plaint. What, therefore, accords with the state of things under the ordinary dispensations of Providence as to temporal prosperity and adversity, was, by a special providence, and by a particular sentence, ordained to be the mode, and probably a most efficacious mode, of restraining and correcting an offence, from which it was of the utmost importance to deter the Jewish nation.

My third proposition is, that this commandment related particularly to the Jewish economy. In the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, you find Moses, with prodigious solemnity, pronouncing the blessings and cursings which awaited the children of Israel under the dispensation to which they were called; and you will observe, that these blessings consisted altogether of worldly benefits, and these curses of worldly punishments. Moses in effect declared, that, with respect to this peculiar people, when they came into their own land, there should be amongst them such a signal and extraordinary and visible interposition of Providence, as to shower down blessings, and happiness, and prosperity upon those who adhered faithfully to the God of their fathers, and to punish, with exemplary misfortunes, those who disobeyed and deserted him. Such, Moses told them, would be the order of God's government over them. This dispensation dealt in temporal rewards and punishments. And the second commandment, which made the temporal prosperity and adversity of families depend, in many instances, upon the religious behaviour of the ancestor of such families, was a branch and constituent part of that dispensation. But, lastly and principally, my fourth proposition is, that at no rate does it affect, or was ever meant to Y 2

affect, the acceptance or salvation of individuals in a future life. My proof of this proposition I draw from the 18th chapter of Ezekiel. It should seem from this chapter, that some of the Jews, at that time, had put too large an interpretation upon the second commandment; for the prophet puts this question into the mouth of his countrymen; he supposes them to be thus, as it were, expostulating with God: "Ye say, Why? Doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father?" that is the question he makes them ask. Now take notice of the answer: the answer which the prophet delivers in the name of God, is this: "When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes and hath done them, he shall surely live. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father; neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him :" verses 19, 20.

In the preceding part of the chapter, the prophet has dilated a good deal, and very expressly indeed, upon the same subject; all to confirm the great truth which he lays down. "Behold all souls are mine, as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Now apply this to the second commandment; and the only way of reconciling them together is by supposing that the second commandment related solely to temporal or rather family adversity and prosperity, and Ezekiel's chapter to the rewards and punishments of a future When to this is added what hath been observed, that the threat in the second commandment belongs to

state.

the crime forbidden in that commandment, namely the going over to false gods, and deserting the one true God; and that it also formed a part or branch of the Mosaic system, which dealt throughout in temporal rewards and punishments, at that time dispensed by a particular providence-when these considerations are laid together, much of the difficulty, and much of the objection, which our own minds may have raised against this commandment, will, I hope, be removed.

XXII.

THE PARABLE OF THE SAMARITAN.

LUKE X. 36, 37.

Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

THE parable of the good Samaritan was calculated to ascertain who are the proper objects of our love and kindness for in the conversation which precedes, it seems to have been agreed between our Lord and the person with whom he conversed (who is called by Saint Luke a lawyer, but which name amongst the Jews rather signified a divine), that the great rules of the law were, to "love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbour as thyself." But then a doubt is suddenly started, "who was that neighbour?" who was to be accounted a neighbour within the sense and construction of the precept? To this doubt our Saviour applies this excellent parable. And the whole frame and texture of the parable is contrived to set forth this lesson,-that the persons best entitled to our help and kindness are those who stand in the most urgent need of it: that we are to help those who are most helpless; that our healing, friendly hand is to be held out to all who are cast in our way in circumstances of misery and distress, let their relation to us in other respects be ever so remote, or even ever so adverse; and be the case which

hath brought them under our observation, and within the reach of our assistance, what it will. This is the lesson to be gathered from this beautiful and affecting piece of Scripture; and almost every circumstance introduced into it has a reference and application to that moral. It forms the very point of the narrative. The wounded traveller was a stranger to the man who relieved him. He was more; he was a national enemy. And the very force of the parable turns upon this circumstance. Do you think it was without design that our blessed Saviour made choice of a Samaritan and a Jew as the persons of his story? It was far otherwise : it was with a settled intention of inculcating this benevolent truth-that no difference, no opposition of political, national, or even religious sentiments, ought to check the offices of humanity, where situations of calamity and misfortune called for them; and no two characters in the world could more perfectly answer our Lord's purpose than those of a Samaritan and a Jew; for every one who knows any thing of the history of those times and those countries, or even who has read the New Testament with care, knows this: that the most bitter and rancorous hostility subsisted between these two descriptions of men; and that it was an hostility founded, not only in a difference of nation, but also in a difference of religion. What is, perhaps, still more apt to inflame dislike and enmity, is a difference of doctrines and opinions upon the same religion. On the part of the Samaritans, you meet with an instance of enmity and dislike, in refusing at one of their villages the common rites of hospitality to our Lord and his followers, because he was going up, it seems, to join in the public worship of the festival to be celebrated at Jerusalem, whereas they thought "Mount Gerizim