pregnancy would subject her to reproach, and it might be to danger of her life; yet without hesitation she implicitly yields to the Divine will, saying, Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me acccording to thy word. Probably the miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit immediately took place.

5. Mary visits her cousin Elisabeth.

Her anxiety to learn the accomplishment of the sign, we may presume, induced the Virgin to take a journey of eighty miles to visit and confer with her relation. And there she received full confirmation of her faith, for Elisabeth, to whom the secret of Mary's conception had been revealed, immediately greeted her by inspiration with the angel's salutation, as blessed among women; and though her superior in age and station, she acknowledges it as a condescension in the future mother of her Lord to visit her, and gives proof of her own pregnancy by declaring, that no sooner had the voice of Mary's salutation sounded in her ears, than the babe leaped in her womb for joy. The Virgin, encouraged by this address, breaks forth into a hymn of praise, familiar to us from its having been incorporated into the evening service of the Church. It strongly resembles that of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, in which the blessed fruit of the Virgin's womb is first celebrated by a woman, and under the title of Messiah, or King; yet with this striking difference, that Hannah in the fulness of her triumph dwells on her aggrandisement, while the Virgin thinks of the lowliness of her condition". She declares, that her spirit hath exulted in God her Saviour; whereby she seems to acknowledge, that as a sinner she could rejoice in God, only as interested in the salvation which was to be procured for mankind by her future Son. She adds, that he had condescended to regard her low estate, when it might have been supposed, that the Messiah

Jebb's Sacred Literature, sect. xx.

would assume his human nature from one of a more honourable station in the eyes of the world. It is lowliness, answering to the humilitas of the Vulgate, in the Prayer Book translation, but the original is not ταπεινοφροσύνη, but ταπείνωσις, and she means to express not her lowliness of mind, but the low and impoverished condition of her family. She advances from her personal feelings to the happiness which her Son's birth shall cause, not to her and her family alone, but to the world, and declares that the people of succeeding times will sympathise in her rejoicing. "Henceforth all generations will esteem me happy, for the Omnipotent hath done great things for me;" her faith thus realized what is yet future, and, looking back to the interferences of God's providence in overturning the oppressors of his people, she ends with expressing her conviction, that Israel will now be raised up from its fallen state, by a fulfilment of the promise which had been made in mercy to Abraham so many centuries before.

The Virgin declares that all future generations will esteem her happy. It is a painful reflection, that multitudes, not content to regard her as the happiest of women, have exalted this handmaid of the Lord to the throne of heaven. Some even raise her above human nature, maintaining that she, as well as her Son, was conceived without sin; and even in the present enlightened age, notwithstanding the continued protest of the reformed Churches, she is more frequently and more devoutly worshipped, it is to be feared, than her Maker. The angel's salutation, Hail! Mary, xexagitwμév, is in the Vulgate rendered, instead of highly favoured, full of grace: thus attention is turned from the favour conferred of being selected to be the Messiah's mother, to the grace supposed to be inherent in her; and the salutation was by St. Dominic converted into an act of adoration, which in the devotion of the Rosary, in general use in the Church of Rome, is repeated a hundred and fifty times, to fifteen Pater nosters. Mary, after continuing with her cousin three months, returned home.

6. The birth of John the Baptist. Luke i.

On the eighth day after the Baptist's birth, the time for circumcision, a large company assembled, and it being proposed to give him his father's name, his mother informed them that he was to be called Jochanan, which we write John, that is, God is gracious, a most appropriate appellation for him whose office it was to proclaim the kingdom of grace. His father being appealed to, wrote down his name, John; and the season of his correction being expired, recovers the power of speech; and the first employment he makes of his restored faculty is to praise God. His hymn begins, where the Virgin's ended, with the testimony of prophecy, and declares the power of her Son, and his descent from the royal house of David; he addresses his own infant as designed to be the herald to prepare the way of Jehovah; and he describes this salvation, not as the temporal one anticipated by the nation, but as a deliverance from sin, the enjoyment of peace, and the power of obeying the divine commandments, as they respect both God and man.

As John grew in age and stature, he was prepared for future usefulness; but though of the tribe of Levi, he seems neither to have been educated by the Scribes, nor to have attended at the temple, but was in the desert till the time of his shewing unto Israel. There he lived with great austerity, drinking no fermented liquor, and eating such food as the place afforded, locusts and wild honey. His clothing was the coarse habit which the poor wore, and which the rich occasionally assumed as a garb of humiliation or mourning. He was therefore, even in outward appearance, a second Elijah, and much more so in reality, being endued, as the angel had announced, and as the last of the prophets (Malachi) had foretold, with the spirit and power of that eminent servant of God. Both were raised up in times of universal corruption, and both executed their commission with zeal and intrepidity. The abstemiousness and rigour of the Baptist's life were calculated to excite attention and reverence, to reclaim the

thoughtless, and to alarm the impenitent; but whatever mortification he practised himself, he was a preacher not of penance, but of repentance; and we do not find that he enjoined upon others more than the forsaking of sin, and the fulfilment of their duties.

7. The angel informs Joseph of the miraculous immaculate conception of his virgin bride of the predicted Saviour. Matt. i.

When Joseph found that his betrothed wife was pregnant, and probably heard from her a statement of her miraculous conception, confirmed, it may be, by the testimony of Elisa beth, he was at a loss how to act; for, not satisfied with the statements, he was as a just man desirous of divorcing her, yet as a merciful one of doing it privately. In this perplexity he fell asleep, and an angel, probably Gabriel, is sent to remove his scruples, and to instruct him to take her to his home, it being the design of Divine Providence to raise up, through human agency, a friend and protector for the Virgin and infant Saviour. The angel announces to him, as he had before to the future mother, that the child shall be named Jesus, which Matthew considers as the accomplishment of Isaiah's declaration to Ahaz. The name Emanuel clearly designates the divine nature of the child; and that of Joshua, (for Jesus is only a Greek corruption of it,) Jehovah, the Saviour. This name, which had become an ordinary one, had been borne by two eminent men, types of the divine and real Joshua. The first was the son of Nun, the friend and successor of Moses, who led the Israelites into the earthly Canaan, and gave rest unto them from all their enemies round about, a rest which the Epistle to the Hebrews calls a figure of that which yet remaineth (in heaven, the true Canaan) for the people of God. The other was the son of Josedeck, highpriest on the return from the captivity, to whom, with Zerubbabel the governor, Haggai addresses his prophecies, and concerning whom Zechariah has two prophecies. He is called in both, as typical of Jesus, the Branch, which the

6. The birth of John the Baptist. Luke i.

On the eighth day after the Baptist's birth, the time for circumcision, a large company assembled, and it being proposed to give him his father's name, his mother informed them that he was to be called Jochanan, which we write John, that is, God is gracious, a most appropriate appellation for him whose office it was to proclaim the kingdom of grace. His father being appealed to, wrote down his name, John; and the season of his correction being expired, recovers the power of speech; and the first employment he makes of his restored faculty is to praise God. His hymn begins, where the Virgin's ended, with the testimony of prophecy, and declares the power of her Son, and his descent from the royal house of David; he addresses his own infant as designed to be the herald to prepare the way of Jehovah; and he describes this salvation, not as the temporal one anticipated by the nation, but as a deliverance from sin, the enjoyment of peace, and the power of obeying the divine commandments, as they respect both God and man.

As John grew in age and stature, he was prepared for future usefulness; but though of the tribe of Levi, he seems neither to have been educated by the Scribes, nor to have attended at the temple, but was in the desert till the time of his shewing unto Israel. There he lived with great austerity, drinking no fermented liquor, and eating such food as the place afforded, locusts and wild honey. His clothing was the coarse habit which the poor wore, and which the rich occasionally assumed as a garb of humiliation or mourning He was therefore, even in outward appearance, a second Elijah and much more so in reality, being endued, as the angel had announced, and as the last of the prophets (Malachi) hac foretold, with the spirit and power of that eminent servant o God. Both were raised up in times of universal corruption and both executed their commission with zeal and intrepidity The abstemiousness and rigour of the Baptist's life". calculated to excite attention and reve