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"I will move them to jealousy with those which are NOT a PEOPLE : I will provoke them to anger with A FOOLISH NATION" (Deut. xxxii. 21). It may also be worth remarking, to shew the probability of such a construction; how St. Paul, who quotes this instance with another like it (Rom. x. 19, 20), has also been one to imitate the same -telling the Jews in presence of the gentiles, "It was necessary that the Word of God should + first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo we turn to the gentiles" (Acts xiii. 46): because he was very anxious for their salvation by all means; as he says, " If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them" (Rom. xi. 14). Or supposing it to have been really the Saviour's meaning to be partial, as he signified to some of his disciples-for example, "UNTO YOU IT IS GIVEN, TO KNOW THE MYSTERY of the KingdoM OF GOD: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables; that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand: lest at any time they should be converted and their sins should be forgiven them" (Mark iv. 11, 12)— that it was indeed his determination, to confine the enjoyment of the Mystery to those few who have received or shall truly receive it by a pure act of grace,-who can have any right to quarrel with him for not coming down to the terms of others, or for exercising the undoubted privilege of every sovereign upon earth-not one of whom but would be apt to say with HIS SOVEREIGN, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy" (Exod. xxxiii. 19), and could never be taxed with partiality in leaving any to their fate, if he had such decided criminals and so malignant to deal with as

The Samaritans, an heathen mixture with refugees of all the tribes, were not then a people-or at the best, but a foolish sort of a nation-like the Roman in its infancy.

For so it was ordained by the Lord (Matt. x. 5, 6).

He has. "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" (Matt. xx. 15). Your lives are all forfeited to the law of which I am the Giver and Dispenser: and IF I WILL THAT ANY LIVE, I DO NO WRONG TO THOSE WHO WILL RATHER DIE. But, speaking of his parables

-4, It may be objected on the Subject's use of the parabolic style, that it was not only calculated for concealment, as above signified, but also to mislead sometimes; as for example with regard to that of the Unjust Steward (Luke xvi.),-being a parable that would seem to COUNTENANCE FRAUD as bad as any that ever Jacob practised on his own brother (Gen. xxvii.) or his father (Ibid.), or his father-in-law (Ib. xxx. 37, 38); or his father-in-law upon him (Ib. xxix. 25). But the story must appear in a different light, when we recollect the licence that is due to this sort of speech. For in parables--or in fables, being the same; words and actions are not to be literally understood, if they were we might have to ponder the objections of many a poor brute, as well as of a poor rational creature, and then indeed answers might be scarce. The way to understand a parable is spiritually or for effect, as intimated by the Subject himself (John vi. 63), and by his apostle likewise (Cor. II. iii. 6): and understanding the parable of the Unjust Steward in this manner, we shall find the sort of fraud, if any, then inculcated, to be one that no wise man would scruple about; which is, by acts of honest and kind beneficence to procure for ourselves through the merits of Christ such an interest in Heaven as may well compensate any fraud upon our old man of the earth that may not bankrupt him, or in plain terms,any acts of self denial that might not be too hard for human nature.

-5, In the same manner too, he might be taxed with tolerating, and even admitting in conversation many popular errors and superstitions that prevailed in his time (Luke xi. 19.—Matt. xxvi. 53), accommodating his doctrine thereto in some respects and so far setting an ex

ample of pious fraud to posterity which they have not been slow in imitating. It may be thought that such a manner is not good policy, that a system so compacted could not be "like an house founded on a rock” (Luke vi. 48),—he ought rather to have exposed, than to put up with or even to tolerate any idle superstitious notions coming from Babylon or elsewhere (Mark vii. 8); with any unphilosophical modes of conception, like the sun's rising and setting, or any sort of vulgar errors in short. And why not reform the Jewish calendar too, which was then inferior to the Greek, and give his countrymen a truer cycle for determining the times of the new moons and full-for the sake of their solemn festivals? But,

-6, Another objection may seem more to the purpose, and which the Jews, or at least "the straitest sect of their religion," the Pharisees, would be as likely to lay hold of as the Greeks, and did; being what they might consider an excessive or too indiscriminating affability of manner: one instance of which, or of a shocking indecency, as such objectors may consider it, was his suffering an immodest woman, openly, and in the house of a respectable Pharisee, before all the publicans and sinners-to anoint his feet with sweet ointment, to kiss them an hundred times, to bathe them with her tears, and wipe them with her dishevelled hair (Luke vii. 37, &c.),-to say not a word of his receiving, and also eating and associating with those same publicans and sinners; which alone were bad enough, without suffering them to be eye witnesses of this, to the Pharisee's mind, serious pollution for a prophet, if he could be a prophet, and not know what manner of woman it was that touched him. But Simon did not know-it never entered his Pharisaic imagination to conceive, how very slight the partition is between female frailty and perfection. On the other hand: it was affection that Messiah sought, as the Canaan of his inheritance: and here he found it. "Wherefore I say unto thee, (a cold blooded Pharisee) her sins, WHICH ARE MANY, are forgiven, for she

loved much" (Ib. 47); a sure sign of forgiveness. And, as for the Subject's consorting with male sinners of the description just alluded to, that could not have been any wrong policy or imprudence in him, as a physician who was proof against the effect of contagion; though it might have been rather daring in an ordinary practitioner. For if, as he said," they that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick" (Ib. v. 31), true it is also, that some physicians are more liable to infection than others.

In instances and observations like these we find more humane kindness and manly indifference to vulgar prejudices than is often met with among men; more indeed than could be safely indulged sometimes by an inferior authority to this, or by any one who had not learned of him, to combine the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove.

---7, Indeed some may also object to the Subject's employment of such human policy, or worldly wisdom for himself as beneath his other endowments: but they might as well object to his use of the commonest parts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and expect him to confine whatever he had to say within the plain limits of inspiration. As he never pretended to employ a supernatural influence over the minds of his hearers until he had "gone up on high, led captivity captive, and received gifts for men; yea, even for his enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among them" (Ps. lxviii. 18); he required a good share of policy for the commencement, having no other means to collect an assembly for his future presence, and for the gifts aforesaid by the Holy Ghost. The object of his policy, and we may say, the business of his life upon earth appears to have consisted in the calling and formation of subjects for eternal happiness in the uninterrupted enjoyment of the communion of that Holy Spirit: and namely by two parts, which may be called institutive and corroborative; that occupied in teaching and exemplifying those happy modes of thinking and doing which take their name from him;

this in miracles of wisdom and might, to prove that such modes were divinely ordained. Passing over temporary errors, and errors that could not be of any serious consequence if they did not correct themselves, and bearing as well as he could with hateful as well as compassionable company, he went on steadily, calling sinners to repentance (Matt. ix. 13.), and proclaiming every where his eternal truths (John xviii. 37), as by holding light the remnant of his own mortal existence, he had the pleasure of restoring many who were degraded and dead in sin to honour and immortality.

2, But speaking of miracles reminds us of the other point of objection regarding the Subject before alluded to, which was his divine nature and mission. For 1, in these, and 2, in the kindred species of prophecy or prediction, we have something more than an evidence of good behaviour, or of mere human wisdom. To perform a work above art, or to predict an event beyond calculation-there must be a divine power or wisdom somewhere, that is, either in the subject of such performance or prediction, or in one who employs him, or in both-the employer and employed being one and as this last appears to be here the real predicament, it is natural that they who object either to the divinity of the Subject, to his divine mission, or to both of these, should proceed by objections on either of the forementioned evidences; which objections it will therefore be worth while to consider or anticipate, as for example

-1, Taking the history or record of the Subject's miracles to be substantially correct, as the objectors must before they proceed to criticize and condemn their particulars or any of them, the class now considered, not being Jews, may do it on different grounds from what these would be apt to allege. For that outward miracles have been wrought in the church at different periods, and at two especially, consisting in two remarkable escapes--the first with Moses from Egyptian bondage, the next with Christ from the bondage of sin and death,-is proved not only