thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the Heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice."

It was a light thing with God to give him in this life length of days, riches, and honour. He remembered him long after, and was not ashamed to be called his God,' and to him, as our Saviour told us, were gathered the faithful dead, such as Lazarus, to await the coming of their Lord. God, Who was his shield, and is yet his exceeding great reward, can give Himself to us too, if we, in like manner, give ourselves to Him. Let us only give all, and He gives all, even Himself.

t

9 Gen. xxii. 16—18.

s S. Luke xvi. 16.

s Heb. xi. 22.

i Gen. xv. 1.

SERMON XXII.

S. Luke X. 35.

"And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee."

We all know the parable of the good Samaritan, and have some general notion of its meaning. We suppose that we have learned its lesson, and know how our blessed Lord would have us act toward our brethren who are destitute and distressed. Yet it is worth our while sometimes to think over it again, and see whether we have not something of practice at least, if not of knowledge, to learn from His "go thou and do likewise." For it is easy to admire goodness, and compassion, and self-denial for the sake of others, but such things cannot be done without trouble, and require either a lively feeling, which perhaps some of us cannot have if they would, or at least a very earnest and determined will, which too many will not be at the pains to put forth.

b

I believe it has generally been thought, and with good reason, that our blessed Lord meant, at least in some sort, to represent Himself under the character of the Good Samaritan. For although the Jews spoke falsely when they called Him a Samaritan, and though the woman of Samaria asked Him "how is it that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria ?"a still the actions are so like His that we must not stumble at the name. Some have thought He used it with an allusion to a Hebrew word, signifying to "keep" or "take care of;" but even without this significancy it was natural and proper, in order to answer the question "and who is my neighbour," that our Lord should speak of one whom the Jew would not acknowledge as his neighbour, and should represent such an one as doing, toward a Jew, something like what He was doing Himself toward the Jews, and toward mankind. And in fact our blessed Lord, though Himself a Jew, and of the royal tribe and family, was an "alien to His Mother's children.' He was called a Samaritan, and treated like an alien and an enemy by His own people, the children of the Jewish Church, in which

He had vouchsafed to be born. And He had more right to call the Jews His enemies, and to cast them off from His mercy as such, than a Samaritan would have to withhold all kindness from a Jew because of the two nations being at enmity. Indeed it is never to be forgotten, in thinking of the example of kindness which He has set us, that He found both the Jews and all mankind His enemies, and not only in misery and danger through Satan's having the mastery of them, but also in sin, and so alienated from Him in their own minds, at war with His blessed government of holiness and peace, and ready to reject and resist Him, and to persecute the messengers who should bear to them His holy Gospel. Perhaps this could not be better represented to the understanding of a Jew than by the case of a Samaritan, who belonged to a nation living very close to the Jews, and at enmity with them. And we know it is a point our Lord insisted upon very much, that He would have us be kind not only to those who deserve it, but to the unthankful and the evil, that we may be the children of our Father which is in Heaven. We must not therefore be surprised at His re

d S. Matt. v. 45.

d

presenting Himself for once under the likeness of one who did not belong to God's chosen people, the visible Church before His coming, when He could by that means teach such an important lesson so well.

I cannot speak of this without begging you to take it well to heart, that our blessed Lord found you sinners and enemies, and yet condescended to labour and suffer for your deliverance. Let the thought of this move you to very earnest charity toward those to whom you may be able to do good, though they may be in some way set against you. We have all sorts of excuses for thinking that people are too bad, or too unkind, or too unreasonable and unjust toward us, to be treated with kindness. But that is not the way our Lord would teach us. Their very sin and ill temper, if so be, is a real loss and misery to them. They have fallen into the hands of Satan, the great robber and murderer of souls, and he has stripped and wounded them. And if we are Levite in the parable, who thought it would haughty and self-satisfied, like the priest and defile them to touch the poor wounded man, we may make excuses, and say that we cannot help them without seeming to make light of their faults; we cannot be kind to