Jutroduction.

WHAT Christian can hear of the Life of the Saviour without feeling in his bosom the warm glow of gratitude and admiration? To be enabled to trace the career of our blessed Redeemer is a privilege which cannot be overvalued. Elisha, when he saw Elijah pass from earth to heaven, might rejoice with holy trnsport in the glory of his friend; but it was not given to him to follow by the same means to the Seer's celestial destination. Happier than Elisha, the sincere followers of the Redeemer, marking his glorious passage, find in his history all that is wanting to enable them to reach that "house in which there are many mansions," and that presence in which "there is fulness of joy and blessings for evermore."

The lights of Christianity are not necessary to secure admiration, for the bold and enlightened reformer Jesus, "who went about doing good," who fearlessly attacked vice and superstition, who relieved affliction, and who in his own person endured the bitterest insults and the keenest pangs that ingenius cruelty could inflict, with unfailing resignation to the will of the Almighty. He cheered the desponding outcast; he hailed the tear of con

trition; and, proclaiming that there was great joy in heaven when a sinner turned from his evil ways; he taught the humble penitent to hope that the laboured prayer of the self-satisfied Pharisee would be less regarded at the throne of grace than the publican's simple but earnest appeal "God be merciful to me a sinner." Those who have sighed in hopeless gloom, whom an oppressed conscience has driven nearly to despair, are consoled by Him.

In the career of the illustrious Pilgrim we find all that ambitious piety would wish to imitate. Lessons of wisdom, bright, touching, endearing, fall from His lips. We are warned of danger; we are taught to scorn wretched superstition, and to love mercy. Were our views confined to this obviously imperfect state of being, the earthly career of Jesus might be traced with profit. Not a word need be added of its surpassing value in regard to the momentous hereafter.

The Life

OF

OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR

JESUS CHRIST.

CHAPTER I.

PRESAGE OF THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.-PREDICTION OF THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.-SALUTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN BY THE ANGEL.-VISITATION OF THE VIRGIN MARY TO ELIZABETH. -BIRTH OF THE BAPTIST.

No event that ever did, or perhaps will, happen, can more remarkably display the wisdom and power of the GREAT JEHOVAH, than the glorious manner in which he brought life and immortality to light, by the gospel of his only Son manifested in the flesh.

History, as it refers merely to human events. is a pleasing and instructing subject; but that

which relates to our immortal interest certainly claims our most serious regard.

The mind cannot be more delightfully employed than in the contemplation of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator of the universe, who, by means the least thought of and imagined, confirmed and established that glorious Gospel, which points out the only foundation of a sinner's hopes of eternal salvation. Notwithstanding the strength and number of its enemies, the Church grew from the most inconsiderable beginnings, to an immense fabric or building in the Lord; nor shall the united efforts of earth and hell be able to prevail against it. As it was planted, so it was reared, by an almighty hand, which, like the careful husbandman, pruned and cultivated each tender sprig, till it arrived at full perfection; or, to use the words of our blessed Lord, "The least of all seeds grew up and waxed a great tree, and spread out its branches and filled the earth."

Thus prevailed eternal truth: nor could the inveterate Jews, or superstitious heathens, resist its progress, though Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and people of Israel, “gathered themselves together against the Lord, and against his Anointed:" for the doctrine of God con

founded the wisdom of the one, and overcame the folly of the other.

If we survey the stupendous works of creation, we shall find that few arrived at perfection at once. This observation is amply confirmed by the various productions in the natural, and changes in the moral world. The Supreme Being, who conducts all his operations according to his infinite wisdom, appears to have retained the same maxim in regulating his kindest dispensations to the sons of men. The divine will was not revealed, at first, in its clearest evidence and fullest splendour; the dawn, in a spiritual as well as in a natural sense, preceded the meridian glory. The former revelation was but a type or earnest of the latter, and in comparison with it, intricate and mysterious.

The all-gracious God, as it seemed best to his unerring wisdom, was pleased, by degrees, to open and unfold his glorious counsels; and man, by degrees, attained to the knowledge of the great plan of salvation, and the means used by its great Author to promote and establish it.

Some time before the incarnation of the blessed Jesus, an opinion prevailed among the pious part of the Jews, that the great Jehovah would condescend to favour them with a clear revelation of his divine will, by the mission