rors, and remain obstinately fixed in them, he is deserving of pity and compassion, and not surely the object of resentment, of execration, and ill-usage; and our endeavour should be in the spirit of meekness to throw light into his mind.

Further than this we have nothing to do with the religious opinions of others; our principal business should be, to take care that we be sincere in our own, and to act conscientiously up to them.

And we should think well of every one, however widely distant in religious sentiments from us; remembering that we differ as much from him as he does from us; that we are not lords of his faith; that he has the same right to judge for himself as we have; and that it is to God alone that we are accountable in such matters, and not to one another.

III.

Our Lord here teaches, that it is not merely our religious opinions that will recommend us to God, but a holy life and practice.

This Samaritan was under some errors in his religion. For this we have the testimony of Christ himself; who said to the Samaritan

woman

woman (John iv. 22.), "Ye worship what ye know not." They did not worship God aright, or as he had commanded. Of this religion was this man.

This, as often is the case, was most probably owing to the misfortune of his birth and education, and the prejudices he had early imbibed, without the means of divesting himself of them. But in the midst of these errors he was of a charitable beneficent temper, not carried away by the example of his countrymen to hate those that differed from him in religion, but disposed and delighting to do good, wherever and to whomsoever it was in his power, and scrupling no cost or labour of his own to serve them. This is the man whom our Saviour holds up for an example to his followers, and enjoins them to imitate it.

It has been too much the way in all times, to look at a man's faith and creed, to know his character whether he was a good man or otherwise.

In the first heathen persecutions of the followers of Christ, it was a capital crime for a man to own his belief in him. And we find in the annals of those times, that no

sooner

sooner did a man confess himself a christian, but immediately, without further inquiry, he was adjudged to the torture, or to be thrown to the wild beasts.

The like scene was acted over again under the christian emperors, when they gave their power to christians to persecute one another. Men were fined, were banished, were imprisoned, were put to the most cruel deaths: not for sedition, for any guilt or immorality; but for not having a right faith, i. e. for not believing concerning Christ as their persecutors believed.

Even in our own times, to say that a man was an Arian, a Socinian, let his life otherwise be ever so pure and unblemished, would have been sufficient to make some to conclude him to be a bad man, an enemy to God and to Christ, and to all goodness.

But our Lord instructs us better here, in his high approbation of this Samaritan; that we are to think and to allow, that those who hold different religious opinions from us, even when they are certainly wrong and mistaken in them, may nevertheless be equally good and virtuous, and acceptable to God, as those

whose

whose faith is most exact in all points. For it is not to this which our Maker so much looks (though we must endeavour all we can to ob tain the truth), as to our diligence in seeking, and sincerity in professing, what we do know, and in practising those moral and Christian duties of which none can plead ignorance. A man may have just sentiments of God and Christ, and of the gospel as an apostle; and yet fall short of Heaven's bliss, if his life hath not been conformable to his better knowledge.

IV.

Lastly. No one that has lived and conversed much in the world, and has remarked what has passed in it of late years, with respect to the temper of christians one towards another, when differing in points hitherto held most essential, but must have observed a change for the better, in their becoming more mild, and not condemning and ana thematizing each other as they were wont to do.

There are still undoubtedly exceptions; and not a few show the same flaming intolerant zeal againt those who dissent from them in

points of faith and worship: but the prevailing temper is certainly that which I have described.

8

And although it has been ascribed, as it is a thing that has much been taken notice of, to the general indifference about religion which has obtained among all ranks, especially those that are in ease and affluence; yet this does by no means account for all the effect. For those who are so indifferent as to care nothing about religion, and believe less, are generally violent persons against any changes, and are for having things remain as they are. But this mild and tolerant spirit is discernible among those who are sincere believers, and zealous and earnest in their particular persuasions, of which very extraordinary instances might be named were this a place for them. So that we may reasonably hope that it is the prelude of a better spirit coming on among differing christians, and may not hesitate to pronounce that it flows from its best source; from a persuasion that others have an equal claim to judge for themselves, and follow their own convictions, as we have to follow ours; that if they be honest and sincere, however in error, and live virtuously according to their