DISCOURSE I. 133 They taught the people implicit faith in their doctors, or teachers and governors, and that they ought to believe as the church believes, not allowing too nice an enquiry into all the particular grounds of it. This evidently appears by the reply that these officers received from the chief priests; for when they acknowledged that our Lord Jesus spane as never man spake the priests were ready to reprove them for giving too much credit to such a preacher as Christ was, What ! Do ye believe ? Have any of the rulers, or of the pharisees, believed on him John vii. 48, 49. And will you dare hearken to a preacher, and doc- trines, that the rulers and pharisees reject and renounce, and never gave you encouragement to depend upon ? So the man that was born blind, John ix. when he argued with them, that surely hemust come from God, that could cure one that was born blind, and restore him to sight again. Thouvast altogether born in sin, say they, anddost thou teach us? verse 31. And they ex- communicated him, or cast him out. But our Lord, when he preaches to the multitude, he bids them all search the scriptures; these are they that testify of me ; John v. 39. If I speak not according to the language of divine revelation, and the word of God, believe me not; I stand or fall by that test. Thus you see in numerous instances, notwithstanding our Saviour, and the scribes and pharisees, would all seem to take the bible for their text, yet how, very different the matter or subject of their discourses were. 2. There was something in the manner of his preaching, that was different from the doctors of the Jewish church, as well as in the matter of it. Whether the Jews affected any pompof oratory, or studied periods as the Greeks did, is hard to say ; but it is certain, that our Saviour used the plainest and most simple style, that every one could understand : Our Lord con- veyed the doctrines of the gospel to men, in such a manner, as was most suitable to attain his sacred purposes. Sometimes he spoke in parables, but with this design to cover under them such mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, as were not fit to be divulged in their full brightness and light at that day. Few of the Jewish teachers preached from their hearts, when they preached pure and strict religion, for theypractised very little of it. But our Lord never preached up any part of virtue or piety but what he practised. Nor when they insisted upon traditions and ceremonies, did they always perform them ; for our Saviour complains, they laid heavy burdens upon thepeo- ple, which they would not touch with one of theirfingers; Mat. xxiii. 4. But our Lord Jesus Christ preached with the greatest sincerity, for he believed what he taught, and practised what he required. They preached in a cold, dull and insipid way, as. they t3
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