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commentator on our Book of Common Prayer, to the following effect, -that there are three kinds of martyrdom; the first both in will and deed, which is the highest; the second in will, but not in deed; the third in deed, but not in will. These infants were martyrs (if such they may be called) of the latter class. And, in one sense, they may be properly regarded as martyrs, that is, suffering witnesses to Christ, if we regard their death, although involuntary, as the fulfilment of inspired prophecy.

There are, especially, four points of view in which we may consider the slaughter of these children, in order to our practical benefit.

We may regard it, first, as the act of a cruel and despotic tyrant. And hence we should learn to be thankful that, through the good providence of God, we are not exposed to the same awful invasion of the rights of man, the same wanton exercise of irresponsible and unbridled power. Thanks be to God for the liberties of Britons, and the excellence of the British Constitution!

Secondly, we may contemplate this event as having taken place by divine permission.-"Let us not say, Where was the great Regent of the universe when such a horrible butchery was transacted? His all-wise counsels knew how to bring good out of all the evil of it. The agony of a few moments transmitted these oppressed innocents to peace and joy, while the impotent rage of Herod only heaped on his own head guilt, and infamy, and horror."

Thirdly, we may consider the

murder of the infants as a source of grief and mourning to their parents. The heart of many a parent was wrung with anguish on this lamentable occasion. How soon may we be called to mourn over the deathperhaps, as we may suppose, the untimely death of relatives and friends! Let us always be prepared for so solemn and painful an event. Let us walk in faith, hand in hand, and with united hearts, towards a higher and a better world! Concerning the tenants of that blissful region it has been written, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." Rev. xxi. 4.

Fourthly, we may look at this circumstance with reference to the infants themselves. It was an early and, as men call it, a premature death. "It was no unrighteous thing in God to permit this; every life is forfeited to his justice as soon as it commences; that sin which entered by one man's disobedience. introduced death with it; and we are not to suppose anything more than common guilt, we are not to suppose that these children were sinners above all that were in Israel,-because they suffered such things. God's judgments are a great deep.

"But we must look upon this murder of the infants under another character; it was their martyrdom. How early did persecution commence against Christ and his kingdom! Think ye that he came to send peace

upon the earth?

man.

No; but a sword, | Lord appeareth in a dream to
Joseph in Egypt,

such a sword as this (ch. x. 34, 35.)". The meaning of which passage is, not that such was the intention or design of Christ's coming, as to the counsels of God, but that such was one of its effects, through the corruption and wickedness of "A passive testimony was hereby given to the Lord Jesus. They shed their blood for him who afterwards shed his for them.-If these infants were thus baptized with blood, though it were their own, into the church triumphant, it could not be said but that, with what they gained in heaven, they were abundantly recompensed for what they lost on earth."

HYMN.

Weep, weep not o'er thy children's tomb,

Oh Rachel! weep not so: The bud is cropt by martyrdom,

The flower in heaven shall blow.
Firstlings of faith! the murderer's knife

Hath miss'd its deadly aim;
The God, for whom they gave their life,
For them to suffer came.

Though evil were their days and few,

Baptiz'd in blood and pain,

He knows them whom they never knew,
And they shall live again.

Then weep not o'er thy children's tomb,
Oh Rachel! weep not so;

The bud is cropt by martyrdom,
The flower in heaven shall blow.

$ IX.

CHAP. II. 19-23.

Herod dieth.

HEBER.

20 Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life.

21 And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.

22 But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee :

23 And he came and dwelt in a city called "Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled 'which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

o ch. iii. 13. Luke ii. 39-p John i. 45. q Judges xiii. 5. 1 Sam. i. 11.

Reader. Hence it appears that our Saviour's sojourn in Egypt was but of short duration. He did not remain in that country long enough to receive any part of his earthly education there; for he was taken back to Nazareth as "a young child," i.e. while he was yet an infant.

Theophilus. From the expression "they are dead," are we to conclude that others besides Herod were en

Christ is brought back gaged in seeking the life of the infant Jesus, and that they had all been removed by the stroke of death?

again into Galilee to Nazareth.

19

But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the

Reader. It is, of course, probable that some of Herod's adherents were

ready to assist him in his wicked design, and God may have cut them all off by death.-Or the plural number may be here used in a general and indefinite sense, but referring strictly to Herod himself.-But there is, I think, a still better way of accounting for the plural form of expression in this place. The words appear to be a quotation from Exod. iv. 19, and so to contain an allusion, although without the usual note of reference, to what is said concerning Moses in that place ;-hereby teaching us to regard Moses, in his flight from his enemies, as a type of the infant Redeemer in his flight from Herod. In this respect, Herod may be viewed as a representative of all the enemies of Christ," they are dead which sought the young child's life." child's life." Theophilus. I think I have understood that Herod was the last king of Judea, but here it is said that Archelaus reigned in the room of his father.

Reader. It was the intention of Herod, expressed in his will, that Archelaus should succeed him as king; but Augustus, the Roman emperor, would not bestow upon him that title. He suffered him, however, to retain the government of Judea, Idumea, and Samaria, under the inferior title of ethnarch; and at the same time he gave Batanea, Trachonitis, &c., to Philip, and Galilee and Peræa to Antipas. Archelaus held his office only nine years; at the end of which time he was deposed and banished, and Judea was entirely reduced to the condition of a Roman province.

Theophilus. I suppose the conduct of Archelaus was very bad, and that this led to his deposition; especially as it is said that Joseph "was afraid" to return into Judea when he heard that Archelaus was in power.

Reader. Such is the fact. He made himself odious and intolerable by his acts of cruelty and oppression; and it was at the instance of the afflicted Jews that the emperor visited his crimes with the punishment I have mentioned.

Here let me call your attention to what is, perhaps, to be regarded as an incidental evidence of the credibility of the Gospel narrative. The Evangelist says nothing concerning the character or proceedings of Archelaus; but the fact of Joseph's being afraid to come within his reach is in perfect accordance with the character of the tyrant, as it is displayed to us by common historians;—and the sacred writer, by thus dropping a hint, without attempting to account for the fact to which he alludes, appears to us in his true light, as one who was writing for persons who well understood the circumstances of the times of which he treated.

Why might Joseph have been expected to think of returning to Judea, in the first instance?

Theophilus. Because the infant had been born at Bethlehem; and because he knew that the Messiah was to be of the tribe of Judah.

Reader. And why would he naturally turn his thoughts to Galilee, in the next instance, and especially to Nazareth?

Theophilus. Because, as we learn | writings which had been lost before

from another Evangelist, although the fact is not mentioned by St. Matthew,-Nazareth was the place in which Mary, and probably Joseph also, originally resided. Luke i. 26, 27.

Reader. Here you may remark an incidental coincidence between the histories of the Evangelists.

Theophilus. It is said in the twenty-third verse that it " was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." But we have not been able to trace this prophecy in any part of the Old Testament. Will you be pleased to help us out of our difficulty?

Reader. Some have supposed that the Evangelist here applies to the Messiah several passages of the Old Testament, containing appellations resembling that of Nazarene merely in sound. Thus they have referred to Gen. xli. 26, where it is. said that Joseph should be "separate (Nezir) from, or a Nazarite among, his brethren."―They regard Judges xiii. 5, "The child," i.e. Samson, "shall be a Nazarite," as pointing, in a more remote signification, to Christ.-And they suppose also that Isaiah xi. 1, in which our Saviour is foretold under the title of The Branch (Natzir), may be regarded as another passage of the prophets to which St. Matthew refers.-But I do not think that this view of the matter is consistent with the principles of sound interpretation.

Chrysostom thought that the predictions referred to by St. Matthew, were contained in some prophetical

his time. But this was merely his conjecture; and it is one which the more accurate criticism of the present day will not suffer us to adopt without obvious necessity.

I am inclined to agree with those interpreters who think that the Evangelist makes a general allusion to the sense or substance of predictions contained in several parts of the Old Testament, rather than to the precise words of any particular book or books. Now it had been foretold in more places than one that the Messiah would be despised and rejected by his contemporaries; and when the Evangelist wrote, the term "Nazarene" was proverbially employed as an expression of scorn or contempt. Having mentioned our Lord's early abode at Nazareth, the Evangelist points out the fact of his having incurred the odium and contempt necessarily connected with a residence in that place, as being part of that humiliation which had been so expressly foretold by the voice of prophecy. "To be called a Nazarene was to be called a despicable man.--Now this was not particularly foretold by any one prophet; but, in general, it was spoken by the prophets that he should be despised and rejected of men (Isa. lxiii. 2, 3), a worm and no man (Ps. xxii. 6, 7), that he should be an alien to his brethren. Ps. lxix. 7, 8."

In reading this chapter, we have more than once had occasion to discuss the Evangelist's method of applying Old Testament prophecies to the person and history of Christ. I

therefore take this opportunity of reading to you four rules, drawn up by modern critics, according to which the phrase that it might be fulfilled may be applied in the New Testament, and according to one or other of which St. Matthew appears to have made all his quotations from prophecy.

RULE I. When the thing predicted is literally accomplished.

RULE II. When that is done, of which the Scripture has spoken not in a literal, but in a spiritual, sense.

RULE III. When a thing is not done either in a literal, or in a spiritual, sense, according to the fact referred to in the Scripture; but is similar to that fact.

RULE IV. When that which has been mentioned in the Old Testament as formerly done, is spoken of in the New Testament as plished in a larger and more extensive

sense.

accom

Theophilus. I will endeavour to bear these rules in mind, and to mark their application as instances occur.

READER. Upon this short passage of Scripture we may make various reflections, for the improvement of our hearts and regulation of our practice.

Herod was dead.-There is something affecting in this brief notice of the end of this man's earthly history; especially when we remember that Josephus, the Jewish historian, gives a most shocking account of the manner of his death. His power to persecute has ceased; and he is numbered among those concerning whom

the Preacher says "Their hatred, and their envy, is now perished." Eccl. ix. 6. Well may we read in these few words a powerful argument against the vain, disquieting, and sinful fear of man. "Who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor ?” Isai. li. 12, 13.

When Herod was dead ;-not before. So that the holy family remained until that time contentedly in Egypt.

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They continued there until God gave the signal for their departure. -Let us, in like manner, remember that it is God's part to direct and ours to obey; nor can we be out of the way of safety and of comfort while we are following his directions, and steering our course by the intimations of his pleasure." "Oh how safe and satisfactory it is in all our ways to follow the call and command of God!"

An angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt.-" Our intercourse with God, if it be kept up on our part, shall be kept up on his, wherever we are. No place can exclude God's gracious visits. Angels came to Joseph in Egypt, to Ezekiel in Babylon, and to John in Patmos."

He arose and came into the land of Israel.-This strongly reminds me

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