man, and called the son of God, as in Exod. iv. 22, 23. But the inspired Evangelist, by divine authority, teaches us to view the passage also in the light of a prediction. By the application which he makes of it, he instructs us that Israel, in the return from Egypt, was a type of Christ, the events of whose life were even then present to the divine mind; and he reminds us that the natural Israelites were spiritually represented in the person of the Messiah. We learn, by later revelation, that several portions of the Old Testament, which, in their immediate and literal sense, related to passing events of Jewish history, contained also a reference to the more distant, but more important, history of Christ and his people. 1 Cor. x. 4-9; Gal. iv, 28-30.

With reference to this twofold application of the words of Hosea, a pious commentator remarks, "It is no new thing for God's sons to be in Egypt, in a strange land, in a house

out."

Can I give you any farther satisfaction in the way of mere interpretation or exposition of these verses?

Theophilus. I am not aware, Sir, that any other question arises in our minds on the present occasion.

READER. Let us now proceed to make some practical reflections, and to derive some religious instruction, from this portion of Holy Scrip

ture.

Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. His malice and cruelty were foreseen and foretold. And hence we are reminded of the most encouraging fact, that God is intimately acquainted with all the crafty and malicious designs or projects of his people's enemies. He says, as it were, to every enemy of himself and of his cause, as he once said to the haughty Sennacherib by the mouth of Isaiah," I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me." Isaiah xxxvii. 28. And he who is thus acquainted with the ill-will of wicked men or evil spirits can easily frustrate the mischief which he foresees, and can destroy the power of those who exalt themselves against him. Oh let us mingle. faith with that petition to God, our merciful Father, "Graciously hear us, that those evils, which the craft and subtilty of the devil or man worketh against us be brought to nought; and by the providence of thy goodness they may be dispersed; that we thy servants,

evermore give thanks unto thee in thy holy church, thy holy church, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.-Here we have a farther "instance of the humiliation of the Lord Jesus. As there was no room for him in the inn at Bethlehem, so there was no quiet room for him in the land of Judea." Thus early were the indications of the mournful fact, that "he came unto his own, and his own received him not." "He was banished almost as soon as he was born." born." "Lord, how great an humiliation was this, not only to become an infant, but in thine infancy to be hurried up and down, and driven out of thine own land as a vagabond!"

May we cherish a deep devotion and a and a reverent love towards the once suffering, but now glorified, Redeemer! And may we learn to follow him in his great humility!

Flee into Egypt.-This teaches us that, in certain seasons of difficulty or danger, it is lawful, and in every respect right, for God's people to seek protection by flight, or by otherwise endeavouring to escape the evil which may be designed against them, as long as they can do so without the breach of a plain and positive commandment. It is fanaticism, and not faith, which would run into the flames of persecution, or rush upon the sword of the destroyer. "When they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another." Matt. x. 23.

Flee into Egypt.-Perhaps we may