THE STAR OF THE WISE MEN: BEING A COMMENTARY ON THE SECOND CHAPTER OF ST. MATTHEW. BY RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, B.D., EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD; AND LATE HULSEAN LECTURER. G5 PHILADELPHIA: H. HOOKER,-S. W. COR. OF EIGHTH AND CHESTNUT ETS. 1850. THE STAR OF THE WISE MEN. THE Birth of the Lord of Glory on earth had its corresponding sign in the heavens. The natural limits. of an essay which should undertake to treat of that sign, and of the events most intimately linked with its appearing, are those, as will easily be perceived, of the second chapter of St. Matthew; all the incidents of which hang in closest connexion on the coming of the Magi, and accomplish themselves, (with the inclusion, indeed, according to one arrangement, of the presentation in the temple, Luke ii. 22—38,) in a perfect and independent cycle. The chapter is thus singularly complete in itself, finding the infant Saviour at Bethlehem, and leaving him at Nazareth, and constituting, if we may reverently apply the word, an episode in the life of our blessed Lord. This episode it is my purpose to consider, and to do so with something of the fulness which an essay devoted exclusively to it would alone permit. There is much in it, besides the ease with which it detaches itself from the context, to invite to this rate treatment. its sepa With the exception of the histories of the passion and the resurrection, which, it is evident, must strike yet deeper chords in the hearts of the faithful, being facts of our redemption even more central still, there is perhaps no passage in our Lord's life, which has laid a stronger grasp, or set a deeper impress on the mind, and heart, and imagination of Christendom. One of the chief festivals of the church -the Epiphany-has here its motive; and, another, although not so chief a one-that of the Holy Innocents-roots itself in the events recorded here. What a witness have we for its hold on the popular affections and imagination in the vast body of legendary lore which has clustered round it; in the innumerable medieval mysteries which turn on the flight into Egypt, the massacre of the Innocents, or the coming of the three kings; and in all else of poetry and painting which has found its suggestion here. And this deep and manifold interest and delight in this portion of Holy Scripture which others have felt, has very probably been sufficiently explained to each one of us, by the manner in which we ourselves have recurred to it again and again, with an interest ever new, with a wonder ever growing, as we have more and more perceived how deep the mysteries of our faith which are here, in simplest historic guise, presented to us. Nor may I omit, as a further inducement which I found to this making of it the subject of a separate treatment, the fact that the difficulties which it presents |