Happy would it have been for the world, if such dispositions and conduct had been altogether banished by the Gospel of Christ: but the human heart is the same in every age and place : we still see that the love of power is a predominant principle in the mind of man ; that where it is suffered to gain an ascendency, it will leave no means untried for the accomplishment of its ends ; and that, if tlie more lenient methods of deceit and treachery will not succeed, it will wade through seas of blood to the attainment of its object: the cries of thousands and tens of thousands will not divert it from its purpose : nor will any thing but the utter extinction of a rival satisfy its blood-thirsty appetite*'.
We must not however forget, that the same evil principles are in our own hearts : and, if we will only call to mind the irritation which we have felt on some particular occasions, we shall see reason to be thankful to God, who has kept us from carrying into execution all that our offended pride might have prompted us to effect.]
Before we proceed to make any practical remarks upon this fact, it will be proper to notice, II. The prophecy accomplished by it —
The New Testament writers sometimes appeal to the prophecies of the Old Testament, as direct proofs of what they assert, and sometimes in a more lax way of accommodation only. It is in this latter way, we apprehend, that the prophecy before us is adduced*-'? In its primary meaning, it represented the Jews as collected at Rama, for the purpose of being carried into captivity to Babylon''; and Rachel (who had about eleven hundred years before been buried near that place') as weeping over the disconsolate state of her posterity. The Evangelist beautifully a])plies tlic same figure to the slaughter of the children which took place at Bethlehem, which also was near to Rachel's tomb ; and, in this view, he speaks of the prophecy as again accomphshed. This he might well do : for who can conceive the distress which that event occasioned ?
[The murderous bands could not stop to sec, whether, in every instance, the wounds they had inflicted had actually
f Written in Feb. 1809, when the British army had been forced to leave Spain under the merciless dominion of Buonaparte, g Jer. xxxi. 15—17. ^ Jer. xl. 1. i Gen. xxxv. 19.
1281.] THE SLAtTGHTER OF THE INFANTS. 15
destroyed life : they must proceed rapidly in their work, lest any of the children should be carried off or concealed : and what anguish must the cries of so many children, (probably some thousands,) writhing in the agonies of death, in agonies pro- tracted by the kind solicitude of their parents, have produced in the bosoms of their bereaved mothers ! No language can paint, no imagination conceive, the horrors of that day. We may use the terms, " lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning ;" but we cannot affix to them any adequate ideas, or realize, in any just degree, that awful scene ]
We cannot but see from hence,
1. How early our Lord's sufferings began —
[Scarcely was he born, before his life was sought, and he was forced to be carried an exile to the country which of all others had been most hostile to his progenitors. And, after the death of Herod, he was forced, for his security, to take up his abode in a town which fixed a stigma upon him to his latest hour''. These were, indeed, only " the beginnings of his sorrows :" but they may well reconcile his followers to any privations or reproaches which they may be called to endure for his sake. If for us he became " a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," let us cheerfully bear our cross for him, and willingly " suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together" ]