X. DISC. timely excifion you lament, fhall 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 Jerufalem, there to live and reign with him, for whom they have now fuffered and died. These children of Judah and Benjamin, like their progenitors, "fhall return, and "come to Zion with fongs, and everlasting joy fhall be upon their heads; they, and you with them, shall obtain joy and glad"ness, and forrow and fighing shall again "flee away." The words, thus explained, will fuggeft to us fome useful reflections, fuitable to the festival, on the case of the flaughtered infants, and that of the lamenting mothers. With regard to the infants, we may obferve the choice, made by the church, of proper persons to attend the bleffed Jefus, upon the commemoration of his birth. These are St. Stephen, St. John, and the Innocents. X. Innocents. He was born to fuffer; and, DISC. therefore, the festival of his nativity is immediately followed by the festivals of those who fuffered for him. St. Stephen was a martyr, and the first martyr, both in will and in deed: St. John, the beloved difciple, was fuch in will, but not in deed, being miraculously preferved from the death intended for him by Domitian. The Innocents were martyrs in deed, but not in will, by reafon of their tender age. Of thefe laft, however, it pleased the prince of martyrs to have his train compofed, when he made his entry into the world, as at this feafon; a train of infants, fuited to an infant Saviour; a train of Innocents, meet to follow the spotless Lamb, who came to convince the world of fin, and to redeem it in righteoufnefs. They were the firft-fruits offered to the Son of God, after his incarnation, and their blood the first that flowed on his account. They appeared as fo many champions in the field, clad in the King's coat of armour, to intercept the blows directed against him. VOL. I. U The DISC. X. The Chriftian poet, PRUDENTIUS, in one of his hymns, has an elegant and beautifuly address to these young fufferers for their Redeemer: Salvete, flores Martyrum, 1 "Hail ye first flowers of the evangelical "fpring, cut off by the fword of persecu"tion, ere yet you had unfolded your "leaves to the morning, as the early rofe 66 droops before the withering blaft. Dri"ven, like a flock of lambs, to the flaugh"ter, you have the honour to compofe the "firft facrifice offered at the altar of Chrift; "before which, methinks I fee your inno"cent fimplicity sporting with the palms "and the crowns held out to you from "above." So 66 X. So remarkable an event neceffarily at- DISC. tracts our attention to that age, which is proposed by our Lord, as, in many respects, a model for us all to copy, in forming our tempers and difpofitions. "They brought young children to Christ, that " he should touch them, and his difciples "rebuked those that brought them. But Jefus was much difpleafed, and faid, "Suffer little children to come to me, and "forbid them not, for of fuch is the king"dom of God." And again, when the disciples "afked him, who fhould be the 66 greatest in the kingdom of heaven, he "took a little child, and fet him in the "midft, and faid, Except ye be converted "and become as little children, ye fhall "not enter into the kingdom of God." To be fit for the inheritance of the faints in light, we must put off the paffions which are too apt to infest us as men, ambition, pride, craft, envy, hatred, malice, anger, revenge, covetoufnefs, and concupifcence of every fort, and put on their oppofites, humility, meeknefs, modesty, charity, U 2 1 DISC. charity, purity, fimplicity; we must beX. come fuch in heart and mind, by the difcipline of religion, as little children are, by their age; poffeffed of the fame unlimited confidence in the care of a Father who, as we are affured, careth for us; looking up to him for all we want, and flying to him for protection from all we fear; never entertaining a fufpicion of our being forfaken, or neglected by him, nor the leaft inclination to refift his will equally infenfible to the promises and threatenings of the world; refigned to fuffer, and not afraid to die, when we are called fo to do; able to fmile at the drawn dagger, and ready to embrace the arm that aims it at our heart. This idea of a child of God was daily realized, to the admiration of the whole pagan world, in the first ages of the church. The fame inexhaustible and all powerful grace will realize it in thefe latter days, when religion fhall be considered by us as an art, rather than a fcience; when non magna |