the Pharisees, to whom, in a political sense, they were diametrically opposed, did receive them. They entertained several other notions; but these two are the most remarkable. With these explanations, we will proceed to the subject matter of the present discourse: "When the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together." The occasion was this. The Sadducees, who, as I have said before, denied a resurrection, put to our Saviour the following case: they supposed there to have been seven brethren, the first of whom marrying, died without issue; his next brother then (as the Jewish laws ordained in such circumstances) married the widow; he dying childless as well, the next married her, and so on to the last, who, leaving no issue, and the wife, also dying childless, having outlived them all, the question which arose was, whose wife, in the

resurrection, should she become, since all the brethren had an equal claim to her? But this question going on the presumption that the affairs of a future life were to be regulated precisely by the standard of the present, which presumption our Saviour having shown to be unfounded, the difficulty vanished at once; besides this, by reminding them of a well-known declaration in the sacred writings, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," and the thing speaking for itself, that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," our Lord gave the strongest confirmation to the doctrine of the resurrection that the subject was capable of. The multitude, we are told, "were astonished at his doctrine," as they reasonably might, having never heard any thing so convincing before, and the Sadducees completely put to confusion; but no sooner did the Pharisees,

-the bad Pharisees, mind-hear of the discomfiture of their opponents, than they came up in a body, trusting to their superior acuteness to succeed, where the Sadducees had failed. "Then one of them, which was a lawyer"--in this country the practice of the law is divided into several departments; we have common law, equity law, ecclesiastical law, and other arrangements which I do not at present recollect; the Jewish law was all -in one, civil and ecclesiastical inseparably united:-" then one of them which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying-Master, which is the great commandment in the law?" It appears from some of the best commentators, that this question, which the lawyer put to our Saviour from a malicious motive, was one frequently agitated among the Jews, some inclining to give the preference to a ceremonial ordinance, others to a moral; whatever reply, there

fore, might have been returned, it was, they reckoned, sure to displease many; but, cunning as they doubtless were, they knew not him with whom they had to compete. "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." How perfectly, how dexterously were they foiled! and yet with what dignity, with what simplicity! not one of the consequences ensued which they were fully confident would ensue; they gazed upon that divine person with anxious and malignant hope; they scrutinized every line of his countenance; they trusted they should have beheld him embarrassed and confused; they saw him calmly turning round upon his inquirer, and, fixing on the shrinking casuist those eyes, in which the appalling majesty of heaven shone out with all its brightness, enforce a duty all present must have united in acknowledging,

the devotion of every affection, the work of every energy, the exercise of every talent in the service of their common friend, their Father, and their God. "This"-and in the humanity of his nature, may not an emotion of triumph have flashed across his mind at witnessing the justly merited disappointment and vexation of his enemies-" this is the first and great commandment, and the second"-you did not require this from me; but I will tell you more even than you care to hear:-" and the second is like unto it: thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." These are the principles from which your whole legal system emanates, and to these the intent and purpose of every one of your inspired writers must be referred, the love of God, and the love of your neighbour. We must not consider this language as intended merely for