Jew,--that there is "a resurrection of the dead." By a clear inference He shows that, although the bodies of the patriarchs had long been in their graves, yet their souls must have survived; for the Scriptures reveal God to them as "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," as at that moment living in a separate state of existence. Hence it followed necessarily that the soul did not perish with the body, as the Sadducees believed, but that it continued in being after death *. The same topic, from which our Saviour argued the resurrection, is also acknowledged by their own writers 5.

It is worthy of observation that our Lord's discourses exhibit no particular description of the invisible world: He affirms, generally, the happiness of the good, and the misery of the bad; but maintains a solemn reserve as to any thing further. The question concerning the

woman, who had been married to seven brothers, was of a nature calculated to draw from Him a more circumstantial account of the state of man in his future existence; but He cut short the inquiry by an answer which at once rebuked intruding curiosity, and is agreeable to the best apprehensions we can form on the subject, that "they will be as the angels of God in heaven." This reserve of our Saviour should Dr. Lightfoot.

4

Bishop Porteus.

be well observed, because it repels all suspicion of enthusiasm; for enthusiasm is wont to expatiate on the condition of the departed above all other subjects, and with a wild particularity. The Koran of Mahomet is half made up of such enthusiastic descriptions.

SECT. CXXX.-Christ resolveth the Scribe.-Matt. xxii. 34-40; Mark xii. 28-34; Luke xx. 39, 40.

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"BUT when the Pharisees had heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, one of the Scribes came, and answering, said, Master, Thou hast well said." Thus, "feigning himself a just man," he also propounds a question "tempting Him," touching "the great commandment." A distinction is often found to exist in the writings of the Rabbins between "the Law" and the Precept;" the latter, such as the repeating of the phylacteries, purifications, keeping festivals, &c., being understood by them to be a special or greater rite," the first," the principal, "the great commandment'." The Saviour discovered at once a complete understanding of the sacred Law in its full import, while He declared that its grand demand is love ;-love the most ardent of which we are capable; love to the One Supreme Jehovah; and love for the whole human species as sincere as that which we feel for ourselves. The question thus replied to, like those that preceded it, was asked Dr. Lightfoot. 'Dr. Lightfoot. Drs. Robinson and Macknight.

Archd. Paley.

with no good purpose. The lawyer did not seek our Lord with a desire of instruction; but Divine wisdom converts evil into good. Our Lord, in answer to this insidious question, has left a reply, which is to be the rule of Christians in all ages: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind:" "and thy neighbour as thyself." "On these two commandments hang all the law :" "There is none other commandments greater than these '.'

It is commonly said, and sometimes strenuously insisted as a circumstance, in which the ethics of all religions falls short of the Christian, that the precept of universal benevolence embracing all mankind, without distinction of party, sect, or nation, had never been heard of, till it was inculcated by our Lord. But this is a mistake. The two maxims to which our Saviour refers, -the whole of "the Law, and the Prophets," were maxims of the Mosaic Law itself, though overlooked, and ill practised. The first, enjoining the love of God, is to be found in the very words, in which our Lord recited it in the fifth verse of the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy. The second, enjoining the love of our neighbour, is to be found in the very words in which our Saviour recited it in the eighteenth verse of the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus'. Perhaps

"Archbishop Sumner.

1 Bishop Horsley.

it is peculiar to the Jewish and Christian dispensations; and if it be, it is a peculiar excellency in them to have formally and solemnly laid down these principles as the grounds of human action. The love of God is the source of every thing which is good in man. Elevated notions may have been entertained of the Deity by some wise and excellent heathens; but these did none of them so inculcate the love of the Deity as the governing, actuating principle of life among them. This did Moses, or rather God by the mouth of Moses,--expressly, formally, solemnly; this did Christ,—adopting, repeating, ratifying, what the Law had already declared: nor does it detract from the merit of His answer, that the precepts which He gives, existed before in the code of Moses; for, it was entirely our Saviour's own, that He singled these precepts out from the rest of that voluminous institution; that He stated them not simply amongst the number, but as the greatest, and the sum of all the others: in a word, that He proposed them to His hearers, for the great rule and principle of their conduct 2. If our Saviour could then truly say, that the sum of the Jewish religion, as it was delivered by Moses and the Prophets, did consist in these two things,—the love of God, and of our neighbour, much greater reason have

2 Archdeacon Paley.

Christians to say, that the religion which is in Christ may be summed up in these two duties; for there is hardly one thing recommended to us by Him, that does not directly relate to one or the other precept3.

SECT. CXXXI.-How Christ is the Son of David.-Matt. xxii. 41-46; Mark xii. 35-37; Luke xx. 41-44.

THE Pharisees still surrounded our Lord, and may have been meditating other questions; but He, the more completely to baffle and confound them, proposed to them a question Himself: "What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?" Their proper answer would have been, That though Jesus, in His human nature, was the Son of David, yet, as He was the Son of God, and the Christ, He was also the Lord of

David. But our Saviour, in

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order most com

pletely to baffle them, quoted from the Psalms, where they tell us, David in Spirit," or by the Holy Ghost," calls Him Lord:" showing, by a most clear and express proof, that David wrote the Psalms under the influence of the Holy Ghost; yet, as in any answer they could give, they must either have contradicted this declaration of David, or have condemned themselves for their unbelief": "No man was able to answer Him a word: neither durst any man from that day forth ask Him any more ques