and conquerors, who build up and cast down thrones, and give laws to the nations whom they subdue, may afford subject of encomium to the poet, and be embalmed in the ignorant applause of mankind. But mean and limited are all the projects of men like these, compared with that which was announced, under the most adverse circumstances, by the obscure and unassisted Founder of the Gospel! And when we recollect that the world which he came to enlighten and to save, was a world devoted to the most abject superstition, and, universally, and, it might be thought, irreclaimably, abandoned to sin, we stand astonished at the novelty, the magnitude, and the sublimity of the conception, and contemplate with yet higher emotion the Person whose spirit, in such a station, was magnanimous and spacious enough to entertain it.

And in the execution of this purpose, what condescension without meanness, what firmness without obstinacy, what zeal without enthusiasm, what majesty without pride, what piety without superstition, did he not display! These qualities, too, were exercised in a manner perfectly easy and natural, and as if they required no labour nor effort of mind to produce or to sustain them. The prophets fainted and sunk under the communications which they received from above. But Christ, in the prosecution of his more sublime purpose, was always equally dignified and composed. Nothing disturbed or agitated his heart. He was alike without emotion, save that of charity and love, whether he uttered the most august or the most affecting doctrines, whether he feasted at the marriage of Cana in Gallilee, or endured the contumelies of the hall of Pilate! Tried he was every way. But never was he subdued, never

disconcerted, or embarrassed; and he proceeded in his course with a calm and untroubled fortitude and wisdom, which easily surmounted every temptation and every difficulty to which he was exposed *.

There is another feature in his character as a public teacher, which demands and deserves our especial notice. The most distinguished of the ancient moralists and philosophers announced their doctrines with a supercilious pedantry which averted, or with a sceptical hesitation which embarrassed, their hearers. Each had his school and his dogmas, and all were zealous, in the pride of sophistry, not so much to instruct their disciples, as to confute their antagonists. But Christ, assuming the office, assumed also, from the beginning, the authority, of a divine teacher. All his precepts were delivered in the name of God. He presented himself to the world clothed with the sanction of heaven; and he spoke in a tone of superiority and command, which no moralist before him had the courage or the right to adopt. The instances in which he exercised this high authority, are striking and numerous-" Many "prophets and kings have desired to see those

things which ye see, and have not seen them, "and to hear those things which ye hear, and have "not heard them-Ye call me Master and Lord, "and ye well say, for so I am-The Son of man "shall come with the glory of the Father, and shall "then reward every man according to his works— "I give my sheep eternal life, and they shall never "perish, neither be plucked out of my hand-I and

* I borrow these observations from Porteus, and I am unwilling to deprive them of the sanction of his name. Sermons, vol. 2 sermon xiv.

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my Father are one-Ye have heard that it hath "been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 1 tooth. But I say unto you, that ye resist not "evil-Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou "shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. "But I say unto you, love your enemy, and do good to them that hate you-And Jesus seeing "their faith, saith unto the sick of the palsy, Son, "be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and

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all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon "the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations *."-In this manner spake the Legislator of Christians. Calling himself the instructor of mankind, and the Son of God, he was to support, in correspondent words, as well as actions, the transcendent dignity of his high character. What followed? Was his authority disclaimed? Was his assumption impeached?-No-He was heard gladly. His enemies acknowledged that "never man spake like this man." And it was said of him by the people, that "his word was with power, for "he taught them as one having authority, and not as the Scribes *.'

Yet, however authoritative was his command, his teaching was with the very simplicity of wisdom.. Nothing of the subtlety of the sophist, or the artifice of the orator, was to be found in his public or private lessons. For essays in which dogmas were to be discussed, and for theories which were to reduce moral precepts to a system, he substituted the direct,

Matt. xiii. 17; John xiii. 13; vi. 35; viii. 12; Matt. xxvi. 27; John x. 28; Matt. v. 44; xxviii. 18; ix. 2; xxv. 31. Matt. vii. 29.

unequivocal, and authoritative annunciation of practical truth. It would have been utterly inconsistent with the character he had assumed, and the circumstances in which he was placed, to occupy his hearers with profound disquisitions and scholastic inquiries. As a messenger from God, he was not to court debate for triumph, but to rest his precepts on their intrinsic excellence, and on his own authority; and to reject all those aids of human eloquence, and all those arts of learned refinement, to which other legislators have so frequently had recourse. He proceeded, accordingly, in perfect consistency with this principle. Rejecting all disputatious zeal, and oratorical display, he communicated his instructions in brief and emphatic rules, and in clear and forcible maxims; and his language, simple, explicit, and powerful, while it disclaimed the elegance and pomp affected by human orators, was consonant to the purpose and to the character of a minister of heaven.

His teaching was not to be adapted to a select school of Athenian or Roman auditors. It was to be incidental and extemporaneous, and to have a perpetual reference to times and circumstances. During the short period of his divine office, he was to visit many places, to address various multitudes, to be sometimes obstructed by clamour and insult, and to be frequently interrogated by the ignorance or the wilfulness of his auditory. It was his business, therefore, to accommodate his manner to circumstances as they rose, and to the peculiar temper of his hearers. By tedious, formal, or elaborate dissertation, he would have averted the ignorant, and engendered dissension and dispute among the learned. There was but one efficacious mode left for him to

choose, and he adopted it, that of impressing, whether by precept or parable, such concise lessons of duty, as, by their force and justice, might at once reach and edify the minds of men. Considered in this light, his sermon on the mount will appear peculiarly admirable. There, the precept is at once authoritative, and brief. Nothing is systematic, nothing sophistical, nothing elaborate, every thing clear, simple, explicit, cogent, and just. It is not an oration laboured and embellished to accomplish a momentary triumph. It is the unstudied word of Jesus Christ, on which is deeply and indelibly impressed the character of truth, of wisdom, and of holiness; and never did the most victorious eloquence so perfectly accomplish its design, as the unostentatious, and beautiful, and sublime simplicity of that discourse.

His precepts were not the dictates of a cold, austere, and scholastic wisdom. He frequently condescended to enforce them by analogous actions, and by appeals to casual incidents, and to the objects which surrounded him. He preached the purity and innocence of "little children," when " he took them in his arms and blessed them." At the feet of his disciples he taught humility by action. The barren fig-tree, as he passed it by, afforded him an instructive image of inutility of life. Among the sheep-folds, he presented himself to his disciples as the good shepherd who faithfully guided and protected his flock. Among the vines, he discoursed of the spiritual husbandman and vine-dresser, and drew a parallel between the natural vineyard and his Own. If the reaper were in the fields, he reminded his followers of the harvest of true believers, and exhorted them to labour diligently in gathering it in. If the tree were clothed in the blossoms of summer,