1. Surely it is needless to remind an audience like the present, _what_ that method is! Turn the first page of St. Matthew's Gospel, and weigh well the three famous cases of Interpretation which there encounter you[454]:--namely, the assurance that Hosea's words, "Out of Egypt have I called my son[455];"--that Jeremiah's declaration concerning the tears of Rachel[456];--and that the many prophetic utterances concerning "the Branch[457];"--found fulfilment, each, in CHRIST. The first,--when, at Jehovah's bidding, He was carried up out of Egypt into Palestine; the second,--when the bereaved mothers of Bethlehem wept for their murdered offspring; the third,--when CHRIST, being bred up in Nazareth, was called a "Nazarene,"--the root of which, etymologically, denotes "a branch."--But look further, and your surprise will increase at discovering how extraordinary the Divine method is. When our Saviour cast out evil spirits and healed the sick, St. Matthew declares that He fulfilled that prophecy of Isaiah, "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses[458];" the language of the prophet in fact being, "Surely He hath borne our _griefs_ and carried our _sorrows_[459];" which, as far as the words go, is rather a different thing. 2. But it is St. Paul who affords us the largest induction of instances. When he would establish the right of the Clergy to have due provision made for them, he finds his warrant in a most unexpected place of Scripture. "Say I these things as a man? or saith not the Law the same also? For it is written in the Law of Moses, 'Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn.' Doth GOD care for the oxen here alluded to[460]? (μὴ τῶν βοῶν μέλει τῷ Θεῷ;) or saith He it altogether for our sakes? _For our sakes_, no doubt, this is written[461]." I remind you of the entire passage, because it is so very express.--Elsewhere, St. Paul adduces a few verses from the viiith Psalm, the primary and more obvious meaning of which appears to assert nothing more than the supremacy of Man's present nature over the inferior races of animals; ("all sheep and oxen, yea and all the beasts of the field[462].") The application of it, in a prophetic sense, to the supreme dominion of our Redeemer over all created beings in Heaven and Earth, is certainly not one which would naturally suggest itself to us; yet is it for this purpose, and this only, that St. Paul adduces it; and as confirmatory of the universal sovereignty of CHRIST, the place in question is three times quoted by the same Apostle[463].--Elsewhere, when he would warn persons who have been partakers of both Sacraments, of the danger of final rejection, he cites the example of the Fathers of Israel in the Wilderness. "The waters of the Red Sea were a wall unto them, on their right hand and on their left[464]," and the watery Cloud covered them above; whereby it came to pass that "all our Fathers were