صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

mentation for the bodily death of her children must have a comfort answerable to it, as her former lamentation for their civil death had a comfort answerable to that. Let us see what analogy and proportion the sorrow and joy in one case bear to the sorrow and joy in the other.

There is no need to shock your feelings, by enIdeavouring to draw a picture at large of this day's most abominable massacre. Suffice it to say, that the bloody murder of children in the tenderest and most helpless estate, torn from the arms, and butchered in such multitudes before the eyes of their mothers, must again cause "a voice to be heard, "lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning;" great, beyond the conception of any, but those who then experienced, or were witnesses to it. We cannot read the words which describe it, without imagining that we hear Rachel, called from her tomb near Bethlehem, "weeping for her children;" that we see her turning away, and "refusing to be comforted "for her children, because they were not;" because they were departed hence, and were no more to be found in the land of the living: they were led away into that other captivity, more wretched and durable than the captivity of Benjanin with Judah in Babylon they were deprived of light and life; they were hurried from the warm and cheerful precincts of day, to be imprisoned in the cold and dark dominions of the king of terrors. And who can bring them from thence? Not the high priest Joshua, the son of Josedek; not Zorobabel, who conducted their fathers from captivity; not Samson, though, in the prime of his strength, he carried away the gates

of Gaza; not David, nor their father Benjamin, though both had been alive to command or lead the whole posterity of Israel. All these might have said of the sons of Rachel this day commemorated by us, as David did of his child-" We shall go to them, "but they shall not return to us."-But the holiest of the ancient priests and prophets, the mightiest among the ancient kings and rulers, were still subject to death, and had taken their last repose with the begin the dust. Where, then, is the wonted promise of Rachel's reward? Who shall comfort her in this calamity?

gar

Nothing, certainly, can wear a more gloomy and comfortless aspect, than things here seem to do. Yet in this, as in the former instance, "Thus saith the "LORD" to the mourner-and who else can say it? "Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes "from tears for 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."

Recollecting what hath been said above, and bearing in mind the circumstances of time and place, pointed out in the application made of the former part of the passage by St. Matthew, we may suppose this latter part to speak to the Bethlehemitish mothers, in some such manner as the following

At Bethlehem, the birth-place of Benjamin, where the pillar was erected over Rachel's grave, a child is born, who has caused the children of Benjamin and Judah once more to become Benoni's true sons of

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

sorrow to their mothers; a character he himself is to sustain on earth, insomuch, that "a sword shall pierce through the soul" of her that bare him. As the seed of the woman, and with regard to the nature derived from her, he is to be "a man of sorrows "and acquainted with grief." But, like Benjamin, from his Father he shall receive a name expressive of far different things; "a name above every name;" he shall be exalted from misery and mortality to "the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens;' there to take possession of an inheritance in the true land of promise. Of this his inheritance in a state of power and glory, he will not fail to make those partakers, whose blood has been shed by the executioners of Herod on his account. Look upon this their final deliverance and restoration, as it is delineated in that map, or chart of it, the deliverance of your ancestors from the Babylonish captivity, and the restoration to their own land. Call to mind what was said by them, at that time, on the ground of their own happy experience-" They that sow in tears "shall reap in joy; he that goeth forth and weepeth," as if, ignorant of the art of husbandry, he feared the corn he was sowing would perish in the earth, "shall

doubtless come again with joy, bringing his sheaves "with him." The heavens, echoing with your cries, and the earth moistened with your tears, are witnesses to men and angels, that you have more plentifully sowed in grief than your ancestors. As the sorrows of your seed-time have abounded, so the joys of your harvest shall super-abound. The LORD'S promise of old is not yet expired, but extends in full

force to you and yours. With what more precious seed could the land of Judah and Benjamin be sown, than the blood of tender infants, harmless and undefiled even in thought? Scattered upon the ground by cruel hands, it shall be gathered by the power of Him who dispenseth the breath of life to all things living. None of this seed shall be lost, or prove unfruitful. Every grain shall produce its ear, and every ear its proportion of incorruptible and pleasant fruit. Great, therefore, as your affliction is allowed to be, yet mourn not as they that have no hope, but even in the midst of your bitter complaints, still remember, that Rachel's pains must have a joyful recompense, and her exceeding sorrows portend extraordinary comforts in the issue. Only let patience have its perfect work through faith, and that "work shall be re"warded" with the possession of the promises. For, through the Saviour who is born, "there is hope in "the end," that, like as your fathers, in God's good time, "came again from the land of the enemy to "their own border," so your children, whose untimely excision you lament, shall come again from the strong holds of the grave, whither they had been led away captive, to the lot of their inheritance in the heavenly Canaan and the new Jerusalem, there to live and reign with him, for whom they have now suffered and died. These children of Judah and Benjamin, like their progenitors, "shall return, and "come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy shall "be upon their heads; they," and you with them, "shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and 'sighing shall again flee away.'

[ocr errors]

VOL. II.

[ocr errors]

The words thus explained, will suggest to us some useful reflections, suitable to the festival, on the case of the slaughtered infants, and that of the lamenting mothers.

With regard to the infants, we may observe the choice, made by the church, of proper persons to attend the blessed Jesus, upon the commemoration of his birth. These are St. Stephen, St. John, and the Innocents. He was born to suffer; and, therefore, the festival of his nativity is immediately followed by the festivals of those who suffered for him. St. Stephen was a martyr, and the first martyr, both in will and in deed: St. John, the beloved disciple, was such in will, but not in deed, being miraculously preserved from the death intended for him by Domitian. The Innocents were martyrs in deed, but not in will, by reason of their tender age.

Of these last, however, it pleased the Prince of martyrs to have his train composed, when he made his entry into the world, as at this season; a train of infants, suited to an infant Saviour; a train of Innocents, meet to follow the spotless Lamb, who came to convince the world of sin, and to redeem it in righteousness. They were the first-fruits offered to the Son of God, after his incarnation, and their blood the first that flowed on his account. They appeared as so many champions in the field, clad in the King's coat of armour, to intercept the blows directed against him.

The Christian poet, PRUDENTIUS, in one of his hymns, has an elegant and beautiful address to these young sufferers for their Redeemer—

« السابقةمتابعة »