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To this the reply was agreeable to the wifhes of the patriarch; for the Deity declared he would spare the city for the fake of forty and five. And thus the matter went on, requesting on the one hand, and granting on the other, till the Lord of forgiveness promifed to fufpend the ftroke of deftruction for the fake of ten. Perhaps the forbearance of Heaven to the children of men, was never more finely illuftrated than in this inftance: and when we confider it, we fhall the lefs wonder at the little iuterruptions and ftops that are put to the general impiety of the times. It is the grand complaint of moralifts, that we live in an age far exceeding every other in point of degeneracy; that the world is much worse than it was in the days of old; and that, confequently, it is matter of aftonishment the Creator doth not, for thefe reafons, deftroy what he hath made, and hurry on in wrath, the diffolution of all things. But the hiftory of mankind evinces, that in the earliest periods, the vices and paflions as generally prevailed as at prefent; that mur

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der, envy, drunkennefs, and every other error, as powerfully tyranized over the human heart, as at this very hour: though, perhaps, the moderns may have made fome innovations in iniquity, it is but doing the fame bad things with more art, with more fashion, or with more refinement.

Infinite, indeed, must be the mercy, which, both at the beginning and now, preferves us from the vengeance of Heaven; and the crimes of every age have been of fufficient magnitude to provoke the punishment, and to exercife the utmost kindness of the Deity! What, for inftance, must be the fenfations of eternal perfection, at the fight of all that variety of crime perpetrated in a fingle day, within the precincts of every large city? What must he, who comprehends at one view all the tranfactions of the world, feel, as he furveys that aftonishing mass of mischief, fraud, malignity, blafphemy, and meannefs, committed constantly beneath his penetrating eye? Mercy, is certainly his distinguished attribute. Amongst

Amongit men, we call him a forgiving character, who paffes over, with impunity, fome petty affront, or injury, in focial life: the parent is esteemed amiable, who pardons an offending child; and to refift giving blow for blow, when the temptation to recriminate lies fairly open, is thought to be the fublimeft effort of human excellence. But if all things derive confequence from comparifon, how do thefe venial virtues dwindle when we place them near thofe of the Omnipotent? Notwithstanding the thousand infults that are daily directed by man against his maker, how very, very feldom his red right arm is raised to destroy: and even when impiety, with the ftrides of a giant, towers onward to the throne, with what fuperior mildness of majesty he closes his eye upon the audacity, as unwilling to fee what his juftice muft have punished. Amidft his greatnefs, he fits enshrined, continuing to dispense a bleffing where a curfe is frequently deferved; and in the very moment that man is murmuring at his regulations, with how much kindness does he D 2 perfift

perfift in bestowing his bounty, till even the complainer is filenced and ashamed. Well then, indeed, may we exclaim with a univerfal voice of fincerity, "Bleffed be "the name of the Lord, for his MERCY "endureth for ever."

In treating of the subject of mercy, and the fublime and beautiful of fentiment, it were a kind of literary heresy to omit two most eloquent and divine paffages, the one from the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew, and the other from Shakespear's Merchant of Venice. They are both, beyond measure, pathetic; and, indeed, one is di vided whether most to admire the tenderness of our Saviour, or the argument of Portia. The paffions are, either way, ftrongly affected, and as the pathetic is, indifputably, a gentle stream flowing from a fublime fource, we may certainly rank what follows amongst the happiest strokes of the fublime and beautiful.

"O Jerufalem! Jerufalem! thou that killeft the pro"phets, and ftoneft them which are fent unto thee, how "often would I have gathered thy children together, even "as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye "would not ?"

The quality of mercy is not strain'd;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heav'n
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed;
It bleffeth him that gives, and him that takes.
'Tis mightieft in the mightieft; it becomes

The

The throned monarch better than his crown a
For mercy is above all fcepter'd fway;

It is enthron'd in the heart of kings;

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then fhew likeft heav'n's When mercy seasons juftice,

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