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the law, and their flagrant guilt in omitting the weightier; for cleansing the outside of vessels, which they filled by means of rapine and 'injustice; for the speciousness of their external appearance, when all within was the rankest foulness and pollution; for honouring the memories of former prophets, and disclaiming the conduct of their forefathers who slew them, while they persecuted and crucified those of their own times. The whole concludes with a prophecy of their rancour against the Christian church, with a denunciation of present and future vengeance for their subtle and dangerous malignity, with a most affecting apostrophe to Jerusalem, an allusion to the destruction of the temple, and a prediction of the Messiah's future glorious appearance, when every knee should bow to him and every tongue confess him.

We read in the gospels that the people were astonished at our Lord's doctrine, because "he

taught them as one having authority;" that, when he visited Nazareth the second time during his ministry, the inhabitants of that city asked, "Whence hath this man this wisdom ?" and that the Jewish officers, who were sent to apprehend him, made the following remarkable confession, "Never man spake like this man." And we further read, that, when he first preached the gospel in the synagogue at Nazareth, "all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and that two of his disciples, with whom he conversed after his resurrection, said one to another

The true reading is ἀδικίας, not ἀκρασίας.
• ib. xiii. 54. P John vii. 46.

Matt. vii. 28, 29.

m Phil. ii. 10, 11.

9 Luke iv. 22.

on his departure from them, " Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way?" We have therefore testimonies to our Lord's eloquence, as well as to his authority and wisdom. Sublimity is inseparable from great minds and great subjects: every natural expression either of the amiable qualities of the heart, or of its stronger emotions, cannot but affect and strike us; and the highest truths delivered with simplicity, and often with the bold ornaments of eastern metaphor proverb or parable, have a diversified beauty which the human mind is prone to acknowledge and admire in whatever shape it appears. In the mean time, the great and uniform object of our heavenly teacher was to communicate religious and moral instruction, and to sanctify the heart: his ornaments are unsought, and arise out of the subject with the greatest ease and majesty.

I shall digress an instant to consider the following question: Why did not God inspire the preachers of the gospel, and the writers of the New Testament, with the most perfect language and manner? I answer, that God has preferred affording internal evidence of the Christian revelation by the truth and purity of its doctrines and precepts, and external evidence of it by miracles and prophecies, perhaps for these among other reasons: that the faith of Christ's disciples "might not, originally, stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God;" which is St. Paul's reason for not preaching "with the persuasive words of man's wisdom :" that, in

Luke xxiv. 32.

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1 Cor. ii. 4, 5.

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written by those

attention of men

after ages, the framing of the Christian system might not be attributed to the superior abilities of such consummate writers: that the sacred records might carry plain marks that they were whose names they bear that the might be principally turned to the authority of the law giver, and the reasonableness of his laws and that no superfluous miracle might be wrought; as such an interposition would not have answered any religious purpose, and mankind are equally instructed in the present way.

It is true that nothing can exceed the high poetical ornaments in many parts of the Old Testament. In the earliest times, previous to the knowledge of letters and the existence of records, poems were most likely to be remembered, admired, and sent down to posterity. And God was pleased to consecrate poetry to the service of religion occasionally in the Hebrew historians; and especially in the writings of Job, David, Solomon, and those whom the Jews call the later prophets. I conjecture that the Hebrew poets were early trained up to compositions of this kind, accompanied with music: and God seems graciously to have inspired them in the same form, to engage the attention, to impress the memory, to animate the affections, and to kindle the devotions, of a people prone to idolatry.

"

The recorded poetry of the New Testament occurs only in the hymns of Elizabeth, Mary, Zacharias, and Simeon: though it appears that " hymns

1 Sam. x. 5. 2 Kings iii. 15. ii. 29-32.

1 Cor. xiv. 15, 26.

W

"Luke i. 42-5: 46-55: 68-79

Eph. v. 19. Col. iii. 16.

were also inspired by the Spirit in devout assemblies of Christians. Christianity, an universal religion, is recommended to the reason and veneration of all mankind by its intrinsic excellence and supernatural proofs, and by the dignity and majesty with which it is delivered.

SECTION VI.

THAT HIS INSTRUCTIONS

FREQUENTLY SPRANG OUT OF THE

OCCASION: AND THAT HIS IMAGES WERE DRAWN FROM FAMIL

IAR OBJECTS.

IT is observable of our Lord's discourse, that it is often suggested by accidental objects, and arises in the most easy and natural manner from present or recent occasions and circumstances. This topic has been discussed by very sagacious and diligent a writers, who have left little to be supplied, and have sometimes strained a true hypothesis beyond its just limits. I shall enumerate such instances as appear to be well founded.

a Sir Isaac Newton on Daniel, p. 148. Lond. 1753. Bishop Law's Considerations, &c. p. 229. 3d. ed. Benson's Life of Christ, p. 379. Jortin on the Christian Religion, 3d. ed. 229, &c. Bishop Newton's Works, 4to. iii. 281. I freely acknowledge, says Whiston, that Sir Isaac Newton's observation, how Christ in his parabolical discourses was wont to allude to things present, is, though not an entirely new, yet a very true, and, as here more fully than any where else, insisted on, a very curious observation and I farther take the liberty to mention this rule, as that by which Sir Isaac Newton himself was pleased to examine the several sections of my Harmony of the Four Evangelists.

Six Dissertations, p. 312, 313.

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The temple was the scene of the transaction, when Jesus thus answered the Jews who asked of him a sign: "Destroy this temple," [pointing to his body in which "dwelt all the fulness of the godhead,"]" and in three days I will raise it up."

* Within the precincts of the same building, in erecting which stones of great magnitude and beauty had been used, our Lord said to the Chief Priests and Elders, "The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner. Whosoever shall fall on that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."

To Nicodemus, who came to him by night, our Lord observed that "Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

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At Jacob's well in Samaria, Jesus, having asked drink of a Samaritan woman, went on to represent his doctrine under the image of living, that is, flowing, or perpetually springing water and added, "Whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

b John ii. 19. So Ter. Andr. ii. i. 12. Tu, si hic sis, aliter sentias. And. Hor. Sat. i. ix. 45. Haberes Magnum adjutorem, et posset qui ferre secundas, Hunc hominem velles si tradere. ii. 9.

& Col.

* In this and the next section the asterisk is prefixed to the author's own illustrations of the general remark. e Luke xx. 17, 18. f John iii. 19. Randolph's View of our blessed Saviour's Ministry, * John iv. 10, 14.

p. 67.

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