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reader might not be fatigued with the famenefs of fentiment, or tired with likeness of language, the ftyle of the subject is varied, almost a thousand times: fometimes the lovely quality of mercy is recommended to us, (as in the prefent inftance) by a tender and attracting narrative-fometimes by a beautiful allegory, or parable; and very often by a concife moral fentence, expreffed in a way fo irrefiftibly ftriking, that we are led to the practice of the virtue, not only by a veneration for its intrinfic charms, but by the additional graces which it receives from compofition.

Even the foreft curfes in the fcriptures are, for the most part, against cruelty, and to recommend kindness and in the beginning of the 22d chapter of Deuteronomy, ì. e. from verfe the first to verse the seventh, there are fentiments of the most humane and affectionate tendency that ever were read, conceived, infpired, or practifed. Let every man who has a heart, perufe them-I will not add-attentively-becaule,

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to peruse them negligently, where any degree of feeling is beftowed, is utterly im poffible.

What must have been the fenfations of Balaam when he understood from the lip of a Divinity, that unless the afs had turned in the very manner he did, the mafter would have been flain, and the fervant preferved alive? How extreme fhould be the caution, and how palpable the error before punishment is inflicted; for fuch is the infirmity of man, he may thrice fmite his preferver for thofe very actions, which, ultimately, produce the most desirable and eminent bleffings; and when once fuch a miftake happens, and the indignity is given, where is the man poffeffed of sufficient effrontery to meet the eye of his benefactor? Every ftroke we have given returns invigorated upon ourselves, and we feel the blows fhamefully burning upon our cheeks.

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DEATH of MOSES.

PASSAGE.

AND THE LORD SAID UNTO MOSES, GET THEE UP INTO THIS MOUNT ABARIM, AND SEE THE LAND WHICH I HAVE GIVEN UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.

AND WHEN THOU HAST SEEN IT, THOU ALSO, SHALT BE GATHERED UNTO THY PEOPLE.

HOW

OW few are there at this day in the world, whom fuch a command would not terrify? It is plainly afcertaining the molt aweful moment of mortality: yet the excellent perfon to whom it was fpoken, appears to have received it without the leaft alarming emotion; and that, not because he was infenfible, but because he had talked with his maker as with a friend, and because he was affured. Being informed of his own death, indeed, he was anxious to fill up the vacancy which he should H 2 leave,

leave, properly, and therefore for the fake of pofterity, petitioned for a fucceffor. In these times, fuch intelligence, even though it were communicated in a dream, would disorder all the felicity of the day, and the very beft of us, would dread the advances of the night, left the horrid images should again appear: but if, as in this place, the tidings were conveyed by the voice of God himfelf, although the event was not to happen for fifty years, the whole scheme. of life (however delightfully our imaginations had before coloured it, however bright our expectation, or fplendid our circumstances) would be inftantly destroyed: The radiance of the morning enwrapt fuddenly amidst the gloom of midnight, gives us but a faint fimile to express the aftonishment and the anguish, that would, upon fuch an occafion, feize the foul: Inftead of attending to our fecular affairs, we should be incapable either of business or pleafure; even intereft would want its ufual ftimulus, the verieft Nigard would forget his unvifited hoard, and at last,

when

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