(49) SERMON III. LUKE X. 36, 37. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, I - N the foregoing verses of this chapter, the Evangelist relates, that a certain lawyer stood up and tempted JEsus, saying, master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? To which en quiry, our SAVIOUR, as his manner was, when any ensnaring question was put to VOL. I. him, E him, which he saw proceeded more from a design to entangle him, than an honeft view of getting information - inftead; of giving a direct answer which might afford a handle to malice, or at best serve only to gratify an impertinent humour he immediately retorts the question upon the man who asked it, and unavoidably puts him upon the necessity of anfwering himself; - and as in the prefent cafe, the particular profession of the enquirer, and his supposed general knowledge of all other branches of learning, left no room to suspect, he could be ignorant of the true answer to his queftion, and especially of what every one knew was delivered upon that head by their great Legislator, our SAVIOUR therefore refers him to his own memory of what he had found there in the course of his studies - What is written in the law upon which Iaw, how readest thou ? the enquirer reciting the general heads of our duty to God and MAN as delivered in the 18th of Leviticus and the 6th of Deuteronomy, - namely -That we should worship the Lord our God with all our hearts, and love our neighbour as ourselves; our blessed SAVIOUR tells him, he had answered right, and if he followed that lesson, he could not fail of the blessing he seemed defirous to inherit.This do and thou shalt live. But he, as the context tell us, willing to justify himself - willing possibly to gain more credit in the conference, or hoping perhaps to hear fuch a partial and narrow definition of the word neighbour as would fuit his own principles, and justify some particular oppreffions E2 fions of his own, or those of which his whole order lay under an accufation fays unto JESUs in the 29th verse, And who is my neighbour? though the demand at first sight may feem utterly trifling, yet was it far from being so in fact. For according as you understood the term in a more or a less restrained sense it produced many necessary variations in the duties you owed from that relation. -Our blessed SAVIOUR, to rectify any partial and pernicious mistake in this matter, and place at once this duty of the love of our neighbour upon its true bottom of philanthropy and univerfal kindness, makes answer to the proposed question, not by any far fetch'd refinement from the schools of the Rabbis, which might have sooner filenced than convinced the man - but by a direct appeal appeal to human nature in an instance he relates of a man falling amongst thieves, left in the greatest distress imaginable, till by chance a Samaritan, an utter stranger, coming where he was, by an act of great goodness and compaffion, not only relieved him at present, but took him under his protection, and generoufly provided for his future fafety. text On the close of which engaging account - our SAVIOUR appeals to the man's own heart in the first verse of the Which now of these three thinkest thou was neighbour unto him that fell amongst the thieves? and instead of drawing the inference himself, leaves him to decide in favour of fo noble a principle fo evidently founded in mercy. - The lawyer, struck with the truth and justice of the doctrine, and frankly acknowledging E3 |