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 muft he, who comprehends at one view all the tranfactions of the world, feel, as he furveys that aftonishing mass of mifchief, fraud, malignity, blafphemy, and meannefs, committed conftantly beneath his penetrating eye? Mercy, is certainly his distinguished attribute. Amongft 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; G and

VOL. I.

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 comparison, how do thefe venial virtues dwindle when we place them near those of the Omnipotent ? Notwithftanding the thousand infults that are daily directed by man against his maker, how very, very feldom his red right arm is raised to deftroy and even when impiety, with the ftrides of a giant, towers onward to the throne, with what fuperior mildnefs of majesty he closes his eye upon the audacity, as unwilling

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unwilling to see what his juftice must have punished. Amidft his greatness, he fits enfhrined, continuing to dispense a bleffing where a curfe is frequently deserved; and in the very moment that man is murmuring at his regulations, with how much kindness does he fift in beftowing his bounty, till even the complainer is filenced and afhamed. Well then, indeed, may we exclaim with a universal voice of fincerity, "Bleffed be the name "of the Lord, for his MERCY "endureth for ever."

per

In treating of the fubject of mercy, and the fublime and beautiful of fentiment, it were a kind of literary herefy to omit two moft eloquent and divine paffages, the one from the twenty-third chapter

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chapter of St. Matthew, and the other from Shakefpear's Merchant of Venice. They are both, beyond measure, pathetic; and, indeed, one is divided whether moft 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 happieft ftrokes of the fublime and beautiful.

"O Jerufalem! Jerufalem! thou that killeft "the prophets, 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 ftrain'd;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heav'n
Upon the place beneath. It is twice bleffed;
It bleffeth him that gives, and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightieft: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
For mercy is above all fcepter'd sway;

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 feafons justice.

ESSAY

ESSAY X.

STORY Of ABRAHAM and ISAAC.

PASSAGE.

AND IT CAME TO PASS AFTER THESE THINGS THAT GOD DID TEMPT ABRA

HAM.

THIS ftory of Abraham and his fon Ifaac, is one of the many narratives in facred writ, which has employed the pens of our ableft divines, being univerfally allowed, one of the master ftrokes of the Bible. The commentators have alfo been remarkably

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