the blood of sprinkling. And with that thought I conclude. Come with all the sins of the year: I am trying to take mine there; do you bring yours, and may I bring mine, confessing them all before the great Atoning Sacrifice. May we obtain mercy through the blood of the cross, and then find grace to help in the time of need.

THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS.

REV. H. MELVILL, A.M.

CAMDEN CHAPEL, CAMBERWELL, DECEMBER 28, 1834.

"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."-MATTHEW, ii. 17, 18.

On the evening of the last Sabbath, we selected as our subject of discourse, the incredulity of St. Thomas; assigning as our reason, that the Church had devoted that day to the commemoration of this Apostle. We stated, that it seemed desirable, that the sermon should on such occasions be connected with the service of the day, that the design of the Church in the institution of festivals might not be altogether overlooked. It is this principle which guides us in our present choice of subject, the day being Innocents Day, or that which the Church dedicates to the memory of the innocents massacred by Herod at Bethlehem. We believe, that, however at first sight this occurrence migh seem barren of the material of profitable meditation, there is needed nothing but careful investigation, in order to the extracting such material in no ordinary quantity.

We may suppose you familiar with the occurrence itself, so that we need glance but briefly at the history. There had come wise men from the East, guided by a star, inquiring in Jerusalem for one born King of the Jews. This inquiry roused the jealousy and alarm of Herod, who then swayed the sceptre of Jerusalem; and he accordingly convened the chief priests and scribes, in order that they might decide on the testimony of prophecy as to the birthplace of Christ. Herod, you observe, supposed that the infant king after whom the Magi inquired, could be none other than the promised Messiah; and yet, with an infatuation scarcely conceivable, he set himself to plot his destruction. There is no more striking instance on record of open and undisguised opposition to God. Herod believed the prophecies, (for he referred to them in order to decide where the Christ should be born,) and yet he acts as though he supposed it possible to prevent what God had decreed. He literally takes prophecy as his guide, and endeavours to arrest its accomplishment. We say of this, that it is unparalleled as an exhibition of the madness of the human heart, when left by God to its own devices. To receive as the declaration of God, that a King should be born and should reign, and yet to endeavour to prevent such a declaration from taking effect-you will not easily find in all the annals of wickedness so deliberate an act of insolence and rebellion. The chief priests and scribes had no difficulty in answering the question of Herod; the prophet

Micah had so definitely pointed out the birth-place of Christ, that they unanimously replied, "In Bethlehem of Judea." This answer is conveyed to the wise men of the East; and Herod sends them to Bethlehem, desiring to be informed if their search was successful, that he too might come and worship the young child. The Magi departed; and the star which led them from their distant home conducted them to the house where Jesus was. They presented to the child the gold, and the frankincense, and the myrrh: but God, who knew the treachery of Herod, allows them not to return to Jerusalem; when this their homage was paid they are bidden to depart into their own country another way; and ere the news of their departure could be carried to Jerusalem, Joseph receives a command to fly into Egypt, with the young child and his mother, and there to await another communication from God.

The safety of Christ being thus secure, the fury of Herod is allowed to break forth. Finding himself mocked by the wise men, and baffled in the destruction of his infant rival, he thought to effect by an indiscriminate slaughter, what he could not do by selecting his victim. He takes therefore a large sweep, caring nothing what number was sacrificed, so that he might be secure that the one whom he hated could not escape. He "sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men." Then it was, says St. Matthew, that the prophecy quoted in our text was fulfilled; a prophecy which describes Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, as weeping for her lost children, and refusing to be comforted.

There can be no doubt, that we have here rather an accommodation, than an accomplishment, of the prediction. The slaughtered children were probably for the most part of the tribe of Judah; and though some amongst them might have been of the tribes of Joseph and Benjamin, yet the prophecy referred primarily to another event. We can hardly think that Rachel would have been mentioned in preference to her who was the mother of Judah: indeed if you refer to Jeremiah, you may readily perceive that it relates chiefly to other Occurrences. It is found in the thirty-first chapter of that prophet; a chapter which, it is on all hands agreed, expects its fulfilment in the final restoration of the Jews and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ. After a beautiful description of the return of the twelve tribes, Rachel is introduced as weeping for her lost children, and as bidden by God to refrain her voice from weeping, and her eyes from tears. But it is evident, from what is subjoined, that captive children, and not dead, were the object of the mother's lament. Thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children. shall come again to their own border." This sufficiently shews that, however the prophecy may be accommodated to the slaughter of Bethlehem, it looks for its accomplishment in yet future events.

The representation is just what follows. By a fine poetic figure, Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, and from whom therefore descended large portions of the kingdoms, both of Israel and Judah, is supposed to arise from her sepulchre, and to behold the land inhabited by strangers, and deserted by her posterity. She looks around sorrowingly on the scene, and weeps at the thought, that those to whom the territory had been given are exiles, wanderers,

and captives. Thus it is the dispersion, through long centuries, of the twelve tribes, which is delineated. The mother comes up from her tomb, and finding herself amongst strangers, and not, as she expected, amongst her children, gives way to maternal anguish, and sorrows over the banished ones, her sons and her daughters. And when the Lord speaks comfortably to her, and teils her of the return of her children, the reference is unquestionably to that glorious restoration of Israel and Judah which is associated with the blessedness of all the nations of the earth.

If

But while such seems the fulfilment of the prophecy of Jeremiah, it might be accommodated, with the nicest accuracy, to the slaughter at Bethlehem. the mother were ever to be roused from her slumbers, what so likely to awaken her as the piercing shriek of her little ones in the grasp of the murderers? She had been poetically delineated as rising from her sleep when the land had cast out her children; as though the tread of the foreigners disturbed her in her grave. Now if she could not rest when the turf beneath which she lay groaned under the tramp of the stranger and blasphemer, shall she not be stirred when the shrill cry of her own infant is echoed in her sepulchre? Rachel was buried between Rama and Bethlehem; so that the children were almost massacred on the tomb of the parent. It was therefore a fine adaptation of the prediction, though the event was not that originally contemplated, when St. Matthew quoted the prophecy of Jeremiah, as descriptive of what occurred through the cruel orders of Herod, representing the mother as called back into life by the shrieks and the groans of her little ones, and returning to earth, that she might bewail, with an inconsolable mourning, her innocent offspring butchered by an unrelenting tyrant. O, there never was a more touching image in poetry than this, of the dead mother stirring in her grave at the cry of her children, and rising from the dust which was soaked with their blood, that she might water it with her tears.

Now it is enough thus to have shewn you, that the prophecy adduced in our text, though not strictly fulfilled in the slaughter of the innocents, may readily be accommodated to that tragic occurrence. Indeed, as it has been well observed, though St. Matthew uses the word "fulfilled," he does not employ the form of expression by which inspired writers generally mark the accomplishment of prophecy. He does not say, "that it might be fulfilled," but simply, "then was fulfilled." The former expression denotes that the event took place on purpose that the prediction might be accomplished; and thus distinctly points out that event as the object of the prophecy. But the latter expression-" then was fulfilled"-seems satisfied, if we suppose so accurate a correspondence between the thing done and the words quoted, that the writing may be regarded as descriptive of the occurrence.

We waive, however, further reference to the prophecy, and will not confine our attention to the event whose history we have briefly reviewed. Undoubtedly it seems strange, that one of the earliest consequences of the incarnation of Him, who afterwards declared that he came not to destroy men's lives, but to save, should thus have been the murder of so many unoffending little ones. We know not indeed what number fell in the massacre; but whether great or small, there is the same cause of surprise, that the birth of Christ should have been allowed to give occasion to so ferocious an act. Probably the number

was not large; inasmuch as Bethlehem and its dependent districts, are not likely to have included a very considerable population. The enemies indeed of revealed religion, anxious to fasten on Christianity a sanguinary character, or to invalidate its claims, reckon up a prodigious number of victims: so that Voltaire, one of the most determined foes of our faith, estimates at seventy thousand the children slaughtered at Bethlehem Such exaggerated statements carry with them their own confutation; for it is easy to see, that, on such a supposition, Bethlehem must have been much more populous than the most overgrown of modern cities. Resorting, however, to a less suspicious source, we find the Greeks, in their Calendar, and the Abyssinians, in their Offices and Liturgy, commemorate the death of fourteen thousand babes. Had the number been so large, it would be difficult to account for the fact, that Josephus, the historian of the Jews, makes no mention at all of the slaughter. The omission is not at all strange if the number were small; for the murder of a few children might well be overlooked in giving the history of so blood-thirsty a tyrant as Herod others of his actions were so far more atrocious, that the annalist might omit what seems trifling in comparison. But if thousands were slain, then even the desire of Josephus to keep back all that had reference to Jesus, would scarcely, we think, explain his silence. And it is with the view of bringing us into this dilemma, that Voltaire so grossly exaggerates the slaughter of Bethlehem, and to draw an inference against the veracity of St. Matthew. On the largest computation there seems no reason to suppose that so many as one hundred children perished in this massacre; the computation being of course made with reference to the probable population of Bethlehem, and to the fact, that none but the male children were objects of the fury of Herod.

But while it was necessary that we should glance at this matter, as knowing the misrepresentations of the enemies of Christianity, we own that some surprise may be felt at God's permitting the transaction, which is not to be removed by shewing that no great number was slain. We fully admit that there is something strange in the transition from the birth of Christ to the slaughter of these infants. A few days ago we assembled around the cradle of the new-born King; and now the ground round about us is strewed with the bodies of the young ones, slaughtered, as it were, in his stead. Then there were cherubim and seraphim to sing his birth-song; and now the air is laden with the cries of those who had done no wrong, and who are perishing on his account. Well might he afterwards declare, that he came not to send peace, but a sword upon the earth; seeing that, while yet a nursling in his mother's arms, he is the occasion of the sword being plunged in numbers who least deserved to die. And the thing most remarkable in this transaction appears to us to be, that the permission of the slaughter was in no sense requisite to the safety of Christ. Joseph, and Mary, and the child, had departed for Egypt, before the fury of Herod is allowed to break out. How easy does it seem that Herod should have been informed of the flight, and thus taught the utter uselessness of his cruel edict. But measures were taken with a view of preventing this; the Magi are not allowed to return to Jerusalem: and yet supposing they had returned, and had told Herod of the success of their search, and that in the meantime God had given the warning, and secured the flight of the Holy Family, why, so far as appears on the surface of things, the certainty is that Christ would have been