^ PRINCETON, N. J. BV 4 2 5.^ .: r, , 1885 v. 4 Cox, Samuel, 1826-1893. Exposi t ions .. Shelf EXPOSITOR V D/S CO UR SES. BV THE SAME AUTHOR. THE BIRD'S NEST, And other Sermons for Children of all Ages. Second Edition. Cloth 6.s. " All educated young people may get from them new ideas and healthy counsel." — Guardian. " The sermons are simple, earnest, and practical, and have the directness of utterance which children are sure to appreciate."— Saturday Revieiv. " Beautiful discourses. . . . Not a single one of them should be beyond the comprehension of a fairly-taught boy of twelve." — St. James's Gazette. " Luminous expositions of Scripture, full of solid instruction, conveyed in simple and graceful language."— ^rt///j/ Magazine. " Marked by great simplicity, freshness, and beauty."— Congregationalist. " Riches in little room.'' — Nonconformist. " Bright, cheerful, and instructive, full of fresh thought, brimming over with genuine sympathy.''— y^>rfwa«. " Admirable models to those who undertake the noble task of preaching to the yc\xx\%." —Christian World. " By far the best volume of children's sermons we have ever seen." — Sunday Talk. London : T. FISHER UNWIN, 26, Paternoster Square, E.G. EXPOSITIONS REV. SAMUEL "^OX, D.D. (st. andrews) AUTHOR OF VOLUME IV gottbon T . FISHER U N W I N 26 PATERNOSTER SQUARE MDCCCLXXXVIU TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS TOKE LYNCH, TEACHER, POET, FRIEND: TO WHOM I OWE MUCH, AND NOT I ALONE, BUT THE WHOLE CHURCH OF GOD. PREFACE Tins, I think, must be the biographical volume of the Series. So many of my critics have expressed a pre- ference for those discourses which deal with character, and especially with the obscure characters of Holy Writ, that, in deference to their judgment, I have in- cluded in the present Volume an unusual number of that kind. And so many clergymen have written to tell me that they use my sermons in their pulpits, and find that those which are complete in themselves best serve their turn, that I have excluded a long series which I had prepared, and have replaced it with dis- courses more suitable for their purpose. For there is no man, I suppose, who holds the truths we all teach with strong conviction, but would gladly preach them from a thousand pulpits, if he could. And as I myself must cease to preach shortly after this Volume appears, I am naturally the more willing to speak by other lips than my own. This must also, I am afraid, be the last volume of the PREFACE. Series. I never intended it to run to more than six or seven volumes ; but I frankly confessed in the preface to Volume I. that I could not " afford to publish books which do not sell," and as my publisher informs me that he is still "out of pocket" by the adventure, I must perforce discontinue the Series a little earlier than I had intended. One of my kindest and most sympathetic reviewers commences his notice of Volume III. with the sentence : " To large numbers of the most intelligent students of Scripture it would be a sore disappointment if they did not receive at least one volume every year from the pen of this distinguished expositor." But I fear that the number of such students cannot be very large, or that they do not care for or cannot purchase one volume from my pen every year. And, perhaps, as those who do buy them, and are likely therefore to read this Pre- face, must have a friendly appreciation of my work, I may be permitted to take a more personal tone than would otherwise be becoming, and to add that I by no means intend to cease from that work. The impaired condition of my health compels me to give up preaching, but it in no way affects my power of writing. And since as long as I live, and retain my power, I must in some way serve the Master whose service has been a joy and an exceeding great reward to me for more than forty years, I hope that I may still be permitted to serve Him PREFACE. with my pen, and that He will make the way, now a little obscure, plain before me. If I may maintain this personal tone a moment longer, I should like, since life and opportunities are so uncer- tain, to say a word or two of grateful recognition to my unknown reviewers. No author, surely, was ever more generously handled. Certainly I can remember no Nonconformist author who has received such kindly and generous appreciation from the organs of the Established Church, or from writers in many leading papers and magazines which do not ordinarily notice Biblical and theological books. And as I have lived a quiet and retired life, far from London, am a member of no literary club or clique, and have never had it in my power to make any return for the service they have done me, I take their appreciation of my work, which has often outrun its deserts, as a disproof of the selfish and sordid motives often attributed to critics and re- viewers. Lest I should not have another chance, and because I can no longer be suspected of the gratitude which consists mainly of a keen sense of favours to come, I take this opportunity of assuring them that their kindly appreciation and allowance have not fallen on an ungrateful soil. Their sympathy and goodwill have been a constant encouragement and support. February, 1888. CONTENTS. I. SIMEON. I, THE SONG. PAGE Luke ii. 29-32. — "Now lettest thou thy servant depart, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace ; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples ; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel" i II. SIMEON. II. THE PREDICTION. Luke ii. 34, 35. — " Behold, this child is set for the falling and the rising up of many in Israel ; and for a sign to be spoken against : yea, and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul ; that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed " ......... 16 III. THE REDEMITION OF THE REDEEMER. Luke ii. 22-24. — "And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord), and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons" . . 30 CONTENTS. GOD IS LOVE. PAGE Isaiah liv. 6-13. — "The Lord hath recalled thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and as a wife of youth who hath been despised, saith thy God. For a small moment did I cast thee out, but with great compassion will I gather thee. In a sudden flush of wrath I hid my face from thee, but with everlasting kindness will I have com- passion on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For it is now with me as at the flood of Noah ; whereas I swore that the flood of Noah should no more sweep over the earth, so I swear that I will not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For though the mountains should remove, and the hills should quake, my loving-kindness for thee shall not remove, neither shall my covenant of peace quake, saith the Lord that hath compassion on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, not comforted, behold I will set thy stones in antimony, and lay thy foundation with sapphires ; and I will make thy battlements of rubies, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy boundaries of precious stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children" . 44 V. PRAYER AND PROMISE. Matthe7V vii. 8. — " For everyone that asketh receiveth ; and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened " 60 VI. WISDOM, WHENCE SHALL SHE BE aOTTEN ? James i. 5. — " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him " 71 CONTENTS. THE CHRISTIAN COMMAXDMKXTS. PAGS Matthew xxii. 35-40.— "Then one of them, a lawyer, put a question to test him : Master, what is the best com- mandment in the law ? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God in the whole of thy heart, and in the whole of thy soul, and in the whole of thy mind. This is the best and first commandment. Rut there is a second like it ; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. In these two commandments the whole law hangs, and the prophets " 88 VIII. THE GOSPEL OF RETRIBUTION. Revelation xiv. 6, 7. — "And I saw another angel flying in mid- heaven, having an eternal gospel to proclaim to them that dwell on the earth, and unto every nation and tribe and tongue and people ; and he saith with a great voice, Fear God, and give him glory ; for the hour of his judgment is come : and worship him that made the heaven and the earth, and sea and fountains of waters " . . . . 105 IX. THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER. I. BE CLEAN ! Mark i. 40-42. — " And there cometh to him a leper, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And being moved with compassion, he stretched forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will, be thou made clean. And straightway the leprosy departed from him, and he was made clean " 119 CONTENTS. X. THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER. II. BE SILENT. PAGE Mark i. 43-45. — " And he strictly charged him, and straightway sent him out, and saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man : but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing the things which Moses com- manded for a testimony unto them. But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but was without in desert places " . . . .133 XI. THE LESSONS OF THE ORANGE-TREE. Proverbs xxv. 11. — " A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in baskets of silver" 149 XII. THE MAN WHO WAS BORN BLIND. 1 1. THE FUNCTION OF EVIL. John ix. 1-3. — "And as he passed by he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind 1 Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents ; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him " 163 XIII. THE MAN WHO WAS BORN BLIND. II. THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. John ix. 4, 5. — " I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day ; the night cometh when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world 179 CONTENTS. XIV. THE MAN WHO WAS BORN BLIND. III. THE CURE OF THE BLIND MAN. PACK Johtt ix. 6, 7. — "When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him. Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing" 194 XV. THE INEQUALITIES OF LIFE A WARRANT OF IMMORTALITY. Matthew XK. 15. — " Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own ; or is thine eye evil because I am good?" 208 XVI. JESUS THE JUST. Colossians '\w . \\ . — "And Jesus who is called Justus " . .223 XVII. DEMETRIUS. iii. John 12. — " Demetrius hath the witness of all men, and of the truth itself ; yea, and we also bear witness " . . 239 XVIII. DIOTREPHES. iii. John 9, 10. — " I wrote somewhat unto the church : but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them, receiveth us not. Therefore, if I come, I will bring to remembrance his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with wicked words ; and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and them that would he forbiddeth and casteth out of the church " . . . 255 CONTENTS. XIX. GAIUS. FACE m. John 3. — '* I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and bare witness unto thy truth, even as thou walkest in truth " . 268 XX. LOT'S WIFE. Luke xvii. 32. — " Remember Lot's wife " . . , . 280 XXI. THE QUICKENING OF THE SOUL. Luke xvii. 33. — " Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose shall preserve it" . . 294 XXII. DIVINE GUESTS. John xiv. 23. — "Jesus answered and said unto him : If a man love me, he will keep my word ; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him " 308 XXIII. THE MAN WITH A PITCHER. Luke xxii. 7-13. — "And the day of unleavened bread came, on which the passover must be sacrificed. And he sent Peter • and John, saying, Go and make ready for us the passover, that we may eat. And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we make ready ? And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water ; follow him into the house whereinto he goeth. And ye shall say unto the goodman of the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the passover with my djsciples .'' And he will shew you a large upper room furnished : there make ready. And they went, and found as he had said unto them ; and they made ready the passover" 321 CONTENTS. XXIV. THE COMING DAWN. A CHRISTMAS HOMILY. Isaiah xxi. ii, 12.— " Watchman, what of the night? Watch- man, what of the night ? The watchman saith, The morning cometh, and also the night." Romans \\\\. 12.— " The night is far spent, and the day is at hand" 33^ XXV. THE BENEDICTION. A HOMILY FOR THE NEW YEAR. 2 Thcssalonians iii. 18.— "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you ail" . 348 XXVI. THE SELF-SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. A SACRAMENTAL HOMILY. Matthew xxvi. 53.—" Thinkest thou that I cannot ask my Father, and he shall instantly send me more than twelve legions of angels ? " 362 XXVII. CLEAVE TO THAT WHICH IS GOOD. I Thessalonians v. 21. — " Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good" 375 XXVIII. ABHOR THAT WHICH IS EVIL. I Thcssalonians v. 22. — "Abstain from every form of evil " . 3S9 CONTENTS. XXIX. MOTIVES. PAGE Luke XV. 17, 18 ; 29, 30. — " How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father." " Lo, these many years do I serve thee, never trans- gressing any of thy commandments ; yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends ; but when this thy son came, who hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou killedst for him the fatted calf" . . 400 XXX. A PARABLE 413 ERRATUM. Substitute "Diotrephes" for " Diotrophes " in Sermons xvii. xviii., and xix., throughout. I. SIMEON. L— THE SONG. " Now Icttest thou tliy servant depart, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace ; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples ; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the giorj^ of thy people Israel." — Luke ii. 29-32. The song of Simeon, the Nunc Diinittis, has, in some form, been adopted into the worship of the Christian Church, througli all its branches, for many centuries. lUit, familiar as we are with his tiny psalm, very few of us, I apprehend, have made any thoughtful and sus- tained attempt to conceive what the man himself was like, and what were the principles and convictions by which his life was shaped and fed. When we think of him, we form no clear well-defined image ; he lias no distinguishing qualities and features by which wc may identify him and separate him from his neighbours. A man of no mark or likelihood to his cotemporarics, save that he wore " the white flower of a blameless life," 2 SIMEON. he is little more to us than he was to them. A venerable good old man, who once in his life was so transported out of and above himself as to sing a song which the world will never let die, — this, I suppose, is the best, the most definite, conception of him which most of us have formed. Yet the man is worth knowing for his own sake, and not simply because he was brought into momentary con- tact with the Holy Child, and may, I think, be known, though it must be confessed that the epithets by which St. Luke describes him do not help us much. Indeed, by the very way in which he introduces him, the Evan- gelist seems to warn us that it may be difficult for us to identify and distinguish him. For he tacitly admits that -Simeon was not a distinguished *man. He was only a certain Simeon, a man in Jerusalem whose name happened to be Simeon, or Simon, one of the com- monest names in Israel. And though a wild attempt has been made to identify this Simeon with Rabbi Simeon, the son of Hillcl and the father of Gamaliel, it has naturally failed ; for, although we know very little of either of these two men, we know just enough of their differences of age and religious position to be sure that the old man who took the child Jesus in his arms could not possibly have been the great rabbi of his day. St. Luke docs, indeed, tell us that his Simeon was " just and devout ; " and we know that (to use the THE SONG. words of Joscphus, when spc.ikiiig of a much more (Ji.stini,^uished Simeon) " he was called yV/j-/ both for his piety toward God and his charity toward his fellows ; " and that he was called devout to denote that he feared God, that his piety bore the stamp of humility in opposition to the self-complacent self-righteousness of the Pharisees. Simeon, therefore, fulfilled the ideal of Hosea, which Professor Huxley pronounces " the perfect ideal " of religion : he did justly, he loved mercy, he walked humbly with his God. And to know so much of any man is, doubtless, to know a great deal of him, and even to know what is best worth knowing. But it does not mark him off from his fellows ; it does not define and individualize him : for, happily, even in those formal and degenerate days, there were many men who were both just and devout. Joseph, Mary's husband, was "a just man ;" Cornelius was a "devout man and one that feared God," and even had "a devout soldier" to wait upon him. And what we want is some individualizing touch by which we may distinguish Simeon from Joseph or Cornelius, or any other good man of his time. We seem to be nearing our mark when we read that he was "waiting for the Consolation of Israel;" for these words imply not only that Simeon cherished that common hope of all good Israelites, the coming of the long-promised Messiah, but that he conceived of SIMEON. Messiah's advent on its more spiritual side — as a Con- solatioji for all the sorrow and shame inflicted on them for their sins, and as a redemption from their bondage to sin. Yet there were many pious men in Israel who yearned for Messiah's advent because they conceived of Him, not as a great King who would give them the victory over their foes, but, rather, as the strong and tender Paraclete who would comfort them for all their sorrows and save them from all their distresses — above all, from the sorrow and distress which sprang from an imperfect obedience, an imperfect conformity to the will of God. " May I see the Consolation of Israel " was, in fact, a common formula of aspiration among the religious Jews. Even the fact that Simeon was a prophet, that he had received a Divine premonition of the Advent, and was moved by a Divine impulse to come into the Temple at the very moment when the Holy Child was presented before the Lord — the very moment when the pure Son of God was being purified, the Redeemer of men re- deemed (Luke ii. 22-24), and the great High Priest ransomed from the service of the Hebrew Priesthood ^ — even this notable fact does not differentiate him from many of his fellows, though it does from mpst of them ; for there were many prophets in the Hebrew, and many more in the Christian, Church. ' See Discourse' on The Redemption of the Redeemer, page 30. THE SONG. 5 Christian Icy^cnd, however, supph'cs a somewhat indi- vidiuUizing, and not improbable,' touch ; for it affirms that Simeon had stumbled at the words of Isaiah (vii. I4\ " Behold a virgin shall conceive ;" and that it was while he was harassed by the doubts which this pre- diction bred in his mind he received the promise that he should not die till he had seen it fulfilled : for there is always something characteristic in a man's doubts, provided of course that they are his oicn, and if they be honest and sincere. But if a man's doubts are characteristic, how much more individualizing are his beliefs, the truths on which he really rests and by which he really lives ? " As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." It is his concep- tions of truth, the principles and convictions by which he is animated, that differentiate him from his fellows, and set him before us in his habits as he lived. If we can only reach his ruling conceptions and beliefs, we learn far more about him than from any descriptive epithets applied to him. Where, then, should we look to find the man Simeon ' Not improbable ; for from his own words it is obvious that the ijreat Iiiniuimu'l prophecy of Isaiah was much in his mind. At least three of his thoughts or phrases — a veiy large proportion — are taken from this prophecy. That of the Light to lighten the Cientilcs from Isaiah ix. 2 ; that of the Stone, or Rock, set for the fall and rising of many, from Isaiah viii. 14, 15 : and that of the Signal for Contradiction from Isaiah vii. 14, the very Verse in which the prediction that a Virgin should conceive is found. SIMEON. if not in the Song with which he greeted the Lord's Christ, and in which his habitual convictions, beHefs, hopes, rose to their highest and frankest expression ? Not in Luke's description of him, but in his own unconscious, and therefore more significant, disclosure of himself, we may expect to discover what he was really like, and to gain a conception of him which will individualize him to us and make him a real and living man. If, then, we look at his Song at all carefully, we shall find in it (i) a noble conception of Life ; (2) a noble conception of Death ; and (3) a noble conception of Salvation ; while from all three we may infer the nobility of the heart which cherished them. L We have a noble conception of Life. We often take Simeon's words as if they were a prayer, and meant, " Now let, or permit, thy servant depart : " whereas they are really a thanksgiving ; " Now art thou letting thy servant depart." Nor does even this rendering ade- quately convey his meaning. We come much nearer to it if we render : " N'ozu a7't thou relieving; or setting free, thy slave, O master (literally, " O despot "), according to thy tvord, in peace." In fact, Simeon regards himself as a sentinel whom, by his word, or promise — " Thou shalt not see death till thou hast seen the Lord's Christ" — the Great Master, or Captain, had ordered to an elevated and dangerous post, and charged to look for and announce THE SONG. the advent of a great light of hope, a h'ght which was to convey glad tidings of great joy. The opening scene of the Agamemnon of ^schylus discloses, as some of you will remember, a Watchman who for nine long years had been looking for the kindling of the beacon, the " blazing torch," the " bright sign," the " blest fire," which should announce the fall of Troy ; and who, when at last he beholds the welcome signal, sings at once the victory of Greece and his own discharge ; that he shall no longer be chained like a dog, by the duty of his post, is well- nigh as much to him as the general joy in which he shares. And, in like manner, Simeon no sooner beholds the Light rising on the distant horizon for which he has waited so long, than he at once proclaims its advent, with its glad message of triumph, and rejoices in his own release from his prolonged and weary task. To him, therefore, life, or at least his own life, shaped itself as the task of a watchman, or a sentinel on duty — who has to face rough weather and smooth as he paces his weary beat, to confront the fears and hidden perils of the darkness, in order that the camp he guards may be secure ; but who is sustained, under the burden of anxiety and weariness, by the hope of receiving a signal, of seeing a light arise in the darkness, which will not only release him from his post, but will also bring the tidings, or the prediction, of a great and final vic- tory. And that is a very noble, though by no means a SIMEON. perfect,- conception of human life. It is imperfect ; for life is too large and complex to be fully rendered by any one image. But, nevertheless, it is a noble conception, such as any Stoic would have welcomed, such as any Christian may welcome if only he illumine the sentinel's duty with the sentinel's hope. It is a conception, moreover, which may be very help- ful to us in many of the conditions in which we are placed. When life grows as weary and monotonous to us, through the prolonged pressure of samely duties, as to the watchman fixed to Agamemnon's roof or to a dog chained to a post ; or when the zest of youth has passed and the infirmities and disabilities of age, or disease, accumulate upon us ; or when we are weighed down with a burden of cares, anxieties, and fears, many of which are gross and palpable enough, but to some of which we can hardly give a name ; when flesh, or heart, fail us, or both fail us, it surely would sustain and com- fort us were we to remember that our post has been appointed us by the great Captain who makes no mis- take ; that the duties and the burdens allotted to us" have an end of discipline and love, and are intended to make us stronger, wiser, better ; and that, however long it may delay its coming, a great Light is to arise upon us ; that it is this for which we are watching and serving : and that it will bring with it glad tidings of great joy for all people as well as for us. Life grows very sacred and THE SONG. beautiful when we feel that vvc arc where wc arc, and arc doing all wc do, and bearing all wc have to bear, by God's will—" according to thy word ; " and arc moving, through darkness, on our stedfast round, to proclaim both that all is well, because all is going on under the great Taskmaster's eye, and that all will be better still so soon as we all learn to see in the Taskmaster our Saviour and our Friend. Simeon was by no means the first poet to whom this conception of life commended itself A greater than he, Job, had lit upon it centuries before, though to him it had only been a wish instead of a ruling belief. In one of his most hopeless moods he cries (Job xiv. 13-15) : " If only, instead of this endless round of injustice and misery, God would appoint me a set time, and then remember me, all the days of that hard term would I wait, till my discharge came, standing to my post on earth with immovable and uncomplaining fidelity till I fell at it, and even standing at it again in Hades till that joyful day arrived, and the light shone down into my darkness." What Job longed for, we have. We know that a day ivill come on which God will call for us, and we shall answer Him. Nay, we know that the Light, which is the Life of men, has risen on our darkness, that it is shining, and that in due time it will illuminate the whole earth. Let us go on our rounds, then, all our appointed term, in faith, and patience, and hope ; SIMEON. assured that all is well with the world because God is in heaven, and because He is bringing heaven down to earth. II. In Simeon's Song we have a noble conception of Death. He was not to die till he had seen the Lord's Christ. But now that he has seen the Christ, he is in haste to be gone ; for, to him, death is the relief of the sentinel from an arduous and perilous post ; it is the enfranchisement of a slave into freedom and peace : " Now art thou setting free thy slave, O master, iji peace, according to thy word ; " for, in his view, the sentinel was also a slave, and the discharge of the sentinel was also the manumission of the slave. Relief from toil, relief from danger, relief from bond- age — can any conception of death be more welcome and attractive to weary, worldworn, sinful men ,-' Only one thing could render it more attractive and complete, and this we, who have the mind of Christ, are bound to supply : vi.':., that our relief from toil will not be an exemption from work, but an added capacity for labour which will take all toil and weariness out of it ; that our relief from danger will not release us from that strife against evil in which even the holy angels arc engaged, but will bring us an immortal strength and serenity in virtue of which we shall carry on the conflict without fear, and cherish the sure and certain hope that evil must in the end be overcome of good : and that our THE SONG. relief from bondage will not be a discharge from ser- vice, but will bring us a vigour and a grace which will make our service our delight, since henceforth we shall serve as sons and not as slaves. An enfranchisement into freedom and into peace, this was Simeon's conception of death, and should be ours if, like hiin, we have seen the Lord's Christ. And if we thus conceive it; if we know and believe that Death will strike off the fetters of our imperfection, and give us a freedom, and an inward tranquility and harmony of nature, which will enable us to serve God and our fellows without weariness, and to take our part in the eternal strife with evil without any fear or doubt of its final issue, why should we dread to die ? If Simeon could leave the world without regret, in part because he be- lieved that all would go well with a world into which Christ had come, and in part because a still brighter prospect, the prospect of an immediate freedom and an immediate peace, awaited ////;/ in the world to which he went, we surely, if we share his convictions, may be content to follow him when our turn shall come, and greet the kindly angel of death with the words, " Lord, now art thou setting free thy servant, in peace, according to thy word." III. We have a noble conception of Salvation. Simeon was content to go because his eyes had seen the salva- tion of God. And he conceived of this salvation as a SIMEON. salvation prepared before "the face of all peopleSy^ all races ; as a light which was to lift the veil of darkness, or ignorance, from the eyes of the Gentiles, as well as to shed a new glory on the humiliated and enslaved sons of Israel. And this conquest of darkness by light, this overcoming of evil with good, which was to be for all men and upon all, was surely a very large and noble conception of Salvation. We commonly attribute a narrow and exclusive spirit to the Jews, and think of them as men who, because they were elected to convey a blessing to all the families of the earth, deemed themselves the favourites of Heaven, and despised all who were outside the pale of God's covenant with the seed of Abraham. And, no doubt, the ordinary Jew ivas of this haughty and intolerant temper ; but he was so in the teeth of all the highest teaching vouchsafed him. For with one consent the Psalmists and Prophets of Israel held Jehovah to be the Father of the spirits of all flesh, who looked with equal affection on all his children, and had elected one member of the great human family to special privilege only for the sake of the rest, only that through the chosen seed his truth and grace might be revealed and demonstrated to all : — as, indeed, we are beginning to discover now that, in our Revised Version of the Old Testament, " all peoples " or " all nations," has been substituted for the familiar but THE SONG. 13 ambiguous phrase " all people." People might mean, and was often taken to mean no more than the people of Israel ; but " peoples " must include all kindreds and tribes and tongues. Simeon does but shew the true prophetic, i.e., the true catholic, spirit when he conceives of the salvation of God as extending to the Gentile as well as the Jew, and delights in a Mercy as wide as the world. And we fall short of that spirit, we sin against the revelation of the Old Testament no less than that of the New, so often as we affect any special personal interest in the fatherly love and compassion of God, or even when we conceive of his salvation as confined to the Church. The Church has been elected, as the Jewish race was elected, solely for the sake of the world, solely that it may carry the news and the power of salvation to those who are outside its pale. If we have seen the Light, it is that we may bear witness to the Light ; that we may announce its rising, reflect its splendour, and believe that it will shine on till the darkness is past and every shadow has fled away. If we are sentinels, it is that we may guard and save the whole camp, and not simply our own company or our own regiment. These, then, were the principles and convictions by which Simeon was animated ; and they throw no little light on his character ; they distinguish him from, they raise him above, most of his neighbours. If we are SIMEON. now asked to describe or define him, we may say, he was a man who thought of Hfe as a hard round of dut}', cheered by a great hope ; who thought of death as a discharge from that duty which would raise him from a slave into a son, and replace bondage and fear and toil with freedom and peace ; who thought of the divine salvation as an inward illumination, a triumph of good over evil, co-extensive with the human race. And he was true to his principles and convictions. As he thought in his heart, so he was, so he did. For many weary years he walked his little round of Jewish commandments and ordinances blameless, always wait- ing however, and always on the watch, for the rising of that Sun whose rising was to be the signal for the entire army to awake and advance. And when the signal came, which meant life to the world but death to him, he did not shrink from death, but hastened toward it and greeted it with the joy of a sentinel relieved from his post, of a slave emancipated into a tranquil freedom. Before he saw death he saw the Lord's Christ, and he rejoiced in "that great birth of time," not simply be- cause it brought deliverance to him, nor simply because it would console and glorify Israel, but also and mainly because it was the pledge of salvation for the whole world. In fine, he was true to his whole creed. And I do not see how we can doubt that, if we were true to it, it would lend a certain nobility and distinction to our THE SONG. 1 5 characters and lives which as yet they sorely lack. And we are bound to be true to it ; for his creed is our creed. We too profess to regard life as a term of duty, during which we are under stringent discipline, and have to pay sharply and heavily for every dereliction from that duty, but arc cheered and sustained by a great hope, for the fulfilment of which we wait with courage and with patience. Yet how often do we fail in our duty ! how faintly do we trust this large hope ! We too profess to believe that death will be a release, an enfranchise- ment into an ampler, freer, more tranquil life : and yet when death draws nigh, whether to us or to those whom we love, how often we shrink back from it in dread, or submit to it as to a miserable necessity for which nothing can console us ! We too profess to believe that Christ is the Saviour of all men, and to rejoice in the wide sweep of his redeeming influence : and yet which of us does not think far more of his own salvation, or of that of the community to which he is attached, and feel far more sure of it, than of the salvation of the world ? Which of us is as true to our convictions as Simeon was to his ? It is because we are not so true that our life is so much less dutiful, and so much less hopeful, than it should be, and that death is often a terror to us, and that the salvation of Christ takes so little effect upon us. Let our prayer, then, be : " Lord, we believe, but help, O help, our unbelief. Make us true to our convictions, and faithful to our hopes." IT. SIMEON. II.— THE PREDICTION. " Behold, this child is set for the falling and the rising up of many in Israel ; and for a sign to be spoken against : yea, and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul ; that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed."— Luke ii. 34, 35. We have considered the Song of Simeon ; we are now to consider his Prediction. In his Song we found a noble conception of life, a noble conception of death, and a noble conception of the salvation of God. He thought of life as a term of hard and perilous duty, like that of a sentinel going his rounds, but as cheered by the hope of receiving a signal which would announce the hour of dawn and of victory. He thought of death as the relief of a sentinel from his post, as the manu- mission of a slave into freedom and peace ; as a release, therefore, from toil and danger and bondage. And he thought of the Divine salvation as an universal salva- tion, as extending to all men, as a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the consolation and glory of Israel. THE PREDICTION. 17 There was, therefore, an clement of prediction in his very Song, and a very valuable clement, as we shall soon discover. If he saw what the Advent meant, he also foresaw "the end of the Lord," the final goal of good to which the mission of Christ was to round. And, in large measure, his prediction has already been ful- filled, though a still larger fulfilment awaits it. The Light has lightened the Gentiles ; we owe Christendom to it and the Christian civilization. It has proved the glory of Israel : for but for the advent ot Christ, but for the work which lie began and his disciples have carried on, Judaism might have sunk, at the fall of Jerusalem, into an obscure and narrow sect, and the Old Testament Scriptures might have been as little to the modern as they were to the ancient world. In short, we owe the Bible, and all that the Bible has brought us, to the coming of Christ into the world. If He had not come there could of course have been no New Testament. If He had not come, in all probability the Old Testa- ment would have been no more to us than the sacred books of any other race ; perhaps not so much as the writings of the Classical philosophers and poets, or the legends of our own Norse, Celtic, and German fore- fathers. Simeon foresaw and foretold, then, the large ultimate results of the advent of Christ ; but he also foresaw and foretold its nearer, its more immediate, results ; and 3 SIMEON. these results are the theme of what we call his Predic- tion to distinguish it from his Psalm. This Child, he says, who is to be the Light of the Gentiles and the Glory of Israel, is also to be as a Rock over which many will fall and on which many will rise, a Signal for strife and gainsaying, a Sword piercing and dividing tl e very soul, even where the soul is purest, and a Touch- stone revealing the inward thoughts of many hearts and shewing how evil they are. Nor, large as the contradic- tion looks between these two conceptions of the im- mediate and the ultimate results of Christ's influence on the world, is there any real contradiction between them. For if the Light is to shine into a dark world, or a dark heart, it must struggle with and disperse the darkness before it can shed order and fruitfulness and gladness into it. In such a world as this there can be no victory without conflict, no achievement without strenuous effort, no joy without pain, no perfection except through suffering. And, indeed, had Simeon left us nothing but a pre- diction of light and glory as the consequence of Christ's coming, had he 7iot foretold the doubts it would quicken, the pain it would involve, the evil and imperfection it would disclose, the opposition it would excite, we might well have distrusted him and have lost the hope with which his words inspire us. For as yet we see no uni- versal light and glory, whether in the world around us THE PREDICTION. 19 or in our own hearts. But \vc do sec a darkness which struggles against the light ; we do see the opposition of gainsayers ; we are conscious of many doubts, mis- givings, imperfections, of much which even in the best of us sets itself against the truth and grace of Christ Had Simeon passed by all these, and spoken of nothing but a Light which would irradiate and glorify all the sons of men, our own experience would have rendered his prediction dubious or incredible to us. It is because he frankly recognizes these nearer and more immediate results of the action of Christ upon man and the world that we can cherish the hope that, through these near and present results, we may advance into an order and economy in which, as in God Himself, there shall be no darkness at all, and believe that, beyond this instant scene of strife and imperfection and sorrow, there lies a world of gladness and victory and peace. F\ir from being unwelcome to us, then, this Predic- tion, at which we must now look a little more closely, should be very welcome to us, since it recognizes that darker sadder side of the Christian history with which we are only too familiar ; while yet it bids us hold fast the hope of large, happy, and splendid results yet to flow from the advent and mission of our Lord. In his Prediction Simeon bases himself on the older prophets, and, in especial, takes many thoughts and images from the great Immanuel prophecy of Isaiah SIMEON. (Chaps, vii.-ix.). His "light to lighten the Gentiles" was probably derived from Isaiah's prediction (Chap. ix. 2) : " The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light ; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." His com- parison of the Holy Child to a Rock on which some would fall and be bruised, while others would plant their feet on it and rise, seems to have been taken from Isaiah's description of the Lord of hosts (Chap. viii. 14, 15) : "And he shall be for a sanctuary ; but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel ; . . . and many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken." And his comparison of Christ to a Signal for contradiction, a sign to be spoken against, might never have been made if Isaiah had not declared (Chap. vii. 14) that his little son, Immanuel, should be a sign which Israel would despise and reject. Like Isaiah, and because he had studied Isaiah, Simeon con- ceived of the true Immanuel, the Lord's Christ, as a suffering Messiah who would be despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; as passing through conflict to victory, as rising by suf- fering to perfection. And hence he warned Mary that even her pure and loving heart would be pierced by many sorrows as she saw her son thwarted and rejected by the very men He came to save and bless, sorrows as keen and cruel as if the large barbaric " sword " used THE PREDICTION. by the Thracit'in mercenaries ^ had been thrust into her bosom. Hence, too, he warned us, and all men, that contact with Christ would determine our character and fate, revealing the thoughts hidden within our hearts. Nay, he implies that the thoughts thus revealed would at first, and for the more part, be evil thoughts, thoughts which betrayed hostility to the Lord and Saviour of men : for the Greek word {hoaXoyLo-^oi) here rendered " thoughts " almost always carries an evil implication in it, and denotes "the weary working of the understanding in the service of a bad heart." It conveys the idea that as Christ drew near to men the first effect of his presence and teaching would be to create a controversy, a dialogue, in the soul, in which the lower of the two voices would be the louder, and the worse would be made to appear the better cause. On the whole, then, when we look at it at all carefully, the Prediction of Simeon has a very gloomy aspect, and speaks with a tone of sad foreboding in strange contrast to the riant tone of the Song of thanksgiving which immediately precedes it. But was it too gloomy for the facts ? Was not every jot and tittle of it fulfilled within three and thirty years of its utterance .-• Is it not still finding a wide and large fulfilment ? When they were uttered, nothing could have seemed more improbable, more incredible, than the words of ' So the Greek word for "sword " implies. SIMEON. Simeon ; for who, unless taught of God, could have anti- cipated that the Jews would passionately hate and op- pose the Messiah for whose advent they had waited and prayed with strong desire ? And yet his words so exactly describe the effects of our Lord's earthly ministry that they might have been uttered after the event. He was set for the fall and the rising of many ; for the fall of the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, all that was held to be wisest and most religious in Israel ; and for the rise of publicans and sinners, peasants and fishermen, all that was held to be outcast and accursed in Israel. The most conspicuous result of the Advent on the men of his own time and race has been that it has turned their world upside down, " exalting them that were of low degree," and plucking down from their seats the high and mighty and wise, insomuch that we honour those whom they despised, and condemn those whom they honoured and revered. Christ luas a Sign spoken against, and that not in Israel alone ; the historians of Rome have no better name for his teaching than an " execrable, extravagant, and malefic superstition," and thirty years after his death the Jews knew his followers only as a sect "which was everywhere spoken against." The Sword did pierce Mary's heart, and not hers alone, when she and those who loved and trusted Jesus saw Him persecuted, reviled, betrayed, and crucified, and feared that it was not by Him that God would redeem Israel. Christ and THE PREDICTION. 23 his Word iverc a Touchstone by which the thouj^hts of many hearts were revealed and arc still revealed. If we wanted to sum up the effect of his ministry on the Israel of his day, what better account of it could we give than this? — that it disclosed what men were thinking of, what they zvere, in their hearts, and proved their thoughts to be tainted with evil, proved that under all their appa- rent devotion to religion their hearts were estranged from God, and that they were unable to read and understand the sacred oracles which were their boast and pride. Is not the pure word of Christ still a touchstone, both in the world at large and in the individual soul ? Wherever it comes with any power, does it not still excite a strife, a controversy, an opposition, which betrays our inmost thoughts, our real bent, our true character ? Even if we accept it, is not its first effect upon us to shew us how much evil lurks in our nature, and how strong that evil is ? No truer picture of the results of Christ's advent and mission could even now be painted on a canvass so small as that of Simeon. With a few strokes, in a single sentence, he delineates and sums up the religious history of all the Christian centuries, no less than that of his own age. All our subsequent experience has but shewn how true was the inspiration by which he was moved. Now there are three practical inferences to be drawn from this Prediction so important, because so pertinent 24 SJMEOiy. to our spiritual needs and moods, that I have abbreviated my exposition of it as much as I could in order to leave myself time to indicate them. I. When the Word of Christ comes home to you, whether it come to quicken you to a new life, or to con- vince you of some truth which you had not recognized before, or had not reduced to practice, do not be amazed and discouraged if you stumble at it, if it awaken doubt and contradiction in your hearts, if you find it hard to believe, and still harder to live by. It is no strange thing which is happening to you, but the common and normal experience of all who believe in Him. The advent of Christ in the heart, his coming in power, must resemble his advent into the world, must create a strife between the good and the evil in your nature, must disclose so much that is evil in you as to make you fear goodness to be beyond your reach. How, but by the conviction of sin, can you be made penitent, and driven to lay hold on the Salvation which takes away sin ? And the oftener Christ comes, the nearer He draws to you, the more fully He enters into your life — the deeper will be your conviction of sin, of a tainted and imperfect nature ; till, at times, you will feel as if a sword had been thrust into your very soul. This, indeed, is what He comes to you for ; to separate between the evil and the good, to make you conscious of evils you did not suspect, so conscious that you hate and long to be dc- THE PREDICTION. 25 livcrcd from them. For "the word of God is hvin^, and active, and sharper than any two -edged sword, and pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." The more resolutely you set yourselves to live by that Word, the more sensible will you become of certain inclinations and infirmities which oppose themselves to every advance you would make. As you follow Christ along the paths of truth and duty, new aspects of truth will present themselves to you, new duties will lay their claim upon you. And all your accepted beliefs and customary obediences may join the enemy for the moment, and resist the new light and the new claims. The more you multiply the points of attack, the more will the points and energies of resistance be multiplied, till your whole life seems a mere struggle, and often an ineffectual struggle, to be true to what you see and to do the thing you would, and you become practically familiar with that common anomaly of Chris- tian experience which makes good men deem themselves weaker and more weak the stronger they grow, and think worse of themselves the better they arc. In such times of conflict and apparent failure, it will be an unspeakable comfort and encouragement to you to know, and to remember, that they are not peculiar to you, but common to all the children of God ; that if Christ is to be formed in you, the hope of glory, He 26 SIMEON. must at first be as a Rock over which you will stumble, a Signal to call out all the contradictions and opposi- tions of your complex nature, a Sword which will pierce to your soul, a Touchstone which will disclose the quality of the material of which you are made, and shew you how evil many of your thoughts and dis- positions are. 2. This, I say, is a great comfort, to know that our experience of the strife and pain and self-exposure which Religion breeds is an inevitable and common experience, which all who were in Christ before us have passed through, which has been deepest and most enduring in those who have followed Him most closely and served Him best. But it is not the only comfort or encouragement which the Prediction of Simeon suggests. If he had not foreseen the nearer and immediate results of Christ's advent, we might, as I have admitted, have distrusted him when he spake of its distant and ultimate results. If he had not told us of the conflict and sorrow, the self-exposure and self-contempt to which a faithful reception of Christ subjects us, we could hardly have believed him when he speaks of Christ as the Consolation for all sorrow, and the Light which is to glorify the whole dark world. But when we find all that he said of the nearer results of Christ's coming to be true, we can hardly help believing him when he speaks to us of its happy ultimate results. It THE PREDICTION. 27 could hardly have sccincd more improbable, at the time at which he spake, that the Christ should be despised and rejected by the Jews, than it now seems that these struggling and imperfect lives of ours are to pass and rise into a perfect freedom and a perfect peace ; that the Light, which now strives confusedly with the dark- ness of our hearts, is one day to irradiate them with a beauty and a splendour which will make us meet to sit down with Christ in heavenly places. The one part of the Prediction has been fulfilled, improbable as it was : why should not the other part be fulfilled, incredible as it may seem ? Simeon has approved himself a faithful witness ; we have found in our own experience that Christ is a Rock of stumbling and offence, a Signal which calls out all the opposition of an imperfect nature, a Sword which pierces the very soul and divides the evil in us from the good, a Touchstone which reveals our most secret thoughts and bents : let us also believe that He will be our Consolation, our Light, our Glory. 3. We may well believe it. Per augusta ad augusta, through a narrow way to a large place, through much struggle with many difficulties to a glorious end, through conflict to victory, seems to be the verj' motto of the Christian life. And this thought also is con- tained in Simeon's prediction. I have already spoken of the wide apparent disparity between his prophecy SIMEON. of the immediate and his prophecy of the ultimate results of Christ's advent ; the one all strife and pain and shame, the other all consolation and peace, all light and glory. But what if the one be the way to the other ? Simeon seems to imply that the one is the way to the other. It was by the Spirit of God he foretold that this Child was to be a Light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of Israel. It was by the selfsame Spirit he foretold that this Child was to be a Rock of offence, a Signal for contradiction, a Sword in the soul, a Touchstone to expose our inmost thoughts. And this latter prediction, conveyed in the words of my text, is so framed, especially in the Greek, as to imply ^ that it was by a Divine intention, and in order to realize a gracious Divine end, that Christ was to bring strife on the earth, to kindle an inward war, to disclose the lurking evils of the human heart. He was set, " in order that the thoughts of many hearts should be revealed " — set by God for this very purpose. So that when our thoughts are exposed, when we have to endure the inward conflict between evil and good, when the word of Christ pierces and rends our hearts, all is according to a Divine order, a Divine intention ; all is intended to prepare and conduct us to that Divine end, the salvation of our souls. It is all meant to prepare us for a time in which our souls shall be so flooded and suffused with the Divine Light that there shall be no THE PREDICTION. 29 more darkness in us, so penetrated with the Divine Glory that sin and sorrow and shame shall for ever flee away. And if this be God's intention, if this is the end to which he is conducting us, who will not bear the strife and pain and self-contempt of this present imperfect life with patience, nay, with courage and with hope ? III. THE REDEMPTION 'OF THE REDEEMER. "And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord), and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons." — Luke ii. 22-24. The law of Moses required that every Hebrew woman who had given birth to a man-child should be held unclean for forty days, and that during these da}'s she should " touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary." But, " when the days of her purification were accomplished," she was to "bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt-offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin-offering, to the door of the taber- nacle ; " and the officiating priest, having " made an atonement for her," she was pronounced "clean." If unable to offer a lamb, she was to bring two turtledoves, or two pigeons. It was in obedience to this enactment that " Mary, when the days of her purification were THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER, 31 accomplished," brought her young Child to the temple, to present Him before the Lord, and offered her modest sacrifice of a pair of doves. And if the law which for forty days excluded the m(;thcr from the Sanctuary, and made all that she touched unclean, had a certain rigour in it, surely the law which appointed a yearling lamb and a young dove — the very symbols of innocence and beauty — a thank-offering for the birth of a child had a touch of poetry and tenderness in it which must have gone straight to every mother's heart. We naturally associate childhood, or at least infancy, with whatsoever is lovely and innocent and pure ; and we can easily understand how, as the little procession went by, the mother carrying her babe and leading the lamb or caressing the dove, many hearts besides her own would be moved, and would revert for a moment to the purity and gentleness of those early days when all things seemed fair and everybody good. Mary and Joseph were not rich, nor even "well-to-do," or they would not have brought the offering of poverty, two young pigeons. And if the mother of Christ was poor, there need be no shame in poverty ; poverty can be no proof that He does not love us. Mary's pure and meditative heart was worth far more than many barns and much goods to bestow in them. St. Luke speaks not of her, but of their, purification. And the word suggests, even if it docs not mean, that 32 THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER. Mary came up to the temple to purify her Son as well as herself; came, not only to present Him before the Lord, but also to ransom Him from the service of the priesthood : all of which is perfectly true, whether Luke did or did not intend to convey it. By the Hebrew law the firstfruits of every crop, and every male that first opened the womb whether of sheep, cattle, or other clean beasts, was set apart from the secular uses of life, and devoted to the "service of the Sanctuary. In like manner, the firstborn son of every family was holy to the Lord, set apart to the priestly function. This law, however, was soon commuted : " Behold," said God, " I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of all tJie firstbortir But, notwithstanding this substitution of one tribe for the firstborn of every tribe, the firstborn had still to be presented in the temple, and ransomed from the service of the temple by the payment of five of the Sanctuary shekels — about twelve shillings of our money. And the reason of this enactment seems to have been this : that just as one day in the week was sanctified in order to teach that every day is due and hallowed to God, and one place in order to shew that there is no place where He is not,^ so one tribe was set apart for his service, not because the Levites were holier than other men, but to bear witness to the fact that all men are bound to serve ' See discourse on The Covsccration of the Firstlings^ Vol. II. THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER. 33 Hiin, bDUtul therefore to a pure, righteous, and godly life. An J, as the Jews found the lesson hard to learn, God helped them to learn it by ordaining that, though one tribe was wholly devoted to his service, and had been accepted in lieu of the firstborn, nevertheless the firstborn son of every family should be solemnly pre- sented to Him, and redeemed from the service of his House by the payment of five shekels. Every separate family was thus reminded that that family, through all its members, was holy to the Lord ; that Ihe substitution of the Levites did not exonerate them from his service, but rather bound them to it ; and that they, no less than the Levites, were under a solemn obligation to walk in all his ordinances and commandments blameless. The particulars, the details, of Mary's obedience to this statute are not recorded, just as a thousand other details are not recorded, lest the world itself should not be able to hold the Book. But we arc told that the parents of Jesus " brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to tlie Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the wonih shall be called holy to the Lord ;" we arc told that "the}' brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law." The statute is quoted, the obedience recorded in general terms. Had there been any departure from " the custom of the law," no doubt this also would have been re- corded. As it is, we are left to conclude, and may 4 34 THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER. certainly conclude, that all was done in due order ; we may be sure that both the Babe and his mother were purified from their ceremonial uncleanness, and that the child Jesus was ransomed, by payment of the stipulated shekels, from the service of the Hebrew priesthood. Now this redemption of the Redeemer, and this purification of the pure Son of God, if it chance to be new to you, may be a little perplexing. You may ask, "Why should He who knew no sin be purged from uncleanness ? and why should the great High Priest of our confession be ransomed from the priestly service ? " And the questions are worth asking, worth answering, since the answer to them may help to bring home to us both the essential humanity and the eternal priesthood of our Lord. I. Let us enquire why the Holy Child was purified. I. In the eye of the Hebrew law, the mother and her child were regarded as having one life, and the purifica- tion of the mother extended to and covered the child. Jesus, therefore, was purified in the purification of the Virgin Mary. Why } Simply that in this, as in all other respects, He might be made like unto his brethren. True that in Him there was no uncleanness, no sin. But just as it became Him to be circumcised, although He was born without " the foreskin of the heart ; " just as it became Him to submit to the baptism of repentance, although He had no guilt to wash away ; so also it THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER. 35 became Him to be purificcl, although He was not un- clean. Sinless, He appeared " in the likeness of sinful flesh." Our limitations and infirmities were in his man- hood, though our iniquities were not. It was meet, therefore, that He who " took not on him the nature of angels," but that " flesh and blood," that mortal and peccable nature of which " the children were partakers," should observe those ordinances by which the infirmities of the flesh were counteracted, and to the observance of which all " the sons of the law " were bound. " The Sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one ; wherefore He is not ashamed to call them brethren : " but how should the divine Sanctifier be one with the sanctified among men unless He assumed their very nature, and became perfect by obeying the very law by obedience to which they attain perfection ? How, except by this identity of nature and of obedience, could He become so one with them as that, in raising Himself, He should raise them, and glorify their humanity in glorifying his own ? If He had not been circumcised, and purified, and baptized with them, how should they have been "crucified together with him " and " made to sit together with him in heavenly places " ? Every link which bound and drew Him down to them was also a link which bound them to Him, and by which He will in due time draw them up to Himself. To demonstrate his essential humanity, to multiply the points of contact and attach- 35 THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER. ment between Him and the race He came to save, — this was why He had to submit to all the ordinances, as well, as keep all the commandments, whether of the former or of the present Dispensation. 2. Every divine ordinance has a power in it and a gift. If duly observed, it ministers strength and grace, subdues, or helps to subdue, the evil that is in us, to unfold and augment that which is good. And why should we not believe that the divine ordinances which found their fulfilment in Christ, also communicated their power to Him ? We admit that his manhood was de- veloped and trained, as ours is, by a gradual process, a process of growth ; that He learned by the experience which life brought Him, and was exalted by the ennobling ministry of death. Why not also admit and believe that this gradual process was wrought in the normal way ; that He grew, as we grow, by a daily resistance to evil, an enlarging obedience to the Divine commandments, a faithful observance of all good cus- toms, all Divine ordinances ? It is through these channels that the Divine influence, the Divine grace, reaches us ; and through these channels it reached Him. The circumcision and purification of Christ were but the first steps of an ascending series which led Him on, through the public dedication of Himself to' the service of God when He was twelve years old, and the observance of the Hebrew fasts and feasts and sabbaths, THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER. yj to the baptism of John and the final Passover, which, at his touch, flowered into Christian baptism and the sacra- ment of the Supper. All these ordinances He kept in order that in all things He might be made like unto his brethren, and fulfil all their righteousness : and doubtless He received from each of them its special gift and power. And He became like unto his brethren in all things in order to quicken in us the hope that, in all things, we may become like Him ; to give us the assurance that He came to breathe his spirit into our spirits and to conform us to his image. 3. It lends the last perfecting touch to this thought if we remember that, not only was Jesus purified, but purified together with his mother. For, surely, this union of the immaculate Child with the maculate woman brings home to us the conviction, that the Divine docs not shrink from fellowship with the human, that the sinless Lord is of one nature with sinful men, and can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. To see Jesus and Mary joined in one act of worship, before one and the same altar, is such a revelation of the Divine love and humility as should be a perennial fountain of hope in our hearts. He became of one flesh with us, that we might become of one spirit with Him. He took our unclcanness on Him, that we might become par- 38 THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER. II. But if it seem strange that He who was without sin should be cleansed, it can hardly seem less strange that tJie Redeemer should be redeemed, that the only true Priest of men should be ransomed from the priestly office and function. Yet a certain superficial solution of the difficulty is obvious. For Jesus Christ came, after the flesh, of the tribe of Judah, not of the tribe of Levi, of the royal tribe, not of the sacerdotal. And if it behoved Him to have respect to the laws of our common humanity, and, in particular, to the laws of the Hebrew nation, it also became Him to respect the laws of his tribe. He came to fulfil, not to violate, the Divine order. And hence, a son of Judah by birth. He could not become a Hebrew priest, but must be ransomed, as the firstborn of his tribe were ransomed, from the service of the temple. This is one answer to the question, "Why was the Priest ransomed, the Redeemer redeemed ? " And it is a conclusive answer so far as it goes. But it does not go very far or deep. The Writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews invites us to take a larger view, and furnishes us with a more conclusive reply. He suggests that, precisely because Christ was the true Priest of men. He could not enter the Hebrew priesthood. The true, the universal priest, he tells us, must be consecrated by eternal and invisible, not by visible and temporal, sanctions. He must not be a son of Levi, or a priest THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER. 39 of Aaron's order, but " a priest for ever after the order of IMclchizcdek." " Perfection," he argues, " could not come by the Levitical priesthood;" and therefore "there ariseth another priest who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an end- less life." To this Great High Priest the sons of Aaron bore witness, but an imperfect witness. They were the shadows which He cast before ; and the priestly, like other shadows, was often black, distorted, variable, always imperfect. Because perfection could not come by the Levites, the perfect Priest must be redeemed from their office and service. In fine, the Epistle signalizes three points in which the Hebrew priests bore witness to Christ, but in which, while He resembled, He so far transcended them as to prove Himself a priest of another order and higher functions, (i) They were "ordained for men;" (2) they were " ordained by God ; " (3) they were " ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices." Let us glance at each of these points for a moment, and so come to a close. I. They were ordained for men. The Levites were not to be, like the heathen priesthoods, a separate caste, having no vital bonds of union, no social relations, with their brethren. They were to be of their brethren, that they might be for them. A certain ceremonial purity was conferred upon them, but it was only ceremonial, and it was not conferred for their own sakes. In their 40 THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER. personal life and character they were no better than other Jews. They had to offer sacrifices for their own sins before they could atone for the sins of the people. Their holiness was a purely official and representative holiness : they were set apart from certain common and secular uses of life, invested with a certain sacredncss, in order that the whole people might be constantly reminded of their holy calling. They were ordained for men, for the sake of their neighbours. The Shekinah was a type of the whole priestly system ; it was a Light, but a Light involved in a cloud. And if ever the Light was to break through and absorb the cloud, it must be at the coming of One mightier than they; One in whom their legal sanctity should be replaced by an unsullied personal holiness ; One who should not only remind men that they ought to be holy, but be able to make them holy, to communicate to them the virtue and the power of his own spotless life. 2. They were ordained by God. God had elected the sons of Levi to minister at his altar. By regular suc- cession, by right of birth, or, as the Epistle phrases it, " by the law of a carnal commandment," they were admitted to the priesthood. Most of them were without any special fitness for their special work ; many of them were, ethically, quite unfit for it. The accident of birth decided their vocation ; and hence it was, I suppose, that throughout the long Old Testament history, we THE REDEMPTION OF THE REDEEMER. 41 meet with very few priests who are conspicuous for commandin