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temperance*." Not a reflection upon his moral character, not an imputation or fufpicion of any offence against purity and chastity, appears for five hundred years after his birth. This faultlessness is more peculiar than we are apt to imagine. Some stain pollutes the morals or the morality of almost every other teacher, and of every other lawgiver †. Zeno the stoic, and Diogenes the cynic, fell into the foulest impurities; - of which also Socrates himself was more than suspected. Solon forbad unnatural crimes to flaves. Lycurgus tolerated theft as a part of education. Plato recommended a community of women. Ariftotle maintained the general right of making war upon Barbarians. The elder Cato was remarkable for the ill usage of his flaves. The younger gave up the perfon of his wife. One loofe principle is found in almost all the Pagan moralists; is distinctly, however, perceived in the writings of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero,

* Or. Ep. Celf. 1. 3. num. 36. ed. Bened.

+ See many instances collected by Grotius de Ver. in the notes to his fecond book, p. 116. Pocock's edition. Seneca,

Seneca, Epictetus, and that is, the allowing, and even the recommending to their difciples, a compliance with the religion, and with the religious rites, of every country into which they came. In speaking of the founders of new institutions, we cannot forget Mahomet. His licentious tranfgreffions of his own licentious rules; his abuse of the character which he assumed, and of the power which he had acquired, for the purposes of personal and privileged indulgence; his avowed claim of a special permission from heaven of unlimited sensuality, is known to every reader, as it is confefsed by every writer, of the Moflem story.

Secondly, in the histories which are left us of Jesus Christ, although very short, and although dealing in narrative, and not in observation or panegyric, we perceive, beside the absence of every appearance of vice, traces of devotion, humility, benignity, mildness, patience, prudence. I speak of traces of these qualities, because the qualities themselves are to be collected from incidents; inafmuch

inasmuch as the terms are never used of Christ in the gospels, nor is any formal character of him drawn in any part of the New Testament.

Thus we fee the devoutness of his mind, in his frequent retirement to folitary prayer*; in his habitual giving of thanks †; in his reference of the beauties and operations of nature to the bounty of providence ; in his earnest addresses to his Father, more particularly that short but folemn one before the raising of Lazarus from the dead §; and in the deep piety of his behaviour in the garden, on the last evening of his life ||: his humility, in his constant reproof of contentions for fuperiority: the benignity and affectionateness of his temper, in his kindness to children**, in the tears which he shed over his falling country*, and upon the death of his friend; in his noticing of the widow's mite ; in his parables of the good Samaritan, of the ungrateful fervant, and of the pharifee and publican, of which parables no one but a man of humanity could have been the author: the mildness and lenity of his character is discovered, in his rebuke of the forward zeal of his disciples at the Samaritan village§; in his expoftulation with Pilate ||; in his prayer for his enemies at the moment of his fuffering, which, though it has been fince very properly and frequently imitated, was then, I apprehend, new. His prudence is discerned, where prudence is most wanted, in his conduct upon trying occafions, and in answers to artful questions. Of these the following are examples:-His withdrawing, in various instances, from the first symptoms of tumult**, and with the express care, as appears from

* Mat. xiv. 23.

ix. 28. xxvi. 36.

† Mat. xi. 25.

Mark viii. 6. John vi. 23. Luke

xxii. 17.

† Mat. vi. 26. 28,

§ John xi. 41.

|| Mat. xxvi. 36-47.

Mark ix. 33.

** Mark x. 16.

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St. Matthew*, of carrying on his ministry in quietness; his declining of every species of interference with the civil affairs of the country, which disposition is manifested by his behaviour in the case of the woman caught in adultery †, and in his repulse of the application which was made to him, to interpofe his decision about a disputed inheritance: his judicious, yet, as it should seem, unprepared answers, will be confessed in the cafe of the Roman tribute §; in the difficulty concerning the interfering relations of a future ftate, as proposed to him in the instance of a woman who had married seven brethren ||; and, more especially, in his reply to those who demanded from him an explanation of the authority by which he acted, which reply consisted, in propounding a question to them, fituated between the very difficulties, into which they were insidiously endeavouring to draw him.

Our Saviour's lessons, beside what has al

* Mat. xii. 19.

§ Mat. xxii. 19.

† John viii. 1.
Ib. 28.

† Luke xii. 14.

xxi. 23 et seq.

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