commence a life of indigence, the whole course of which ennobles poverty, and exposes the vanity of earthly distinctions. Had our Lord appeared, as was expected, as a king, or had He even been born in a wealthy family in private life, He could not have exhibited several of the virtues which distinguished Him; His example would not have been so extensively useful, and the great and rich would have been still more tempted than they are at present to despise their poor brethren, for whom He became incarnate and died, no less than for them. His birth, however, though His rank was low, and the town in which it took place was humble, was marked by higher honours than have been conferred upon any other. It was unnoticed by the great of this world, but it was announced by a heavenly messenger to shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks by night, and the intelligence was declared to be a subject of great joy to all the people. Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord; and as the angel would address them in their own language, we may suppose he used the name Jehovah, and if so, they must have understood that the Babe in swaddling clothes, to Whom they were directed, was the Incarnate Deity. Even if Lord was pronounced instead of the sacred name, it indicates in this connection, though it does not plainly assert, the Divinity of the Babe of Bethlehem. Any doubt that might arise on hearing of so extraordinary an event must have been dispelled, when suddenly a multitude of other ministering spirits joined the angel; and this army of heaven praised God, by declaring, that the birth of this Infant, which would promote His glory in the highest heaven, would be on earth the proof of good will, and the cause of peace to men. Peace in the lower sense of mutual kindness of disposition and action between those who are, by partaking

There is a remarkable various reading, which has been followed by the Vulgate," to men of good will," but it is probably erroneous.

of a common nature, brethren, is an effect of genuine Christianity, which no human principle has ever produced in an equal degree; but it must here be taken in its highest sense, for the reconciliation of a justly offended God and guilty men, which He, who is emphatically designated as our Peace, came into the world to accomplish; and this comprehends both the former, and that inward peace of mind passing all understanding, which the world can neither give nor take away. Having been apprised where they should find their Lord, the shepherds hastened to pay Him homage, and returned to their occupation with thankful hearts, glorifying and praising God. They made known the intelligence they had received from the Angel, which caused in the hearers a temporary wonder, but Mary pondered them in her heart. As Bethlehem was on this occasion crowded with visitors in better circumstances than Joseph and his betrothed bride, there was no room for them in the apartments in the inn. The Saviour of the world, therefore, made His first appearance as man in His own peculiar country, in which He never possessed even the meanest home,-in a stable.

[B.C. 5.] Neither the year nor day of our Saviour's birth is ascertained; and Scaliger, a high authority in chronology, classes it among the mysteries that will never be discovered. Our present mode of computation, which did not come into general use till the eighth century, was invented early in the sixth by Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman Abbot, who chose to date his Paschal cycle from this event, instead of the then received æra of Diocletian, or, as it is oftener called, of the Martyrs. Unfortunately, he assumed his date of the Nativity upon reasonings, which more accurate investigations have proved to be erroneous, and chronologers are now agreed, that he has placed it about four years after the time. The day also is unknown; for though the Roman Church has

y párva, manger, A. T.

commemorated this event on the 25th of December from the time of Constantine, it was probably induced to appoint it by the wish of consecrating the Saturnalia; and in this, as in other instances, converting a Pagan into a Christian festival. We learn from Chrysostom, that this custom had been introduced into the East from the West, for the Greeks originally kept this feast on the sixth of January, together with that of the Epiphany, because they imagined that the star first appeared to the Magi in their own country, on the night of the Saviour's nativity. But this date cannot stand examination, for it assumes as its basis, that the father of the Baptist was the high priest, and that it was on the day of atonement that Gabriel appeared to him; whereas the text itself contradicts this scheme, for it calls Zacharias a certain priest, and mentions both his course and his residence; and the high priest was not reckoned of any, and lived always in Jerusalem. Some modern critics, therefore, assign it to the feast of Tabernacles, or the day of Atonement, in the autumn of the year of Rome, 749; or to the spring following. The nature of this work precludes the discussion of the question; but I refer those who take an interest in it to a Dissertation by Mr. Greswell, who advances, as a conjecture, that the day of the Nativity is that on which the paschal lamb was set apart preparatory to its sacrifice, that is, on the tenth of Nisan, answering to the fifth of April, 750, four years before the vulgar æra. There is, he observes, no fact in our Lord's history, not altogether consistent with His birth about the vernal equinox; and, certainly, either that or the autumnal one is more suitable than the winter solstice, both to the taking of the census, and to the keeping of sheep in the fields at night. Scaliger's preference of autumn, is based upon this fact, that when Judas Maccabæus restored the temple worship, the service was performed by the first company of Priests. The rest succeeding in turn, it is calculated that the course of Abia would

attend in July or August, and as Mary saw the Angel in the sixth month of Elisabeth's pregnancy, in January, she might bring forth our Saviour in the September following.

12. Circumcision and Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Luke ii. 21-38.

Our Lord" took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance" only. He was therefore exempt from the birth-sin, inherited by "every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam," and, accordingly, needed not that renewal of His nature which Circumcision denotes. Still, as the seed of Abraham, to whom it was given as a seal of the covenant of faith, and as born under the Law, it was fit that He should comply with this as well as its other ordinances; and as His mission was to the Jews, He could not fulfil it without attending the Temple service and the Synagogue, from which the omission of this ceremony would have excluded Him. Upon the same principle, His Virgin Mother submitted to the Purification prescribed by the Law, though an exception from all the rest of her sex. It was evident that she was a mother, and it was not expedient that she should claim exemption by announcing her miraculous conception. A lamb was required for a burnt-offering, and a turtle dove or a young pigeon for a sinoffering; but the kind consideration which characterises the Mosaic Law, accepted another bird instead of the lamb from those to whom that would be too expensive. (Lev. xii.) The fact that the Virgin offered the latter seems to prove, that the Magi had not yet presented their gifts. Gratitude for deliverance from "the great pain and peril of childbirth" might naturally call for a thankful acknowledgment; but the reasonableness of a sin-offering can be understood only by him who believes with the Psalmist, (Ps. li.) that he is shapen in wickedness,

and in sin hath his mother conceived him. The Law was continually teaching the fundamental doctrine, Original Sin, by declaring that a mother continued unclean for forty days, and that seven days must elapse before her son who was born in that condition could be admitted into covenant with God. It is most remarkable, that the time was doubled if the child was a female; and the reason seems to us to be, as plainly as if it had been recorded, because it was not Adam but Eve, who being deceived was in the transgression, and was the first to yield to the temptation of the Devil.

As Jesus was a first-born son, the Law (Ex. xiii.) required that He should be presented to the Lord and redeemed. An event occurred upon the occasion which must have strengthened Mary's faith and hope; for when she and Joseph brought Him for that purpose, Simeon, one of the spiritual worshippers, who were waiting for the birth of this Consolation of Israel, and to whom it had been revealed that he should not die till he had seen the Lord's Christ, was influenced by the Holy Spirit to enter the temple. Taking up in his arms the infant Saviour, he was endowed with the gift of prophecy, which, as we have seen in the instances of Zacharias and the Virgin, was now, after a suspension of four centuries, granted to a favoured few. The Song of Simeon rises above the two preceding ones in interest'. The Virgin gave vent to her personal feelings, and her subject closes with the birth of the Messiah. Zacharias opens a prospective but limited field of vision; but while the Consolation of Israel had been Simeon's hope through life, and its arrival the signal for his peaceful dissolution, he sees with a prophetic glance, like Isaiah, (xlii. 6. xlix. 6-9.) the removal of the veil from the understanding and affections of the Gentiles, and rejoices not only that the Saviour will be the glory of His own people Israel, but that He is also given as a Light to lighten the Gentiles, to

Bp. Jebb, Sacred Literature, pp. 418-428.