ter.

in his birth, that we have seen in the former chapHe is so in his life and death, particularly in that part of his life which is ordinarily scarce at all remarkable, his infancy. The history of that we have in this chapter; so as in that place of the prophet, wonderful is the beginning of his name, he is wonderful in the beginning of his life.

That wonder that goes along throughout all his life and death, is in the passages here recorded, very legible, a strong contemperature of majesty and meanness, yea, these two so far distant in notion, yet meet in him, the meanness of man and the majesty of God. So obscurely born and so poorly lodged; yet that birth marked, and that lodging pointed out by a star, that seems to have no other work nor motion, but to tell of him and lead to him, and by it wise men led from far, to offer rich presents to a poor babe, and to do homage to him as a king, and to worship him.

Then after he is put to flee for his life in his swaddling cloaths. He that came to give life to dead man, is in hazard of a cruel death at the entry of his life, and escapes it by the obscure and hasty flight of his parents with him; yet even in that flight, there is a track of majesty, that they flee, stay, and return with him, all upon divine warnings. Thus was this son of righteousness veiled and clouded in human flesh, and a low kind of human life, and yet some rays of deity are still breaking through and telling, Here dwells the Godhead bodily.

In this chapter, these two things of him are remarkable.

First. He is marvellously witnessed and worshipped.

Secondly. Persecuted and preserved.

1st, Witnessed by a star stirring up strangers from far, to seek him and leading them to find him.

2dly, By those strangers coming and declaring

this to be their errand, and enquiring after the place of his birth.

3dly, By the chief priests and scribes, from a clear prophecy, resolving them.

Of these, and other like points in the following history. What questions are moved more curious than useful, I shall either pass wholly in silence, or only name them, to pass them, to put them out of our way, that they may not stop us in what may be useful. And textual difficulties that call for clearing, I shall endeavour to open with as much briefness as may well consist with clearness, and to serve for that end, of clearing them. For this star, what shall we see the better into the end and person whom it served, by deciding, if we could, much less by debating what we cannot decide, whether it was a star or a comet, (called a star for its resemblance as the scripture often gives things the vulgar names): it seems to have been temporary, and made for this singular service only. However it was a star that led to the sun.

After men have pleased themselves in the employ of all their reading and wit, to find what the Magi were, further than the text comes, they can assuredly inform us nothing. They were magi, wise men, and of the east; but whether from Chaldea, or Persia, or Arabia, neither that name they bear, nor the presents they bring, can certainly conclude. It cannot be denied, that all these nations called their astrologers, and generally their philosophers, by that name; and they might bring the same presents from any of those, and from divers other eastern countries: nor is there any more evidence that they were Balaam's posterity, or of his school, though the prophecy of a star arising in Jacob, seems to suit somewhat well with this kind of notice given them by a star, and with their observing it, and following it. And truly besides uncertainty, the inutility of this may save us a labour; for what shall we be really the wiser to know par

ticularly what these wise men were, or whence they were. Sure I am, to make them three to fit their number to their presents, and to make kings of them, and give them names, and then to wrangle about their burial place, is to play the fool about the wise men.

If you ask, how the star could speak this, that there was a great king born, and born in Judea, and spake it so as to persuade them to come and see, I conceive all their skill in astronomy, and Balaam's prophecy of the star in Jacob, and tradition of the Messiah, and his star, and Sybil's prophecying of them, could not make the language of this star, thus clear and intelligible to them. There was no doubt an extraordinary darting in of a higher light into their minds, clearer than that of the star, to make its meaning clear to them, and to draw them forth to this journey. The star appeared to them in the east, but it does not appear that it led them all the way, though commonly it be so conceived; on the contrary, after their setting forth, it seems not to have appeared to them till they came from Jerusalem, whether they went as likeliest either to find him they sought, or notice of him at least; and this likewise by a divine hand ordered, that both there they might give testimony of Christ, and likewise receive their farther testimony of him and address to him, and be confirmed in their persuasion concerning him, and then seasonably the star appears to establish and lead them.

The wise men's question occasions Herod's fear, and that, the meeting of the priests and scribes to resolve it. They do it from the prophet Micah. The difference in the cited words is really noneBethlehem Ephrata, and Bethlehem Judah all one. And the prophets words read interrogatively (as well they may) are clearly the same thing with the evangelist's narrative. However the least of all in itself, yet not the least but the greatest, by this great king's being born in it. And so David bears

the type of his Son and Lord, for he was of obscure birth in this same city.

The wise men, thus answered and led, came to Bethlehem, and are now so confirmed of the royalty of this child, that they are not removed from that persuasion, nor at all staggered in it, by the sight of so much outward meanness as they found: a poor babe in a common inn, whether still in the manger or no, is not certain, so it may be; however doubtless in a very low condition, far from royal grandeur, but yet so high in his own dignity and in their thoughts, that they fell down and worshipped, and offer their present, which they did not to Herod in all his pomp; which many ancient and modern are pleased to subtilize into mysteries, which, though I dare not confidently deny all, yet dare I aver nothing. He that brought them forth, directed them directly home, having no more business at Jerusalem. When they found the king they came to seek, they left king Herod to seek his intelligence from others.

But these were strange news to Herod. A born king of the Jews. The common fears that are of the ill genius of tyrants, and the fell revenge of the many fears they cause to so many others, are now raised and rage within him upon this report. And for all this craft, and the growth of it for cruelties upon long practice, yet is he, as it were, thunderstruck with this fear, that he cannot resolve on any sure way for this end, but enquires the age of the child, and it seems defers a good time, and smothers the intended massacree (for that answers best the doubt about the age of two years) and then sends and kills all the children of or under that age; that was the sacrifice that in his enquiry he meant to offer, instead of worshipping the child born. His royal father could have preserved him otherways, than by the care and flight of his supposed father with him; but thus he pleased, even in this, to carry on his divine Son

under the covert of such human and humble ways of preservation, to make him all things like us, (sin excepted) and to sweeten those things to us, when we are called to be like him in them, in being persecuted, and by persecution forced to flee. That text, Out of Egypt have I called my Son, suits most fitly. Having (as other such adapted places) their prophetical aspect to Jesus Christ, without any prejudice of their first proper sense, in persons or things typifying him. Israel is called the Lord's Son and his first born".

The other, that he is called a Nazarite, I rather think signifies his singular holiness, which the name imports, and all the prophets foretold of him, and the legal Nazarites prefigured, than to relate to any particular prophecy: besides, it is in the text, the prophets in general.

Obs. 1.-The freedom of God's calling and drawing men unto his Son, that it follows not the track of human appearances and external engagements. Strangers are brought from far to worship Christ, and are glad at his birth. His own amongst whom, and those particularly for whom, he was born, were not rejoiced, yea, troubled at it; so far from receiving him as their king, and worshipping him. And strange, that having resolved the Magi's question, they all sit still, for any thing we find, and not one so taken with it, as to take share of the small latter end of their long journey, and to go some miles off, to see so great and matchless wonder. Thus many that are far off in their ways, are humbled and brought to Christ, and those that, in external profession, seemed always near to him, are still far off; nearest the church (as ye say) furthest from God. My brethren, rest not on your outward relations, your interest in the ordinances and profession of religion, but see how your hearts stand affected towards Jesus Christ. If you receive him as king, then shall ye partake of the sweet fruits of this kingdom.

* Exod. iv. 21. Jer. xxxi. 9.