bandmen who were manuring the ground: and when he compared every person who observed his precepts to a man who built a house upon a rock, which stood firm, and every one who slighted his word, to a man who built a house upon the sand, which was thrown down by the winds and floods; when he used this comparison, 'tis not improbable that he had before his eyes, houses standing upon high ground, and houses standing in the valley, in a ruinous condition, which had been destroyed by inundations." JORTIN.

Going from Bethany to Jerusalem with his disciples, as they passed over a mountain, he said, If ye shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. Matt. xxi. 21. When he says, Luke xxii. 25, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors; he alludes to the vanity of some wicked princes of those times, who deserved the title of robbers much better than of benefactors. When the woman of Samaria, John iv. wondered that he should ask water of her, he took occasion to represent his doctrine under the image of living water, or water which flows from a spring. When he was by the sea shore, Matt. xiii. he spake three parables to the people concerning a sower, because it was then probably seed time, as others have observed. At the time of the passover, alluding to it, he says, John v. 24, He that heareth my word is passed from death unto life. When he speaks of the fig tree, which had

borne no fruit for three years, and was to be cut down, if it produced none the next year, he alluded perhaps to the time that he had spent in preaching to the Jews, as well as to their obstinacy, and to the punishment which would follow it.

Many more instances might be given, where Christ has formed his arguments and exhortations on such things as offered themselves to him; applying each most happily to his present purpose: and where this does not so immediately appear, we have reason to believe it is chiefly owing to the omission of some circumstances in the history. It may be farther observed, that Christ is no less easy and intelligible to his auditors, by alluding in a familiar way to all their customs, proverbs, maxims, &c.; speak. ing always precisely in the character of a Jew, and in exact conformity to what such understood at least, and had been most used to; what had been described or appointed in their sacred books. Thus he takes the very form of his first sermon on the mount, from those blessings and cursings on two mountains, the publishing of which was enjoined to the Israelites, upon their entrance into the Holy Land.* The same method he continues to the last, when on the cross he begins to repeat, or as it were gives out, the 22d psalm, which so very clearly describes the suffer

*Duet. xxvii. 28. Jos. viii. Matt. v. and Luke vi. 24. The manner of this solemnity has been described at large by some of their writers.

ings and death of the Messiah; which prophecy he was at that very time fulfilling, and thereby ascertaining and appropriating this character to himself.*

Hence, lastly, we may observe the necessity for a careful attention to the particular occasion, time and place, as well as the situation, posture, gesture, &c. in which our Saviour spake, in order fully to comprehend the propriety, the force and beauty of his discourses, which should remind us of the allowances that ought in justice to be made for the seeming uncouthness of some things in them at this day, and make us sensible of the value of those authors, who throw so much light on several passages of scripture, by endeavouring to supply them.†

*Matt. xxvii. 46. Mark xv. 34. That a whole psalm or song is sometimes referred to by reciting the first words of it, may be gathered from Exod. xv. 1, &c. compared with v. 21. To which may be added, that his very last words, Luke xxii. 46," Into thy hands I commend my spirit," are those of Ps. xxxi. 5.

+ I shall beg leave to add an instance of this kind, where our blessed Saviour's conduct does not seem to have been sufficiently understood for want of attending to the circumstances above mentioned. John viii. when the woman, said to be apprehended in adultery, is brought before our Lord, merely with the malicious view of drawing him into a difficulty, whatever determination he should give, v. 6, we find him stooping down and writing on the ground. Where it is observable that he does nothing but in as exact conformity as the place would admit to the trial of the adulterous wife prescribed by God in Numb. v. 11, &c. where the priest was to stoop down and

And thus did Christ make every object and event serve for a constant monitor and remembrancer of his instructions, which by these means must be the more easily apprehended and retained, than they could be in any artificial method whatsoever.

Again, it is observable, that he delivered many things by way of story, or parable: a most engaging and a most effectual method of instruction; gradually informing those who in reality were disposed for information, and not too violently disgusting those who were not. This way of teaching is of all others most apt to raise and keep up the attention, and set each faculty of the mind on work. It gains the easiest admission into both head and heart; it strikes the

take some of the dust from the floor of the tabernacle, v. 17; and likewise write out the curses denounced upon that occasion, v. 25. By that act, therefore, Christ declares himself willing to take cognizance of this affair, if they were willing to abide the consequence, viz. according to their own traditions, to be involved in the same curse if they proved equally guilty: on which account this way of trial was abolished by the Sanhedrim about that very time-since that sin, say the Jews, grew then so very common. It is likewise probable that Christ might by his countenance and gesture show these hypocrites how well he was aware both of their ill design in thus demanding judgment from him, and of their own obnoxiousness to the same punishment which Moses' law appointed for that crime, and which through a pretended zeal they took upon themselves the power of executing, though they were no less guilty of the very same sin, as is most probably implied in his words to

them.

deepest, sticks the longest, gives the most delight, by leaving something for the hearers themselves to discover; and disobliges least by putting them upon making their own application. On these accounts, it has been admired in all ages and nations of the world, and was particularly celebrated in the East. "It was the custom of the wise men among the ancients, to clothe their instructions in apt stories and suitable comparisons: this they did at once to please and to instruct; to excite men's attention by gratifying their curiosity, and to quicken their memory by entertaining their fancy. Our Saviour took this method to recommend his weighty instructions, and make them sink deeper into the minds of his auditors. The same method was likewise proper for another purpose, viz. to deliver some of the mysteries of the gospel with a degree of obscurity and reserve; which he did both to excite men's industry in searching further into the deep things of God, and withal to punish the sloth and negligence of those who grudge taking any pains to learn God's will and their own duty. This reason our Saviour himself assigns, why he speaks to the multitude in parables, Matthew xiii. 10, &c.-Among many other excellent uses to which Christ applied this method, in a manner the most delicate and masterly, it was peculiarly fitted to insinuate such points as more immediately opposed the inveterate prejudices or depraved inclinations of all those to whom he preached, and which, though