mortification of religious orders, and of thofe who afpired to religious perfection.

III. Our Saviour uttered no impaffioned devotion. There was no heat in his piety, or in the language in which he expreffed it; no vehement or rapturous ejaculations, no violent urgency in his prayers. The Lord's prayer is a model of calm devotion. His words in the garden are unaffected expreffions, of a deep indeed, but fober piety, He never appears to have been worked up into any thing like that elation, or that emotion of fpirits, which is occafionally obferved in moft of those, to whom the name of enthufiaft can in any degree be applied. I feel a respect for methodists, because I believe that there is to be found amongst them, much fincere piety, and availing, though not always well-informed, Chriftianity: yet I never attended a meeting of theirs, but I came away with the reflection, how different what I heard was from what I read; I do not mean in doctrine, with

which, at prefent, I have no concern, but how different from the calm

in manner;

nefs, the fobriety, the good fenfe, and, I may add, the strength and authority, of our Lord's difcourfes.

IV. It is very ufual with the human mind, to fubftitute forwardness and fervency in a particular caufe, for the merit of general and regular morality; and it is natural, and politic alfo, in the leader of a fect or party, to encourage such a difpofition in his followers. Chrift did not overlook this turn of thought: yet, though avowedly placing himself at the head of a new inftitution, he notices it only to condemn it. "Not every one that faith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will fay unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophefied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? and then will I profefs

unto

unto you, I never knew you, depart from me, je that work iniquity *." So far was the author of Christianity from courting the attachment of his followers by any facrifice of principle, or by a condefcenfion to the errors which even zeal in his fervice might have inspired! This was a proof both of fincerity and judgement.

V. Nor, fifthly, did he fall in with any of the depraved fashions of his country, or with the natural bias of his own education. Bred up a Jew, under a religion extremely technical, in an age and amongst a people more tenacious of the ceremonies than of any other part of that religion, he delivered an institution, containing less of ritual, and that more fimple, than is to be found in any religion, which ever prevailed amongst mankind. We have known, I do allow, examples of an enthusiasm, which has swept away all external ordinances before it. But this fpirit certainly did not dictate our Saviour's conduct, either in his treatment of Mat. vii. 21, 22. F

VOL. II.

the

the religion of his country, or in the formation of his own inftitution. In both he difplayed the foundness and moderation of his judgement. He cenfured an overstrained fcrupuloufnefs, or perhaps an affectation of, fcrupuloufnefs, about the Sabbath; but how did he cenfure it? not by contemning or decrying the inftitution itself, but by declaring that "the fabbath was made for man, not man for the fabbath;" that is to fay, that the fabbath was to be fubordinate to its purpose, and that that purpose was the real good of those who were the fubjects of the law. The fame concerning the nicety of fome of the pharifees, in paying tithes of the moft trifling articles, accompanied with a neglect of juftice, fidelity, and mercy. He finds fault with them for mifplacing their anxiety. He does not speak difrefpe&fully of the law of tithes, or of their obfervance of it, but he affigns to each clafs of duties its proper ftation in the scale of moral importance. All this might be expected perhaps from a well-inftructed, cool, and judicious philofopher, but was

not

not to be looked for from an illiterate Jew, certainly not from an impetuous enthusiast.

VI. Nothing could be more quibbling, than were the comments and expofitions of the Jewish doctors, at that time; nothing fo puerile as their diftinctions. Their evafion of the fifth commandment, their expofition of the law of oaths, are fpecimens of the bad tafte in morals which then prevailed. Whereas in a numerous collection of our Saviour's apothegms, many of them referring to fundry precepts of the Jewish law, there is not to be found one example of fophiftry, or of falfe fubtlety, or of any thing approaching thereunto.

VII. The national temper of the Jews was intolerant, narrow-minded, and excluding. In Jefus, on the contrary, whether we regard his leffons or his example, we fee not only benevolence, but benevolence the most enlarged and comprehensive. In the parable of the good Samaritan, the very point of the story is, that the person relieved

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