in Christ, but how know we that he had ever before had an opportunity of seeing or hearing our Saviour? His disposition at this solemn interval authorises us to conclude, that if he had before been acquainted with our Saviour, he would have been one of his followers.

But you say, are there not those who are called at the eleventh hour? what else is the meaning of that parable? We answer, this parable, which originally refers to the introduction of the Gentiles into the church of God, whom the Jews despised because they had been introduced before them, can never be applied to the circumstances of those, who are born within the limits of the christian enclosure. It was at the eleventh hour indeed, that the Gentiles were called; it is still later that the gospel is now made known to many nations of the earth; but, alas, what is that to us, who have had line upon line and precept upon precept; who have been called incessantly from the first hour to the eleventh; and of whom many now see that the day is far spent, and the night is at hand, while yet they have done nothing of that work, for which they were sent into the world.

Reader, whoever you are, delay not a moment to fulfil your christian obligations; waste not life in successive resolutions of amendment. It is not resolutions which God requires-it is amendment itself. And is this life so long, so much within our power, that any of us may say, I will be a christian hereafter? What can authorise us to delay for a mo

ment a single duty? Is it difficult? Will time then diminish, or will it increase this difficulty? Time surely will not do that for us, which time has already made it so difficult to do. It will not change that habit, which it has already made so difficult to change.

But we fondly hope, that years will wear out our evil inclinations, and impair our predominant passions, whatever they may be. Ah, years may bring with them some new habits more difficult to be corrected or excused, but when, oh when, without our own care and cooperation, did time ever cure the diseases of the mind, or change its vitiated humors?

But suppose that age, at last, should cure those evil affections, which have already by age gained so much strength, yet who can promise us a long life? Or suppose it to be granted us, what ingratitude is this! To give at last to God the remnant of a poor, decaying, useless, insignificant life! To serve him most faithfully when your passions are extinct, and you can serve your sins no longer! Is this virtue? Is this religion? Was it for this, probationary man was sent into the world;-to relinquish what he can no longer retain! and alter a course, which he can no longer follow! Let us not then talk of abandoning our sins. At this period, it is sin which abandons us.

What then shall we say to these things? Shall not all that has now been urged to shew the unreasonableness of hopes, built on any of the pretences, which we have now suggested, separat.

ed from a life of righteousness and true goodness; shall it not determine us to lay hold of the present opportunity, and to work out our salvation, while the day

lasts, because the night cometh the night of sickness, or the night of death-when no man can work.

6.

Luke ii. 25. "There was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.”

Waiting for the consolation of Israel-That is, expecting the Messiah. The expression is derived from a custom of the Jews, of reading the 40th chapter of Isaiah on the sabbath after the fast, in which they commemorated the burning of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar. The chapter begins with the words, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

Hence the predie ted Messiah was called, the consolation of Israel; and hence the custom among them, at that time, of swearing by their desire of seeing the consolation of Israel. So eager indeed, at that time, were their expectations, that every imposter who promised to accomplish their hopes, was immediately surrounded with followers, who hazarded all which they had, to support him. Of this expectation among the Jews, there are several intimations in the gospels. See John i. 19-24. Luke iii. 15. John xxiii. 50, 51. But of its extent and its influence we shall form more correct conceptions, by recurring to the testimonies of profane historians,

"That which principally encouraged them to the war," says Josephus, "was an ambiguous oracle, found likewise in the sacred writings, that, about that time, some one from their coun try should obtain the empire of the world." Antiq. B. ix. ch. 2. § 2, and B. vi. ch. 31.

same

Two heathen historians have likewise mentioned the thing. Suetonius, in his life of Vespasian, says, "there had been for a long time, all over the East, an opinion firmly believed, that it was in the fates, [in the decrees, or books, of the fates,] that at that time, some from Judea would obtain the empire of the world.” Lib. viii. § 4.

After relating many calamities of the Jews, and prodigies, which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, Tacitus says, "the greatest number of them had a strong persuasion, that it was recorded in the ancient writings of the priests, that the East should prevail, and that some, coming from Judea, should possess universal dominion, which ambiguities foretold Vespasian and Titus. But the common people, according to the accustomed course of human passions, having interpreted in their own favor this grand prediction of the fates, could not be reclaimed to the

truth, even by all their adversities." Hist. l. v. c. 13.

Celsus, also, an enemy of christianity, who flourished not long after the middle of the second century, reigning in the character of a Jew, says, "how could we, who had told all men there would come one from God, who should punish the wicked, despise him if he came?"-Without, at present, referring to the preconceived sentiments of the Jews concerning the Messiah, we have endeavoured only to shew the prevalence of the expectation of his coming.

See Beausobre and L'Enfant's Introduction to the New Testament, in Watson's Tracts, p. 222. This is the edition to which I shall refer as an authority. And Lardner's works. vol. i. pp. 132, 133.

7.

Matt. ii. 1. "There came wise men from the east, to Jerusalem." "Arabia," says Tacitus, "was the bound of Judea eastward;" and the Arabians are sometimes called in the scriptures, the men of the east. Judges vi. 8. Job i. 3. The Arabians, Idumeans, and Chaldeans, all eastern people in respect of Judea, valued themselves on their wisdom; and the name of Magus, in those countries, signified a philosopher -a man who studied wisdom. There is, however, concerning these Magi, a great but unimportant diversity of opinions. The star, which guded them to Jerusalem, was probably a very extraordinary meteor, which appeared in that direction; and it is not improbable that the report, to which we referred in the pre

ceding illustration, that a great prince was at this time to arise in Judea, induced them to follow the star. The coincidence of the report, and of this extraordinary light, account satisfactorily for their inquiries in verse second."Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him." [See Whitby on the verse, and Calmet on the word magi.].

8.

Matt. ii. 3. "When Herod the king heard these, things, he was troubled."

The Pharisees, says Jesephus, had predicted, that God had decreed to put an end to the government of Herod. This prediction probably originated in their confidence, that the Messiah would soon make his appearance; and this prediction, with the general and well known expectation of the nation, account to us for all the fears, which the evangelist says were felt by Herod. [See Lardner's works, vol. i. p. 281.]

9.

Matth. ii. 5. In "Bethlehem, of Judea."

It was a commonly received opinion, that the Messiah should be born at Bethlehem, as the scribes told Herod; and Christ being born there, they affected to call him a Galilean, designing, by this means, insensibly to wear out the remembrance of his being born in Bethlehem. [See Beausobre's and, L'Enfant's introduction, p. 273.]

10.

Matt. ii. 16. "Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth,

and 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 that he had diligently inquired of the wise men." This destruction of the infants of Bethlehem is not mentioned by Josephus, nor by Greek nor Roman historians. But is it therefore improbable? Josephus has related many things of Herod, which are not even intimated by the evangelists, but which prove him to be capable of any enormity. We subjoin some of the cruelties which he has recorded of Herod, but which are not glanced at in the gospels.

When he had obtained possession of Jerusalem, he persuaded Antony, by a bribe, to put Antigonus, his rival, to death. Aristobulus, brother of his wife Mariamne, was murdered by his directions, because the people at Jerusalem expressed some affection for his person. In the seventh year of his reign, he put Hyrcanus to death, the grand-father of his wife, then eighty years of age, and who had saved his life when he was prosecuted by the Sanhedrim.-His wife, the beautiful and virtuous Mariamne, was publicly executed; and soon after, her mother, Alexandra, was also put to death.-Instigated by jealousy, he caused his two sons by Mariamne, Alexander and Aristobulus, to be strangled in prison, after they were married and had children. And in his last sickness, a little before his death, he sent orders throughout Judea, requiring the presence of all the chief men of the nation at Jerico. His orders were obeyed,

for they were enforced by the penalty of death. When they arrived at Jerico, he caused them to be shut up in the circus; and calling for his sister Salome, and her husband Alexas, he said to them: "My life is now but short, I know the dispositions of the Jewish people, and nothing will please them more than my death. You have these men in your custody. As soon as the breath is out of my body, and before my death can be known, do you let the soldiers in upon them, with commands to kill them. Áll Judea, and every family will then, though unwillingly, mourn at my death."-Josephus adds, that, "with tears in his eyes he conjured them, by their love to him, and their fidelity to God, not to fail of doing him this honor.”— These bloody orders were not executed; but was this Herod incapable of commanding the destruction of all the infants of Bethlehem?

Macrobius, a heathen author, who flourished in the latter end of the fourth century, says, that when Augustus heard that among the children within two years of age, which Herod, king of the Jews, commanded to be slain in Syria, his own son had been killed, he said, "it is better to be Herod's hog than his son."Macrobius has probably mistaken the occasion of the jest, as none of the early christian writers have said, that one of the children of Herod was killed in the slaughter of Bethlehem. But there is no reason to doubt that the jest is genuine; and that the slaughter of the infants in Judea was well known in the time of