quench the fmoaking flax". If you are sick of fin, and weary of its bondage, be not afraid of applying to him who is the physician of the fick, and the deliverer of the captive. With the out-ftretched arms of unbounded compaffion he will receive you, and will treat you as his brethren, and his friends. Ye shall receive the bleffing from the Lord, and righteoufnefs from the God of your falvation.

u Matt. xii. 20.

SERMON

SERMON XII.

LUKE XV. II-24.

And he faid, A certain man had two fons: and the younger of them faid to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after, the younger fon gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wafted his fubftance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arofe a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a and he fent him into

citizen of that country;

his fields to feed fwine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the fwine did eat and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he faid, How many hired fervants of my father's have bread enough and to fpare, and I perifh with hunger! I will arife, and go to my father, and will fay to him, Father, I have finned against Heaven,

But when he was yet

Heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy fon: make me as one of thy hired fervants. And he arofe, and came to his father. a great way off, his father faw him, and had compaffion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kiffed him. And the fon faid unto him, Father, I have finned against Heaven, and in thy fight, and am no more worthy to be called, thy fon. But the father faid to his fervants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and fhoes on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry. For this my fon was dead, and is alive again; he was loft, and is found. And they began to be merry.

THE company to which our Saviour addreffed his discourse at this time, consisted of men who had very different characters, and who, to outward appearance, were very unlike in their manners. The publicans, who were the collectors of the taxes imposed by the Romans, and who were extremely difagreeable to the Jews, both on account of their office

2

office and their behaviour in the execution of it, with many others equally notorious for their vices, made up one class of his hearers. The other clafs confifted of the fcribes and pharifees, whofe pretences to purity and fanctity were very high; who treated those who differed from them with the most fupercilious contempt, affuming an exclufive privilege of being accounted holy; while, at the fame time, their hearts were altogether vitiated and corrupted.

The parables recorded in this chapter are admirably calculated for inftructing the former of thofe claffes in the extent of the divine mercy, and thus engaging them to fly to its protection, and for reproving the uncharitablenefs and felf-fufficiency of the latter. In the two firft parables, that of the loft sheep, and that of the loft piece of filver, we may difcern the address of our Saviour as a teacher. The strongest reasons for hope are explicitly conveyed to the publicans and finners but the rebuke to the fcribes and pharifees is oblique and concealed. Thus the attention of one part of his audience is roused, and their affections gained: and by the force of truth, delivered in the most engaging

manner,

manner, the murmurings of the pharifees on account of our Saviour's keeping company with finners, are made gradually to fubfide. In the third parable, which begins at the eleventh verfe, in a narration the most fimple and natural, all thofe circumstances are united, which, while they enlighten the understanding, are, at the fame time, proper for touching the heart. We here discover this divine teacher, fhewing, with equal clearness, his enlarged mind, his compassionate heart, his awful authority, and his nervous eloquence. I have confined myself at present to that part of this parable, which chiefly prefents to us the misery of vice, the difpofition of a true penitent, and the mercy God. The decorum and propriety with which our Saviour conducts his allegories, and their exellence, not only as fources of moral inftruction, but as patterns of just and fine writing, are very remarkable. Instead of darkening a plain paffage by a tedious critical commentary, I choose, in the present cafe, to justify the remark I have now made, by the following obfervations.

of

It is the younger of the two fons who is impatient of his father's reftraint, and afks