advantage of a man's incapacity to defend himself, and hurt him either in his body, his fortunes, or his reputation. To abuse an abfent perfon, to calumniate people in fecret, to attack another's reputation in the dark, and in disguise, to defame those who are dead; to hurt in any manner those who are unable to help and redress themselves, all this may be called, To curfe the deaf.

Again: amongst the Mofaic laws are thefe; Thou fhalt not kill a cow and her young both in one day. If thou findeft a bird with her eggs or young ones, thou shalt not take both the dam and the young.

Befides the actions which are here prohibited, every behaviour which fhews inhumanity and barbarity feems to be forbidden. The things here mentioned, flight as they may appear, are perhaps condemned because they carry an air of cruelty; and if cruelty, and the appearance of it, was to be avoided, even towards brutes, much more was compaffion and pity due to men. A Jewish commentator, hath fuppofed this to be the fpirit and import of thefe laws, and thus interprets them: As your Father in heaven is merciful, fo be ye merciful on earth; and deftroy not on the fame day a beaft and its young one.

Again, we read in the law, Thou shalt not let thy cattle. gender with a diverfe kind. Thou shalt not fow thy field with mingled feed: neither thall a garment of woollen and linen come upon thee. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an afs together.

Since the things which are here prohibited are not morally evil, there might be a further meaning in these laws, namely, that the Jews fhould abftain from all impurities, and that they should have no intercourfe, and contract no marriages with idolatrous neighbours.

I will not deny that thefe and other fuch fingular laws might also poffibly be enjoined in *oppofition to certain rites and ceremonies ufed by fuperftitious and idolatrous pagans. Nothing hinders but that a law may ferve to more purposes, and have more views than one or two.

I now proceed to the text ;-In this chapter curfes are pronounced against feveral heinous crimes,- and among thefe crimes is mentioned this, of caufing the blind to go out of their

*This is the notion of Spencer. But this learned and useful writer, having projected a general, and in the main, a rational method of interpretation, feems fometimes to carry his hypothefis too far, fuppofes gentile fuperftitions of which no traces can be found, introduceth the devil too often into his fyftem, and lays fome things to his charge which perhaps he never did.

way;

way; a wickedness of a fingular nature, and which one would not expect to find in this lift of vitious actions. It is a crime which is feldom committed; there is little temptation to it; it is doing mifchief for mifchief's fake, an enormity to which few can easily bring themfelves. Add to this, that in Leviticus this bafe action is mentioned along with that of curfing the deaf, which, as we obferved before, is a kind of proverb, and bears a figurative fenfe: Thou shalt not curfe the deaf, nor put a ftumbling block before the blind. We may therefore reafonably fuppofe, that in the words of the text,-more is intended than barely to condemn those who should lead a blind man out of his way. And what that may be, it is not difficult to difcover. Blindness, in all languages, is put for error and ignorance; and in the ftile of the fcriptures, ways and paths, and walking, running, &c. mean the actions and behaviour of men. These obvious obfervations will lead us to the moral, myftical, fpiritual, and enlarged fenfe of the law, or commination; and it is this, Curfed is he who impofeth on the fimple, the credulous, the unwary, the ignorant, and the helplefs; and either hurts or defrauds, or deceives, or feduces, or misinforms, or misleads, or perverts, or corrupts and fpoils them. This, I fay, is the fenfe which may be fairly put upon thefe words, befides their literal fenfe. It remains to thew by what actions we may be fuppofed to be guilty, more or lefs, of this fault." But for the farther particulars we must refer to the book.

We proceed to a quotation from the nineteenth fermon in the first volume; after feveral pertinent reflections on those words in John xxi. 21. in which our Lord replies to Peter's queftion concerning the apostle John, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.' Dr. Jortin obferves as follows:- Here St. John clofes his narrative of this manifestation of Chrift: he tells us not in what manner he departed from them, and what elfe he faid to them at that time. It is certain that Chrift, before and after his refurrection, faid many things and did many things which the evangelifts have paffed over in filence. Thus when Jefus, after he was rifen, converfed with two of his difciples in their way to Emmaus, beginning at Mofes and the prophets, he expounded to them in all the fcriptures the things belonging to himself; but his difcourfe, upon this important and most interesting fubject, is not recorded.

If an extract were made of his words and actions from the four gofpels, and every thing omitted that is twice related in them, it would be contained in a very small volume. Solkewife as to his difciples, we know but little of their miniftry, and of the things which befel them, where they preached, and how they died, except what is related by St. Luke in the Acts;

Bb4

and

and he confines himself principally to the ministry of St. Paul.

The fhort memoirs of thefe tranfactions fet many impoftors to work, in early times, to forge gofpels, and epiftles, and narratives of the hiftory of Chrift from his infancy to his death, and of the preaching and travels of the apoftles. But as the defigns of these men for the most part were bad, fo their abilities were no better, and their works never could obtain credit in the Chriftian world.

We fhould be very much pleased to have larger and fuller accounts of our Lord, and of his apoftles, and of the first establishment of christianity. A defire of knowledge, which exerts itself ftrongly in all ftudious perfons,-and a zeal for our religion, and for every thing that relates to it, plead our excufe for fuffering fuch a wifh to rife in our minds. But we must not indulge it too far, and lament our ignorance of these things, left we alfo fall under the juft rebuke which our Saviour, in the text, gave to his apoftle, What is that to thee? Follow thou me.

If we had lived in thofe times, we fhould, perhaps, have been defirous to put many queftions to our Lord and his apostles of the learned and religious kind, which feem to us doubtful and difficult. And fuppofing we had done this, it is more than probable that our Lord would not have answered them; for we find him conftantly refufing to refolye queftions of no immediate concern to the inquirers. And as to the apostles, it is probable that they could not have anfwered them; and that their knowledge went no farther than it was neceffary for the execution of their office and the work of their ministry. Sufficient it is for us, fufficient for all moral and religious purpofes, that the holy fcriptures, by the divine providence, are preferved and transmitted down to us, and that they contain all that is abfolutely needful for us, both as to faith and as to practice. For as St. John tells us, Many other figns truly did Jefus in the prefence of his difciples, which are not written in this book. But thefe are written, that ye might believe that Jefus is the Chrift, the Son of God, and that believing, ye inight have life through his name.

The practical inference which the fubject and the text fuggeft to us is, that every one should principally attend to his own proper business, to his own plain duty, and not concern himself about things which do not concern him.

Every one is capable of difcerning and feeling that he ought to live foberly, righteoufly, and pioufly, and prepare himself for the day in which God will judge mankind. It requires no ftrong parts, no lively imagination, no deep study to know this.

f Bus

But we would fain know more than this. Man is curious and inquifitive, and defirous of novelty: the eye is never fatisfied with feeing, fays Solomon, nor the ear with hearing, nor the mind with feeking and discovering. This defire, innocent enough in itself, and even commendable, yet must be directed by reafon, and confined to its proper bounds, elfe it infenfibly becomes a bad habit. Curiosity, ill-applied, is at least a waste of time, which might be fo much better employed. When it is exercifed in obferving the conduct, and enquiring into the character of others, it often grows pragmatical. impertinent, and enforious, full of fpite and malevolence towards them.

As there is a needlefs and impertinent curiofity relating to perfons, fo there is with refpect to doctrines of no importance to religion and morality. Whatsoever opinions concern the perfections and the government of God, and the worship due to him, and the focial virtues, and have an influence and a tendency either to mend or to fpoil the tempers of men, either to promote or to obftruct the practice of piety, these are objects of fober and ferious enquiry, that we may reject every pernicious principle, and hold faft every found doctrine. But as to mere fpeculations and fubtle refinements, which amufe the imagination without improving the heart, the fewer of them enter into our religious fyftem, fo much the better. Yet these have perpetually been matter of eager contention and uncha ritable animofity; and ecclefiaftical hiftory too fully confirms this melancholy obfervation. A fondness of overbearing others, and of forcing opinions upon them which yet can never be forced, a zeal for things not certain, or not useful, or even not intelligible, a falfe fhame of departing from falfe notions once obftinately maintained, together with pride, ambition, and felf-intereft lurking at the bottom; thefe have produced those fects and parties by which the chriftian world hath been divided, and the chriftian religion difhonoured.'

We fhall add a fhort quotation from a discourse on the parable of the fower, for the fake of a note which attends it: In this parable, fays Dr. Jortin, there is a beautiful gradation from the bad to the good, The feed which fell on the high way comes not up at all; the feed upon ftony ground comes up, but foon withereth away; the feed fown amongst thorns fprings up and grows, but bears no fruit; the feed fown in good ground brings forth fruit in its featon, but yet in various degrees, and much more plentifully in fome foils than in others.'

The note is as follows: An old commentator (TheophyJact) expounding this parable, fays, See how fmall a number there is of good men, and how few are faved; fince only a fourth part of the feed was preferved. His remark is not just;

but

but is foreign from the purpose, as may eafily be fhewed. In this parable of the fower, there are three claffes of bad men, and one of good; in the parable of the talents, there are two good fervants and one bad; and in the parable of the virgins, half are wife and half foolish. So, if we follow fuch methods of expounding, we muft conclude, from the first of these paTables, there are three times more bad than good men; from the fecond, that there are twice more good than bad; and from the third, that the good and the bad are equal in number. I mention this chiefly for the fake of obferving to you, that in the interpretation of parables, care fhould be taken not to overftrain them; but to diftinguish thofe parts which are merely ornamental, from thofe which are moral and inftructive.'

See Lam

In a fermon upon charity, we observe this note upon those words in the epiftle to the Corinthians, We fee through a glass darkly. The fenfe may be, we fee di rómle, per fpecular, vel fpeculare, through a glafs, or pellucid ftone, which alfo perhaps was not fo clear and transparent as our glass. bert Bofs, Exert. Phil. p. 147. We fee di ecolez, and we sce εν αινίγματι. Perhaps it fhould be εν ανεώγματι, or εν ανοίγε mali, through, or at a door, a wicket, or a chink. "Avay is ufed in the LXX. iii. Reg. xiv. 6. Others have made this conjecture alfo.'

This fermon is clofed in the following manner, I fhall at prefent only juft remind you of fome faults contrary to this virtue of charity. And they are covetousness and selfishness, which make us hard-hearted and infenfible to the distress of our neighbour; injuftice of all forts;-an infolent pride and difdain.-Thefe vices are not confiftent with the lowest degree of christian benevolence: and to thefe we may add two other faults, which are as oppofite to each other as they are to charity. The first is a cold indifference about religion and virtue. He, in whom this careless indolence prevails, hath no regard and affection for truth, no concern whether it profper or not, and whether men be good or bad. The other is a zeal for things not effential to religion, which exerts itself in an eager fierceness about doubtful and difputable points, in judging unmercifully of those, who being fober and religious people, have a different way of thinking from ourselves. Such a litigious chriftian, if he be right in his opinions, which is much to be doubted, is wrong in his way of defending them: he keeps a doctrine, and breaks a commandment.-True religion confifts more in doing than in prating, more in practice than in fpeculation. A man who hath got an orthodox faith, and never learned to lead an orthodox life, proclaims his own folly and madnefs. He lays a ftrong foundation, and then raises a rotten building on it. We cannot endure a ftate of doubt and fuf

penfe ;