first century have left us authorise us to believe that they were equal to the task.  And how little qualified the Jews, the countrymen and companions of Christ, were to assist him in the undertaking, may be judged of from the traditions and writings of theirs which were the nearest to that age.  The whole collection of the Talmud is one continued proof into what follies they fell whenever they left their Bible; and how little capable they were of furnishing out such lessons as Christ delivered.

But there is still another view in which our Lord’s discourses deserve to be considered; and that is, in their negative character,—­not in what they did, but in what they did not, contain.  Under this head the following reflections appear to me to possess some weight.

I. They exhibit no particular description of the invisible world.  The future happiness of the good, and the misery of the bad, which is all we want to be assured of, is directly and positively affirmed, and is represented by metaphors and comparisons, which were plainly intended as metaphors and comparisons, and as nothing more.  As to the rest, a solemn reserve is maintained.  The question concerning the woman who had been married to seven brothers, “Whose shall she be on the resurrection?” was of a nature calculated to have drawn from Christ a more circumstantial account of the state of the human species in their future existence.  He cuts short, however, the inquiry by an answer, which at once rebuked intruding curiosity, and was agreeable to the best apprehensions we are able to form upon the subject, viz.  “That they who are accounted worthy of that resurrection, shall be as the angels of God in heaven.”  I lay a stress upon this reserve, because it repels the suspicion of enthusiasm:  for enthusiasm is wont to expatiate upon the condition of the departed, above all other subjects, and with a wild particularity.  It is moreover a topic which is always listened to with greediness.  The teacher, therefore, whose principal purpose is to draw upon himself attention, is sure to be full of it.  The Koran of Mahomet is half made up of it.

II.  Our Lord enjoined no austerities.  He not only enjoined none as absolute duties, but he recommended none as carrying men to a higher degree of Divine favour.  Place Christianity, in this respect, by the side of all institutions which have been founded in the fanaticism either of their author or of his first followers:  or, rather, compare in this respect Christianity, as it came from Christ, with the same religion after it fell into other hands—­with the extravagant merit very soon ascribed to celibacy, solitude, voluntary poverty; with the rigours of an ascetic, and the vows of a monastic life; the hair-shirt, the watchings, the midnight prayers, the obmutescence, the gloom and mortification of religious orders, and of those who aspired to religious perfection.