each class of duties
its proper station in the scale of moral importance. All this might be
expected perhaps from a well-instructed, cool, and judicious
philosopher, but was not to be looked for from an illiterate Jew;
certainly not from an impetuous enthusiast.

VI. Nothing could be more quibbling than were the comments and
expositions of the Jewish doctors at that time; nothing so puerile as
their distinctions. Their evasion of the fifth commandment, their
exposition of the law of oaths, are specimens of the bad taste in morals
which then prevailed. Whereas, in a numerous collection of our Saviour's
apophthegms, many of them referring to sundry precepts of the Jewish
law, there is not to be found one example of sophistry, or of false
subtlety, or of anything approaching thereunto.

VII. The national temper of the Jews was intolerant, narrow-minded, and
excluding. In Jesus, on the contrary, whether we regard his lessons or
his example, we see not only benevolence, but benevolence the most
enlarged and comprehensive. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the
very point of the story is, that the person relieved by him was the
national and religious enemy of his benefactor. Our Lord declared the
equity of the Divine administration, when he told the Jews, (what,
probably, they were surprised to hear,) "That many should come from the
east and west, and should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in
the kingdom of heaven; but that the children of the kingdom should be
cast into outer darkness." (Matt. viii. 11.) His reproof of the hasty
zeal of his disciples, who would needs call down fire from heaven to
revenge an affront put upon their Master, shows the lenity of his
character, and of his religion: and his opinion of the manner in which
the most unreasonable opponents ought to be treated, or at least of the
manner in which they ought not to be treated. The terms in which his
rebuke was conveyed deserve to be noticed:--"Ye know not what manner of
spirit ye are of." (Luke ix. 55.)

VIII. Lastly, amongst the negative qualities of our religion, as it came
out of the hands of its Founder and his apostles, we may reckon its
complete abstraction from all views either of ecclesiastical or civil
policy; or, to meet a language much in fashion with some men, from the
politics either of priests or statesmen. Christ's declaration, that "his
kingdom was not of this world," recorded by Saint John; his evasion of
the question, whe