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-what hopes? what expectations from a passenger, not only a ftranger,-but a Samaritan, releafed from all obligations to me, and by a national diflike, inflamed by mutual ill offices, now made my enemy, and more likely to rejoice at the evils which have fallen upon me, than to ftretch forth a band to fave me from them?

'Tis no unnatural foliloquy to imagine; but the actions of generous and compassionate tempers baffle all little reafonings about them.True charity, in the apoftle's defcription, as it is kind, and is not easily provoked, so it manifefted this character here;-for we find, when he came where he was, and beheld his distress,

all the unfriendly paffions, which at another time might have rofe within him, now utterly forfook him and fled: when he faw his misfortunes he forgot his enmity towards the man, -dropped all the prejudices which education had planted against him, and in the room of them, all that was good and compaffionate was fuffered to speak in his behalf.

In benevolent natures, the impulfe to pity is fofudden, that like inftruments of mufic, which obey the touch-the objects which are fitted

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to excite fuch impreffions work so instantaneous an effect, that you would think the will was scarce concerned, and that the mind was altogether paffive in the fympathy which her own goodness has excited. The truth is,the foul is generally in fuch cases so busily taken up, and wholly engroffed by the object of pity, that he does not attend to her own operations, or take leifure to examine the principles upon which she acts. So that the Samaritan, though the moment he faw him he had compaffion on him, yet fudden as the emotion is reprefented, you are not to imagine that it was mechanical, but that there was a fettled principle of humanity and goodness which operated within him, and influenced not only the firft impulfe of kindness, but the continuation of it throughout the reft of fo engaging a behaviour. And because it is a pleasure to look into a good mind, and trace out, as far as one is able, what paffes within it on fuch occafions, I fhall beg leave, for a moment, to ftate an account of what was likely to pass in his, and in what manner fo diftrefsful a cafe would neceffarily work upon fuch a difpofition.

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As he approached the place where the unfortunate man lay, the inftant he beheld him, no doubt some fuch train of reflections as this would rife in his mind. "Good GOD! what "a fpectacle of mifery do I behold—a man "stripped of his raiment-wounded—lying

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languishing before me upon the ground, just "ready to expire,-without the comfort of a "friend to fupport him in his last agonies, or "the prospect of a hand to close his eyes when "his pains are over. But perhaps my concern "should leffen when I reflect on the relations "in which we ftand to each other-that he is "a Jew, and I a Samaritan.But are we not "still both men ; partakers of the same nature 66 -and fubject to the fame evils?-let

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me change conditions with him for a mo66 ment, and confider, had his lot befallen me "as I journeyed in the way, what measure I "fhould have expected at his hand.-Should .. I wish, when he beheld me wounded and half"dead, that he should shut up his bowels of "compaffion from me, and double the weight "of my miferies, by passing by and leaving

them unpitied?-But I am a stranger to the "man;-be it fo,-but I am no stranger to

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from fome reproachful inftances of selfish tempers, which feem to take part in nothing beyond themselves; yet I am perfuaded, and affirm 'tis ftill fo great and noble a part of our nature, that a man must do great violence to himself, and fuffer many a painful conflict, before he has brought himself to a different difpofition.

'Tis obfervable in the foregoing account, that when the priest came to the place where he was, he paffed by on the other fide.-He might have paffed by, you'll fay, without turning afide.-No, there is a fecret shame which attends every act of inhumanity not to be conquered in the hardest natures; fo that, as in other cafes, fo efpecially in this, many a man will do a cruel act, who at the fame time would blush to look you in the face, and is forced to turn afide before he can have a heart to execute his purpose. iv og

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Inconfiftent creature that man is! who, at that inftant that he does what is wrong, is not able to with-hold his testimony to what is good and praise-worthy.

I have now done with the parable, which was the first part propofed to be confidered in this difcourfe; and fhould proceed to the second, which fo naturally falls from it, of exhorting you, as our SAVIOUR did the lawyer upon it, to go and do fo likewife: but I have been fo copious in my reflections upon the ftory itself, that I find I have infenfibly incorporated into them almost all that I should have said here in recommending fo amiable an example; by which means I have unawares anticipated the task I propofed. I fhall therefore detain you no longer than with a single remark upon the subject in general, which is this, 'Tis obfervable in many places of fcripture, that our blessed SAVIOUR, in describing the day of judgment, does it in such a manner, as if the great enquiry then, was to relate principally to this one virtue of compaffionand as if our final sentence at that folemnity was to be pronounced exactly according to the degrees of it. "I was a-hungred, and ye

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gave me meat-thirsty, and ye gave me "drink-naked, and ye cloathed me--I was "fick, and ye vifited me-in prifon, and ye

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