entirely to the cultivation of holiness both in heart and life, we shall partake in that Beatitude pronounced by the Captain of our falvation; "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of life, which is in the midft of the Paradife of God." The Tree of life was originally planted in the Garden of Eden; and there it throve, while Man continued innocent. But when by tasting the forbidden fruit he fell, the whole earth was corrupted by his depravity, and it could no longer thrive on that degenerate foil. But it still subsists in undecaying health, fertility, and bloom in heaven. It there expands its leaves for the healing of the nations. It there abounds in falutiferous fruits for the reparation of all those disorders, which the mortal taste of the forbidden Tree produced in all the progeny of Adam. Whoever hungers and thirsts after righteousness, fhall partake of its fruits, and be completely fatisfied.

t Rev. xxii. 2. ii. 7.

X 2

SERMON XIII.

MATTHEW v. 7.

Bleffed are the Merciful: for they fball obtain Mercy. IN the four firft of his Beatitudes our Lord. has delineated the more general features of the Chriftian character. In the fequel he proceeds to specify four particular dispositions, which have a claim to a preeminent and diftinguished place in the roll of Christian Virtues.-The firft of thefe is Mercy, a difpofition very nearly allied to Charity or brotherly Love, and therefore easily admitting of a joint confideration with it.

The difpofition of Mercy feems on the first reflexion to be congenial to the foul of man. It may be regarded as a primary affection of

our nature to take an intereft in the welfare of our fellow-creatures, to feel a fatisfaction in being able to increafe their comforts and to alleviate their miseries. When thus it fo immediately arrests the moral feeling of manX 3 kind,

kind, we cannot wonder that it fhould be approved by the Teachers of moral truth even in the Heathen world. But when we bring this fentiment to the teft of experience, we -find it had but a feeble hold upon their practice. It is true the Heathens in private life might cultivate friendship, and in public life might display a zeal for the welfare and profperity of their country. Yet if we explore their characters in private, they were ready to give way to a revengeful difpofition towards those who had given offence; and they were immoderately fevere to their flaves and dependents: if we furvey their characters in public, they looked with a hostile eye on foreign ftates; and when hoftility broke forth, they were ftrangers to the exercife of compaffion and clemency. Hence they are reprefented by the Apostle as full of envy, murder, and malignity, without natural affection, implacable, unmercifula.

The Children of Ifrael had been inftructed in better principles. As the firft great commandment of their Law was, To love the Lord with all their hearts, fo the second bore a close refemblance to it and a near degree of kindred, To love their neighbour as them

a Rom. i. 29, 35.

felves,

felves, which unquestionably comprehends every branch and every form of mercy and charity to mankind. They were more especially enjoined a practical benevolence to thofe, who stood more immediately in need of their affiftance, the ftranger, the fatherless, and the widow. And there were many equitable laws for alleviating miseries and imparting mercies, not only to the human fpecies, but even to the brute creation. And the Prophet recommends as duties virtuous. in themselves, and more acceptable to God than every kind of formal fervice and ritual obedience, that they undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppreffed go free, that they deal their bread to the hungry, that they cover the naked with a garment, and that they receive the houseless poor under their roofs b.

But the Jews in general did not live in the exercise of this law; for they had in a great measure impaired their sense of obligation to it, and thereby virtually rendered it of none effect, by their gloffes and traditions. This appears from the teftimony of our Lord in his Sermon on the Mount; who after profeffing, that he was not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil them, has