7

or if that affiftance comes

❝of fafety

"too late, I fhall comfort him at least "in his laft hour- and, if I can do

"nothing elfe, I fhall foften his mis"fortunes by dropping a tear of pity 64 over them."

'Tis almoft neceffary to imagine the good Samaritan was influenced by fome fuch thoughts as thefe, from the uncommon generofity of his behaviour, which is reprefented by our SAVIOUR operating like the warm zeal of a brother, mixed with the affectionate difcretion and care of a parent, who was not fatisfied with taking him under his protection, and fupplying his prefent wants, but in looking forwards for him, and taking care that his wants fhould be fupplied when he fhould be gone, and no longer near to befriend him.

I think there needs no ftronger argument to prove how univerfally and deeply the feeds of this virtue of compassion are planted in the heart of man, than in the pleasure we take in such representations of it and though fome men have represented human nature in other colours, (though to what end I know not) that the matter of fact is so strong against them, that from the general propensity to pity the unfortunate, we express that fenfation by the word humanity, as if it was infeparable from our nature. That it is not infeparable, I have allowed in the former part of this difcourfe, from fome reproachful inftances of selfish tempers, which feem to take part in nothing beyond themselves; yet I am perfwaded and affirm 'tis ftill fo great and noble a part of our nature, that a man muft do great violence to himself, and suffer many

a pain

a painful conflict, before he has brought himself to a different difpofition.

'Tis obfervable in the foregoing account, that when the priest came to the place where he was, he paffed by on the other fide he might have paffed by, you'll fay, without turning afide. No, there is a fecret fhame which attends every act of inhumanity not to be conquered in the hardest natures, fo that, as in other cafes, fo efpecially in this, many a man will do a cruel act, who at the fame time would blufh to look you in the face, and is forced to turn afide before he can have a heart to execute his purpose.

Inconfiftent creature that man is! who... at that inftant that he does what is wrong,

is not able to withhold his teftimony to what is good and praife worthy

I have now done with the parable, which was the firft part propofed to be confidered in this discourse; and fhould proceed to the second, which so naturally falls from it, of exhorting you, as our SAVIOUR did the lawyer upon it, to go and do fo likewife: but I have been fo copious in my reflections upon the ftory. itself, that I find I have infenfibly incorporated into them almost all that I should have faid here in recommending fo ami-> able an example; by which means I have unawares anticipated the task I proposed. I fhall therefore detain you no longer. than with a single remark upon the fubject in general, which is this, 'Tis obfervable in many places of fcripture, that, our bleffed SAVIOUR in defcribing the

meat

day of judgment does it in fuch a manner, as if the great enquiry then, was to relate principally to this one virtue of compaffion and as if our final fentence at that folemnity was to be pronounced exactly according to the degrees of it. I was a hungred and ye gave me thirsty and ye gave me drink naked and ye cloathed me I was fick and ye vifited me in prifon and ye came unto me. Not that we are to imagine from thence, as if any other good or evil action fhould then be overlooked by the eye of the All-feeing Judge, but barely to intimate to us, that a charitable and benevolent difpofition is fo principal and ruling a part of a man's character, as to be a confiderable test by itself of the whole frame and temper of his mind, with which all other virtues

and