together born in sin, you know not the law, and are cursed;" but the language of Jesus Christ was, "Go tell John, the poor have the Gospel preached to them. Go tell that fox, Herod, I must walk to-day, and to-morrow, and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." Go, christians, tell the whole world that Jesus Christ preached the Gospel to the poor in a wicked city, when he knew it would cost him his life. For artlessness and simplicity, for a plainness that could not but be understood by people the most likely to misunderstand it, "never man spake like this man."

There is one circumstance mentioned by the prophets, and accomplished in the life of Christ, which does great honour to his ministry, and which is a full proof of the simplicity and plainness of his doctrine; that is, the part which the little folks in Jerusalem, the children of the poor inhabitants, took in the ministry of Jesus Christ. When Jesus made his public entry into Jerusalem riding on a colt, the foal of an ass, "the multitude, the blind, the lame," and even the "children," told the daughter of Zion, Behold thy mild and lowly King cometh; and the children sung part of a psalm in honour of the son of David, and blessed him that came in the name of the Lord. The citizens said, "Who is this?" The chief priests and scribes pretended not to know; but the multitude knew, and said, This is Jesus the prophet; and the children knew, and Jesus Christ declared that God had "perfected praise out of the mouths of babes and sucklings." "Have ye never read this ?" said he to the priests and scribes. We have many instances in the Gospel of the sound knowledge, which some of the lowest of the people had of the true character of Jesus Christ, and we have both a satisfactory account given of him, and a fine train of substantial reasoning to support that account, by a blind beggar before a council of Rabbies holding a court session. For using great plainness of speech 66 never man spake like this man."

By what unheard of method did Jesus Christ teach poor children and blind beggars to understand the holy Scriptures? By what means did he convey this kind of knowledge to whole multitudes? By what art did he

carry such full conviction into the minds of his hearers as to force them publicly to express their approbation on the spot, and even women, contrary to their usual bashfulness, to exclaim, "Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked?" By what method did he take twelve "unlearned and ignorant men," and enable them so to teach, that the heathens took them for the chief of their gods, and would have sacrificed oxen adorned with garlands unto them, and that the wisest of the Rabbies were "not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which they spoke? It was by his skill in bringing down the great truths of religion to the size of the understandings of his hearers, and by doing this without sinking the dignity and importance of the truths, and without racking and torturing the minds of his disciples. Two things are necessary to this plainness of speech; the one, that the subjects themselves be stated simply without being mixed with other subjects, without being rendered abstruse by needless arguments and ornaments; and thus Jesus Christ proposed his doctrine: and the other, that the persons to whom the doctrine is addressed be taught to make use of their own understandings; for it is with the mind as it is with the body, a man does not know what he can do, till he tries. Both these are included in these words of the wise man, "All the words of my mouth are in righteousness," or right, "there is nothing froward or perverse in them; they are all plain to him that understandeth," that is, to him who dare make use of his own understanding. When the officers listened to Christ, and judged for themselves, they thought "Never man spake like him ;" but when they returned, and began to inquire whether any of the rulers believed on him, the subject became perplexed, and this unparalleled teacher seemed a cheat. All the words of the law were written very plainly; the prophecies were "written plain upon tables, that he might run that read them;" the apostles "used great plainness of speech;" but for this excellence Jesus Christ exceeded them all, and " never man spake so plainly as this man."

Another excellence of our heavenly teacher is the

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affecting manner, in which he proposes all his instructions to us. He was himself a person of the finest feelings. He had fears and hopes, joys and sorrows, anger and love, and all the passions of a perfect man. thoroughly knew by his own experience what was in man, and was "touched with a feeling of our infirmities." His doctrine therefore was taught with emotions of pleasure and pain in himself; sometimes he rejoiced with his disciples, and sometimes he wept; and it was accompanied with emotions of pleasure and pain in his hearers. The subjects of religion are chiefly invisible. Who ever saw, or can see God? Who can see the soul of man, or heaven or hell? What living man can see sin in all its effects in regard to God, himself, and other créatures? Who hath seen the resurrection of the dead, the day of judgment, the spirits of the just, and "the devil and his angels?" "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? Shall it be told God that we speak of these subjects? If a man speak, surely he shall be swallowed up." Yes, my brethren, these subjects would have swallowed up the capacities of all mankind, and there is but one way of making men so understand them as to be properly affected with them; so as to have fear enough to make them humble, but not enough to drive them mad; so as to have love enough to make them holy, but not enough to make them neglect their families, and their employments in life; this way is to use similitudes, and to liken the objects which we cannot see, to other objects which we do see, and with which we are well acquainted. The prophets used this method much, and therefore were understood; the apostle Paul used it least, and therefore in all his epistles are some things hard to be understood; but the instructions given us by Jesus Christ are chiefly similitudes, and for properly moving the heart, "never man spake like this man."

For example, what a picture of four of these articles doth Jesus Christ give us in the parable of the Prodigal Son! The principal figure is Almighty God, the God of the "whirlwind and the storm, whose way is in the sea,

whose path is in the great waters, and whose footsteps are not known; whose voice thunders in the heaven, and whose lightnings make the earth tremble and shake; whose fury is poured out like the fire, which throws down rocks, yea, burns the world, and all that dwell therein." In what light doth the parable present this God, so terrible to the wicked, to the eyes of a repenting sinner! It is but one word; but, my God! what a whole Gospel doth that one word, "Father," contain! A Father patient and silent during all the provocations of his son; a "Father seeing him, when he was a great way off, melting with compassion for him, running, falling on his neck, and kissing him.' A Father cutting short the confession of his son, preventing him with his goodness, receiving him liberally, and upbraiding him not. A Father ordering, "Bring forth the best robe, and bring hither the fatted calf, and let us eat and be merry:" a Father filling his house with "music and dancing," overflowing with happiness in himself, and telling his other son and all his servants, I have “ received my son safe and sound; this my son was dead, and is alive again, he was lost and is found!" O lovely picture of the best of beings, my Father and my God, always be before my eyes, when I presume to approach the "throne of grace to obtain mercy, and to find grace to help in time of need!"

What a picture of sin and wretchedness doth the life of the prodigal afford! A son, a son of such a Father, a younger son dead to the edifying example of his elder brother, going from home, with all his fortune, into a far country, and wasting all his substance in riotous living a son of such a family disgracing himself in the service of a swine-herd, a keeper of cattle expressly forbidden to be eaten by man, or offered in sacrifice to God: a wretch perishing with hunger, and wishing himself one of these execrated animals, that he might eat and fatten and die like them: a son who had behaved in his prosperity so brutally to others, that in his extremity no man would give him even the privilege of a beggar, a morsel of bread to save him from starving to death a son trembling at the thought of seeing such a

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Father, and hardly daring to ask the favour of being admitted among the lowest of his servants! What a number of just and affecting ideas of sin are contained in this live picture of profligate men! Every sinner in the whole world is in some stage of this wretchedness. Some are now receiving, others are now spending, and others are half distracted for the waste of their "portion of goods." In what stage, my hearers, are you?

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There is a third subject, that is, repentance, described in a very pathetic manner, in this parable. The son came to himself," that is, recovered his lost senses, his memory, his reason, his duty, his sense of honour, respect for his Father, disdain for his condition, and a modest ambition to aspire at something like his former happy state. Hear him: "How many hired servants of my Father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise, and go to my Father." Go, young man, it is the best thing you can do ; "the Father of whom you speak is yet alive," and yet a Father; he knows your sorrows; behold, he cometh forth to meet thee, and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart."

A fourth picture is contained in this parable; and the joy of good men at the repentance of a sinner is set forth by the pleasure of the servants, and the censure, which the proud and unfeeling part of the Jews passed, undutifully on the goodness of God, and cruelly on the condition of such penitents as the Gentiles, is held forth in the conduct of the elder brother, who yet at last recovers by the reasoning of his Father from the sullen temper, into which he had fallen at the first admission of such great sinners into the church of God. This short parable is so constructed as to contain a history of all times from Adam to the end of the world; and the few characters exhibited in it are almost all, that are worth knowing in the universe. The subjects go home to the business and bosoms of all mankind, and probably his one parable hath "brought many sons to glory."

It would be easy to show, were it necessary, that the same ease, convenience, and address to the passions for the best and noblest purposes run through the whole