not have been pronounced; but whether more could have been said in the same room better adapted to the exigencies of the hearers, or better calculated for the purpose of impression?  Seen in this light, it has always appeared to me to be admirable.  Dr. Lardner thought that this discourse was made up of what Christ had said at different times, and on different occasions, several of which occasions are noticed in St Luke’s narrative.

I can perceive no reason for this opinion.  I believe that our Lord delivered this discourse at one time and place, in the manner related by Saint Matthew, and that he repeated the same rules and maxims at different times, as opportunity or occasion suggested; that they were often in his mouth, and were repeated to different audiences, and in various conversations.

It is incidental to this mode of moral instruction, which proceeds not by proof but upon authority, not by disquisition but by precept, that the rules will be conceived in absolute terms, leaving the application and the distinctions that attend it to the reason of the hearer.  It is likewise to be expected that they will be delivered in terms by so much the more forcible and energetic, as they have to encounter natural or general propensities.  It is further also to be remarked, that many of those strong instances which appear in our Lord’s sermon, such as, “If any man will smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also:”  “If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also:”  “Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain:”  though they appear in the form of specific precepts, are intended as descriptive of disposition and character.  A specific compliance with the precepts would be of little value, but the disposition which they inculcate is of the highest.  He who should content himself with waiting for the occasion, and with literally observing the rule when the occasion offered, would do nothing, or worse than nothing:  but he who considers the character and disposition which is hereby inculcated, and places that disposition before him as the model to which he should bring his own, takes, perhaps, the best possible method of improving the benevolence, and of calming and rectifying the vices of his temper.

If it be said that this disposition is unattainable, I answer, so is all perfection:  ought therefore a moralist to recommend imperfections?  One excellency, however, of our Saviour’s rules is, that they are either never mistaken, or never so mistaken as to do harm.  I could feign a hundred cases in which the literal application of the rule, “of doing to others as we would that others should do unto us,” might mislead us; but I never yet met with the man who was actually misled by it.  Notwithstanding that our Lord bade his followers, “not to resist evil,” and to “forgive the enemy who should trespass against them, not till seven times, but till seventy times seven,” the Christian