the enlargement of the term, he desired an explanation. He was conscious, that he loved his own nation, and he hoped that this was sufficient to entitle him to the reward of obedience. Our Saviour puts a case in which a Jew, his countryman, to whom he was attached by every tie of country and religion, had fallen into the cruel hands of robbers, who, after having stripped and wounded him, left him for dead. By chance a certain Priest came down that way, and casts his eyes on the unhappy victim, weltering in his blood. But this minister of the God of mercy, had never learned the compassionate maxim of his own law, " I will have mercy rather than sacrifice." He therefore passes by on the one side, and steels his heart against every sentiment of compassion. A Levite too, another Minister of the sanctuary, travelling by the same road, came and looked upon him, but his heart had never been taught to feel for the woes of others, and he passed by on the other side, and left him to become the prey of death, which seemed to hover over him, ready to assert her claim. "But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was and when he saw him, he had compassion on him; and went to him, and bound up his wounds; pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee.' Which now of these three," said our Saviour to the Lawyer, "thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?" The Lawyer replied," he that had mercy on him.” "Then said Jesus unto him, 'Go, and do

thou likewise."" As if our Saviour had said, "You highly approve the offices of kindness which the Samaritan performed to the Jew in distress, and your law binds you to do to others what things soever, in similar circumstances, you think yourself entitled to from them. Every human being is, therefore, your neighbour, who has a claim upon you, as you have upon him, for the reciprocal communication of benefits and love. Your beneficence, therefore, which acknowledges none for its objects, but men of your own country and religion, is essentially defective; and till its principle become universal, it is not the obedience that your law requires." This divine comment, it is of infinite importance that every man should record in his own breast; for such is the corruption of our nature, that almost every party, political and religious, is too much disposed to contract within its own circle, that interchange of philanthropy, which ought expansively to flow among mankind; and thus to establish a rule of morality, narrow and partial, and in direct opposition to the diffusive and universal charity of the Gospel. But passing over this important document, there have been some Evangelical Divines, both Churchmen and Dissenters, who have attempted to squeeze out of this parable, all the peculiar doctrines of Christianity; and have forced it to teach all the truths connected with the Fall, and with the Redemption of man. The man who fell among the thieves, say they, was Adam. He being left half dead means that he and his posterity are dead in sin. The priest and the Levite are the moral and the ceremonial law, that refused to help us. The good Samaritan-But let us stop. The enemies of Evangelical

doctrine will tell the rest with pleasure. The bitterest invective with which the peculiar truths of Christianity

have ever been attacked, by its most inveterate foes, is harmless, compared with this dotage of intellect. There are, however, but few Evangelical Ministers capable of thus disgracing religion; and none have been more forward to expose the folly of it, than the friends of Evangelical piety. In the Christian Observer, there is a letter from the Rev. Peter O'Leary, a Roman Catholic priest, to the editor of that work, giving an account of a sermon preached by himself, upon this very parable, in the true spirit of allegorical romance; which mode of interpretation, he says he adopts, because it is highly favourable to the interests of his Church. The man who fell among the thieves, he says, is the Catholic Church. The thieves were Luther and Calvin, who stripped the Church of her rites, ceremonies, and doctrines. With respect to the Church being left half dead, his interpretation is almost the same with that of the Evangelical divines, formerly mentioned. The priest and the Levite represent two of the Monkish orders, who were unable to effect the recovery of the Church. The good Samaritan he very ingeniously proves to be no other than the Pope.-This excellent discourse of Priest O' Leary, in which he has, with great force, wrested the illustrations from the hands of the Evangelical preacher, and turned the materials to his own use, is a happy specimen of the benefits to be derived from the immeasurable latitude of fanciful interpretation. This specimen of Mr. O'Leary's powers for fanatical illustration, is said to have excited in a high degree the indignation of one Clergyman; but we cannot help thinking that it gave much satisfaction to all men of sober fancy, and correct understanding. Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? Some men will feel the force of ridicule, who cannot be

brought to feel the force of argument; and men may be laughed out of their follies, who cannot be reasoned out of them.

There is another species of folly, nearly related to the other, to which some Evangelical ministers, both out of the Church and in it, are said to have given indulgence. When they represent the love of the blessed Saviour to his Church, and the individuals of which it is composed; or the gratitude which this unbounded love kindles in the heart of a Christian, they call in the mystical dialogue of the Song of Solomon, and employ its metaphors and similies, many of which, to us at least, are either not very intelligible, or so exceedingly remote from those to which we are accustomed in the writings of the New Testament, that we have no commentary to explain them. In other words, they call in the darkest part of the Old Testament, to illustrate the glories and beauties of the Gospel; as if the sun needed a candle to light up, or to display his beams. We would fain ask such ministers of Christianity, Is there any thing wrapped up in the mystical allusions of the Song of Solomon, which the New Testament has not placed in a clearer light, and exhibited with a glory infinitely superior? If there is not, why then do you seek to throw under a cover what the Gospel has unveiled, and to envelope in darkness what it has brought to light? Why, instead of illustrating what is dark by what is clear, do you seek to hide what is lucid, by bringing a cloud over it, and when life and immortality, and a Saviour's dying love are set before us in the blaze of day, do you bring us back again to the shadows after the substance has chased them away. A predilection for the eastern allegorical style of composition, how well so ever that style was suited to the country and to the time in

It

which the Song of Solomon was written, is, in these times, a poor evidence of a man's possessing either a solid understanding, or a correct taste. How extremely different is the style of our Saviour, and of his Apostles, and Evangelists. We do not, for a moment, question either the Authenticity or the Inspiration of the Song of Solomon. It is unquestionably a part of the Canon of Scripture, which the Christian Church has received from the Jews, to whom were committed the lively Oracles of God. had its use, when the great doctrines of our Redemption were wrapped up in covers. To us it has its use, when we see in it a rude sketch of the glorious salvation the Gospel has unfolded. It is worthy of our particular observation, that neither our Saviour himself, nor any of his Apostles or Evangelists, in the New Testament, have either quoted it, or employed any of its peculiar images; and surely the similes which they use, and the language in which they spoke, are the consecrated vehicles of Evangelical instruction. We frequently find, that a rank imagination and a perplexed intellect, are the general qualifications of those who are fondest of this allegorical mode of preaching; and there have been various instances of their approaching even to indelicacy, by saying that which made every body blush for them, though they had not reflection enough to blush for themselves.

Another charge brought against the discourses of the Evangelical Clergy is, that the paucity of the topics they embrace, and the weight they lay upon them, generally confine their instructions to a few subjects, and prohibit that ample range into which a more extended and generous system would invite their excursions. That the great truths of the Gospel are reduced to a few first principles, is a position that cannot be denied; and, considering the