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ing the force of it, our bleffed SAVIOUR concludes the debate with a short admonition, that he would practise what he had approved and go, and imitate that fair example of univerfal benevolence

which it had fet before him.

In the remaining part of the difcourfe I fhall follow the fame plan; and therefore fhall beg leave to enlarge first upon the story itself, with fuch reflections as will rife from it; and conclude, as our SAVIOUR has done, with the fame exhortation to kindness and humanity which fo naturally falls from it.

A certain man, fays our SAVIOUR, went down from Jerufalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his rayment and departed, leaving him half dead. There is fomething in our

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nature

nature which engages us to take part in every accident to which man is fubject, from what caufe foever it may have happened; but in fuch calamities as a man has fallen into through mere misfortune, to be charged upon no fault or indiscretion of himself, there is fomething then fo truly interefting, that at the first fight we generally make them our own, not altogether from a reflection that they might have been or may be fo, but oftener from a certain generofity and tenderness of nature which difpofes us for compaffion, abftracted from ail confiderations of felf. So that without any obfervable act of the will, we fuffer with the unfortunate, and feel a weight upon our fpirits we know not why, on feeing the moft common inftances of their diftrefs. But where the spectacle is uncommonly tragical, and complicated

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plicated with many circumftances of mifery, the mind is then taken captive at once, and, were it inclined to it, has no power to make refiftance, but surrenders itself to all the tender emotions of pity and deep concern. So that when one confiders this friendly part of our nature without looking farther, one would think it impoffible for man to look upon mifery, without finding himself in fome measure attached to the intereft of him who fuffers it. I fay, one would think it impoffible for there are fome tempers how fhall I defcribe them? -formed either of fuch impenetrable matter, or wrought up by habitual felfifhnefs to fuch an utter infenfibility of what becomes of the fortunes of their fellowcreatures, as if they were not partakers of the fame nature, or had no lot or connection at all with the species.

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Of this character, our SAVIOUR produces two difgraceful inftances in the behaviour of a priest and a levite, whom in this account he reprefents as coming to the place where the unhappy man was -both paffing by without either ftretching forth a hand to affift, or uttering a word to comfort him in his diftrefs.

And by chance there came down a certain priest! -merciful GOD! that a teacher of thy religion fhould ever want humanity or that a man whofe head might be thought full of the one, should have a heart void of the other!

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though in theory one would fcarce fufpect that the leaft pretence to religion and an open difregard to fo main a part of it, could ever meet together in one

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you behold a fordid wretch, whofe ftraight heart is open to no man's affliction, taking fhelter behind an appearance of piety, and putting on the garb of religion, which none but the merciful and compaffionate have a title to wear. Take notice with what fanctity he goes to the end of his days, in the fame selfish track in which he at firft fet out- turning neither to the right hand nor to the left but plods on pores all his life long upon the ground, as if afraid to look up, left peradventure he should fee aught which might turn him one moment out of that ftraight line where intereft is carrying him chance, he stumbles upon

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