of the believers, or the power of GOD set free from slavery,) come and abide in its branches."

This passage shows the peculiar object of this parable of the mustard seed, as distinguished from that of the leaven. Both show the growth and extent of the Church; but the parable of the mustard seed shows it as a shelter and a protection to those who fly to it. The parable of the leaven illustrates it in its unnoticed but increasing growth. The one shows the kingdom from without; the other from within.

The seed, then, is CHRIST. "This grain," says Hilary, "when sown in the field,—that is, when seized by the people, and delivered to death, and buried in the ground by a sowing of the body, grew up beyond the size of all herbs, and exceeded all the glory of the prophets: the birds of the air lodge in its branches; and by these we understand the Apostles, who, put forth by CHRIST'S might, and overshadowing the earth with their boughs, are a tree to which the Gentiles flee in hope of life, and having been tossed by the winds,—that is, by the spirits of the Devil, may have rest in its branches."

The additional step which the disciples had now taken, therefore, in their knowledge of their Master's kingdom was the revelation that this Church, so imperfectly successful, so concealed and unknown, so overgrown and marred with heresy and false doctrine, springing from persecution, would become the only real defence; deriving its whole vitality from death, would prove the only real source of life to those who fled to it for refuge and safety. This was the revelation opened to them now; a revelation the more vivid and the more convincing, that it disclosed the full meaning of the type which, though hitherto unrevealed, had so long been familiar to them. The idea of the seed, now grown to be a tree, and affording in its branches a shelter to all who fled to it, is but the repetition, with additional circumstances, of the typical prophecy of Ezekiel :

"Thus saith the LORD GOD, I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, [the Mosaic Church,] and will set it; I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon a high moun

tain and eminent; in the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it, and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar; and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell; and all the trees of the field shall know that I, the LORD, have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I, the LORD, have spoken and have done it. (Ezek. xvii. 22, 23, 24.)

The object of the next parable will be best seen by referring to a typical command in the Mosaic Law. At the Passover, it is well known that the feast was to be kept with unleavened bread; but when we look at the commands for keeping the Feast of Pentecost, we find, (Lev. xxiii. 17,) "Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals; they shall be of fine flour, they shall be baked with leaven, they are the first-fruits of the LORD."

Now the Passover is our Easter, and the Pentecost is our Whitsunday. At Easter, the Christian is similarly reminded to "keep the feast, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth;" but the production of the leavened bread as the material of the subsequent festival, which designates the descent of the HOLY GHOST, has a very peculiar and highly mysterious signification, which this parable of the leaven elucidates.

Leaven is commonly imagined to be synonymous with yeast; but leaven differs from yeast in the very quality which makes this illustration so appropriate. Leaven is not, like yeast, an extraneous substance, but a portion of the dough itself, separated for a time from the mass, subjected to the influences of air and warmth, and then restored to the hitherto unleavened dough, having acquired, as it were, from heaven, the power of permeating and changing the whole mass. This is leaven. "The LORD compares Himself to leaven," says Hilary, "for leaven is produced from meal, and communicates the power that it has received to a heap of its own kind." The type, therefore, is our corrupt nature, sanctified by its union with the heavenly influence of the Godhead, and then

pervading and communicating its Divine Essence to the hitherto unregenerated mass of mankind. It was the leaven which a WOMAN took. Speaking of the leaven as the human nature of the LORD, the Prophet raised up from among the midst of His brethren, that woman is the blessed Virgin; speaking of the leaven as the Christian doctrine, that woman is the Church. Whichever way we take it, she hid it (this refers back to the parable of the buried seed) in three measures of meal; either the heart, the soul, and the intellect, speaking of the individual man, or the three races of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, speaking of the collective world.1

Let us never forget that, though we are permitted to study the Bible for information and general instruction in the things revealed, yet that our real business is to study it for our own individual edification. These two parables do carry on, as we here see, the revelation of CHRIST's kingdom in two very material points; yet, as we before saw, CHRIST's kingdom is also within us. We

may hope and trust that the day will come, when "the glory of the LORD will be fully revealed, and when all flesh shall see it together;" but the issues of this the LORD has kept in His own hand, to be accomplished in His own good time.

That which He has entrusted to our exclusive keeping is, the extension of His kingdom within each of us.

The whole of this may be leavened, and that every

1 This seems to have been the common interpretation in early times. Hilary's objection to it does not appear to be well founded; because, however much CHRIST is manifested, and bowever much more CHRIST will be manifested among the heathen, yet the time was when He was hid. Hilary's words are:

“Many, I remember, have thought that the three measures refer to the calling of the three nations out of Shem, Ham, and Japhet; but I hardly think that the reason of the thing will allow this interpretation; for though these three nations have indeed been called, yet in them CHRIST is shown, not hidden, and in so great a multitude of unbelievers, the whole cannot be said to be leavened."

The fact is, this interpretation is perfectly applicable. The parable is not, as Hilary supposes it to be, complete, but in the act of completion. The action of it began at the death of CHRIST, but the process of leavening will go on until no more of the mass remains to be leavened; possibly until the end of the world.

day, if we take the interpretation of Raban, and think "that the Divine love implanted in our minds ought to grow till it has changed the whole soul into its own perfection;" and we may every day realize the shelter and secure refuge afforded by the branches of CHRIST'S Church, when we bless GOD, in the words of Gregory, that "Holy souls resemble the birds lodging in the branches of that heavenly tree, when they have raised themselves from thoughts of earth on the wings of the virtues, and breathe again from the troubles of this life, in their words and comfortings."

NOTE. S. HILARY OF POICTIERS.-It is hard to say which of the two eminent men bearing the name of Hilary, citizens of the same country, and belonging to nearly the same period of history, was the greatest ornament to the Church, the Bishop of Poictiers, or the Bishop of Arles: for though the latter was the author of the Athanasian Creed, both were equally eminent in the defence of the Church against the great heresy of the 4th century, Arianism. It is the former of these whose words have been quoted in the preceding Postil.

By birth, Hilary was a Pagan; and was so far singular in his conversion that, according to his own account of it, he had become a convert to the Old Testament before he had studied, or even seen, any part of the New. He happened to meet with that passage in Exodus, in which the Almighty GoD declares Himself under the designation of "I AM." This opened to him, he says, the idea of a future state of existence, implying almost of necessity, a system of reward and punishment. This, again, brought his mind to compre hend the idea of a Judge; and the necessity of mercy, as well as justice, in his own case. Thus predisposed, he sought out the Christian system, as offering that of which he stood in need, and took up the Gospel according to S. John, in which he learned that He who had come on earth to deliver, and He who would come again to judge, was Himself the GOD-the "I AM,"-whose Name had first caught his attention in the Old Testament; Who was from the beginning, and without Whom nothing was made that was made.

This history of the process of his own conversion, and the peculiar working of his mind which led him to Christianity, will fully account for the determined stand which he afterwards made against Arianism. He was naturally jealous of the Divinity of Him Who had thus supplied the peculiar want of his mind which had turned him to the Gospel from the first.

We know but little of his life as a layman, or as a Priest; and what we do know, we gather principally from incidental notices of himself which occur in his own writings. That he was married, is certain; for he speaks of instructing his daughter, Abra, in the elements of the Christian religion; and it is equally clear that this

was no bar to his appointment to the Episcopate: for it is quite certain that he lived with his wife after he became Bishop of Poictiers, in the year 355.

By this time, he must have been well trained in the doctrines of the Church, and the controversies of the day. Indeed, many of his twelve books on the Divinity of our LORD, must have been written at that time; for they all appeared in public in the following year,probably as a sort of pastoral, for the direction of his Clergy in the great struggle which was then at its height. They were, of course, directed against the Arian doctrines, which were then gaining ground in France and thus it was that he drew upon himself the enmity of Saturninus, who, holding the Arian tenets, was then Bishop of Arles.

It so happened, that at this particular time, this heresy was in favour at the court of the Roman Emperor; and Saturninus had interest enough there to procure the banishment of Hilary,-founding his charge on the sentiments expressed by him at the Council of Beziers, which took place the year after his appointment to the Bishopric of Poictiers.

The Emperor Constantius banished him to Phrygia, where he remained three years. But, during that time, he made himself fully acquainted with the doctrines of the TRINITY, as held by the Eastern Churches, which at that time were less tainted with heresy than those of the West; and not only strengthened himself in his own tenets, but also qualified himself to become a defender of Orthodoxy in the Eastern Church.

Hilary proved so formidable an opponent to the progress of Arianism in the East, that he owed his return to his own See to the very same cause that had procured his banishment. His opponents unable to answer him, and unwilling to own their defeat, procured his removal from the East; and thus in the year 360 he was actually banished back again to France.

By this time, however, Julian had come to the throne, and, being anxious for state reasons to restore paganism, which he considered a more manageable religion, really did advance the cause of orthodoxy by removing the court influence which had hitherto upheld that of Arianism; he placed them both on a perfect level by discountenancing both alike.

Here then the cause of Truth, and the talents and zeal of Hilary gave him a decided advantage. Council after council was assembled, and so eminent was the Bishop of Poictiers as a disputant and a theologian, that he procured the condemnation of his old opponent Saturninus, and gave a serious check to the heresy itself from which it partially recovered only to be again refuted some thirty or forty years afterwards by Hilary of Arles.

His greatest triumph took place only a few months before his death. Auxentius, an Arian, had been appointed Bishop of Milan, and Valentinian, who was then Emperor, had issued an edict, commanding all men to acknowledge him as the true Bishop. Hilary presented a petition against him, and Valentinian, who really seems to have been endeavouring to act with justice and impartiality, and to