have given any check to the course of public justice.

We see then from the whole narrative, and from this comment upon it, That here is no encouragement given to any man to think more slightly of the sin of adultery, than other pas sages of the Gospel, and the reason of the thing, authorize him to do. The sin is unquestionably of the deepest dye; is one of the most flagrant that men can commit in society; and is equally and uniformly condemned by nature itself and by the Christian morals. If, besides condemning, that is, expressing his abhorrence of the sin, as Jesus did, he further made an adulterous multitude sensible of their iniquity and savage inhumanity in calling for the sudden and tumultuary punishment of one, who had deserved no worse than themselves, this benefit was accessary and incidental to the circumstances of the story; and, while it gives one occasion to admire the address and lenity of our divine master, takes nothing from the enormity of the crime itself, or from the detestation which he had of it. In short, one cannot well conceive how Jesus could have done more in the case, or have expressed his displeasure at the crime more plainly, unless he had become

a voluntary and officious informer against the criminal; which, considering the occasion and his own character, no man, I suppose, would think reasonable.

To conclude: if men would call to mind the purity and transcendant holiness of Christ's character, as evidenced in the general tenour of his history, and considered withall, that never man spake as he spake, they could not suspect him of giving any quarter to vice; and might be sure, that, if what he said on any occasion, had the least appearance of looking that way, the presumption must be without grounds, and could only arise from their not weighing and considering his words, so replete with all wisdom, as well as goodness, with a proper attention. The case before us, we have seen, is a memorable instance of this kind: and let all readers of the Gospel be taught by it, that to understand the Scriptures, and to cavil at them, are different things. Let them be warned by this example, not to impute their own follies to the sacred text, which they must first misinterpret, before they can abuse: And, above all, let them take heed how they turn the Grace of God into licentiousness; that is, how they seek to justify to themselves, or even palliate, their own cor

ruptions, by their loose and negligent, if not perverse, glosses on the word of God; on that WORD, by which they must stand or fall; and which, like the divine Author of it, will surely in the end be justified in all its sayings, and he clear when it is judged,

c Rom. iii. 4.

1

SERMON XXIII.

PREACHED MARCH 1, 1772.

St. MATTHEW, xi. 29.

Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: And ye shall find rest unto your souls.

THE moral quality recommended in the

text, was little known and less esteemed in the heathen world. Not that humility, in the Christian sense of the word, hath no foundation in natural reason: but heathen practice gave

a The words ramus, and humilis, are observed to be generally, if not always, used in a bad sense by the Greek and Latin writers.

no countenance to this Virtue, and the pride of heathen philosophy would make no acquaintance with her.

She was left then to be acknowledged, for the first time, by Jesus of Nazareth, who knew the worth of this modest stranger; and therefore, as we see, recommends her to the notice and familiarity of his disciples in the most emphatic terms.

One would wonder how a virtue, so advantageously introduced into the Christian world, should be so much neglected by those who call themselves of it. But the reason is not difficult to be explained.

I. It was seen fit, for the ends of human virtue, that, in moulding the constitution of our common nature, a considerable degree of what may be called a generous pride, should be infused into it. Man, considered in one view, touches on the brutal creation; in another, he claims an affinity with God himself. To sustain this nobler part of his composition, the subject and source of all his diviner qualities, the adorable wisdom of the Creator saw good to implant in him a conscious sense of worth and dignity; that so a just self-esteem