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SERMON III.

LUKE X. 36, 37.

Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell amongst

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fhewed mercy on him. Then faid Jefus Go, and do thou likewife.

unto him

N the foregoing verfes of this chap

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ter, the Evangelift relates, that a certain lawyer ftood up and tempted JEsus, faying, mafter, what fhall I do to inherit eternal life? To which en

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quiry, our SAVIOUR, as his manner was, when any enfnaring queftion was put to

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him,

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him, which he faw proceeded more from a defign to entangle him, than an honeft view of getting information instead of giving a direct answer which might. afford a handle to malice, or at best serve only to gratify an impertinent humourhe immediately retorts the queftion upon the man who afked it, and unavoidably puts him upon the neceffity of anfwering himself; and as in the, prefent cafe, the particular profeffion of the enquirer, and his fuppofed general knowledge of all other branches of learning,. left no room to suspect, he could be ignorant of the true answer to his queftion, and especially of what every one knew was delivered upon, that head by their great Legiflator, our SAVIOUR therefore refers him to his own memory of what he had found there in the course of his ftudies What is written in the law,

law, how readeft thou? - upon which the enquirer reciting the general heads of our duty to GOD and MAN as delivered in the 18th of Leviticus and the 6th of Deuteronomy, namely -That we should worship the Lord our God with all our hearts, and love our neighbour as ourselves; our bleffed SAVIOUR tells him, he had answered right, and if he followed that leffon, he could not fail of the bleffing he seemed defirous to inherit.This do and thou shalt live.

But he, as the context tell us, willing to justify himself willing poffibly to gain more credit in the conference, or hoping perhaps to hear fuch a partial and narrow definition of the word neighbour as would, fuit his own principles, and juftify fome particular opprefE 2 fions

fions of his own, or those of which his whole order lay under an accufation fays unto Jesus in the 29th verse, And who is my neighbour? though the demand at first fight may feem utterly trifling, yet was it far from being fo in fact. For according as you understood the term in a more or a lefs restrained sense -it produced many neceffary variations in the duties you owed from that relation. Our bleffed SAVIOUR, to rectify any partial and pernicious mistake in this matter, and place at once this duty of the love of our neighbour upon its true bottom of philanthropy and univerfal kindness, makes anfwer to the propofed queftion, not by any far fetch'd refinement from the fchools of the Rabbis, which might have fooner filenced than convinced the man but by a direct appeal

appeal to human nature in an instance he relates of a man falling amongst thieves, left in the greateft diftrefs imaginable, till by chance a Samaritan, an utter ftranger, coming where he was, by an act of great goodnefs and compaffion, not only relieved him at prefent, but took him under his protection, and generously provided for his future fafety.

On the clofe of which engaging account our SAVIOUR appeals to the man's own heart in the first verse of the text-Which now of these three thinkeft thou was neighbour unto him that fell amongst the thieves? and instead of drawing the inference himself, leaves him to decide in favour of fo noble a principle fo evidently founded in mercy. The lawyer, ftruck with the truth and juftice of the doctrine, and frankly acknowledgE 3

ing

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