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circumstances and particular images on the most awful and interesting subjects.

We find him filling, and, as it were, overpowering our minds with the grandest ideas of his own nature; representing himself as appointed by his Father to be our instructor, our redeemer, our judge, and our king; and shewing that he lived and died for the most benevolent and important purposes conceivable.

He does not labour to support the greatest and most magnificent of all characters; but it is perfectly easy and natural to him. He makes no display of the high and heavenly truths which he utters; but speaks of them with a graceful and wonderful simplicity and majesty. Supernatural truths are as familiar to his mind, as the common affairs of life to other men.

He takes human nature as it came from the hands of its Creator; and does not, like the stoics, attempt to fashion it anew, except as far as man had corrupted it. He revives the moral law, carries it to perfection, and enforces it by peculiar and animating motives: but he enjoins nothing new besides praying in his name, and observing two simple and significant posi tive laws which serve to promote the practice of the moral law. All his precepts, when rightly explained, are reasonable in themselves and useful in their tendency and their compass is very great, considering that he was an occasional teacher, and not a systematical one.

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If from the matter of his instructions we pass on to the manner in which they were delivered, we find

our Lord usually speaking as an authoritative teacher; though sometimes justly limiting his precepts, and sometimes assigning the reasons of them. He presupposes the law of reason, and addresses men as rational creatures. From the greatness of his mind, and the greatness of his subjects, he is often sublime; and the beauties interspersed throughout his discourses are equally natural and striking. He is remarkable for an easy and graceful manner of introducing the best lessons from incidental objects and occasions. The human heart is naked and open to him; and he addresses the thoughts of men, as others do the emotions of their countenance or their bodily actions. Difficult situations, and sudden questions of the most artful and ensnaring kind, serve only to display his superior wisdom, and to confound and astonish all his adversaries. Instead of shewing his boundless knowledge on every occasion, he checks and restrains it, and prefers utility to the glare of ostentation. He teaches directly and obliquely, plainly and covertly, as wisdom points out occasions. He knows the inmost character, every prejudice and every feeling, of his hearers; and accordingly uses parables to conceal or to enforce his lessons: and he powerfully impresses them by the significant language of actions. He gives proofs of his mission from above, by his knowledge of the heart, by a chain of prophecies, and by a variety of mighty works.

He sets an example of the most perfect piety to God, and of the most extensive benevolence and the most tender compassion to men. He does not

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merely exhibit a life of strict justice, but of overflowing benignity. His temperance has not the dark shades of austerity; his meekness does not degenerate into apathy. His humility is signal, amidst a splendour of qualities more than human. His fortitude is eminent and exemplary, in enduring the most formidable external evils and the sharpest actual sufferings: his patience is invincible; his resignation entire and absolute. Truth and sincerity shine throughout his whole conduct. Though of heavenly descent, he shews obedience and affection to his earthly parents. He approves, loves, and attaches himself to amiable qualities in the human race. He respects authority religious and civil; and he evidences his regard for his country by promoting its most essential good in a painful ministry dedicated to its service, by deploring its calamities, and by laying down his life for its benefit. Every one of his eminent virtues is regulated by consummate prudence; and he both wins the love of his friends, and extorts the approbation and wonder of his enemies.

Never was a character at the same time so commanding and natural, so resplendent and pleasing, so amiable and venerable. There is peculiar contrast in it between an awful greatness, dignity and majesty, and the most conciliating loveliness, tenderness and softness. He now converses with prophets, lawgivers and angels; and the next instant he meekly endures the dulness of his disciples, and the blasphemies and rage of the multitude. He now calls himself greater than Solomon, one who can command

legions of angels, the Giver of life to whomsoever he pleaseth, the Son of God who shall sit on his glorious throne to judge the world. At other times we find him embracing young children, not lifting up his voice in the streets, not breaking the bruised reed nor quenching the smoking flax; calling his disciples, not servants, but friends and brethren, and comforting them with an exuberant and parental affection. Let us pause an instant, and fill our minds with the idea of one who knew all things heavenly and earthly, searched and laid open the inmost recesses of the heart, rectified every prejudice and removed every mistake of a moral and religious kind, by a word exercised a sovereignty over all nature, penetrated the hidden events of futurity, gave promises of admission into a happy immortality, had the keys of life and death, claimed an union with the Father; and yet was pious, mild, gentle, humble, affable, social, benevolent, friendly, affectionate. Such a character is fairer than the morning star. Each separate virtue is made stronger by opposition and contrast ; and the union of so many virtues forms a brightness which fitly represents the glory of that God "who inhabiteth light inaccessible."

Such a character must have been a real one. There is something so extraordinary, so perfect, and so godlike in it, that it could not have been thus supported throughout by the utmost stretch of human art, much less by men confessedly d unlearned and obscure.

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• Κρατίση τῶν ἀρετῶν δοκεῖ εἶναι ἡ δικαιοσύνη· καὶ ἐθ ̓ ἔσπερος εθ ̓ ἐῶος ὅτω θαυμαςός. Arist. Eth. Nic. v. p. 1. 196. 8vo. Acts iv. 13.

1 Tim. vi. 16.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE TESTIMONY WHICH HAS BEEN BORNE TO OUR LORD'S CHARACTER BY ENEMIES.

THE last section fitly concludes the subject which I undertook to discuss. But there are some topics so nearly connected with my design in this work, that I cannot leave them untouched.

In the first place, it will be curious and useful to observe what concessions our Lord's adversaries have made in favour of the great and glorious character which I have attempted to delineate.

When the Chief Priests and Pharisees sent officers to apprehend Jesus, fear of offending their rulers did not deter them from acknowledging that "never mana spake like him.”

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When our Lord made an appeal to the perfect rectitude of his life, which no other man could have made at any time, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" The Jews had recourse to calumny instead of facts," Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a demon ?"

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When he argued against the Sadducees on the subject of the resurrection, some of the Scribes said, "d Master, thou hast spoken well." And when he answered a teacher of the law, who tried his wisdom by asking him which was the first and great precept of the law, the Scribe himself made this acknowl

a John vii. 46.

b c. viii. 46.

v. 48.

d Luke xx. 39.

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