which in its primary meaning represents the conduct and the lot of his own contemporaries, who rejected or acknowledged him; but is no less applicable to the decision of the last day. The mina, which our translators here render pound, is equal to sixty shekels, which, according to our method of calculating the latter, amounts either to £7. 10s. or £9. So small a sum was probably chosen to illustrate the king's munificence, in bestowing in return so liberal a reward as the sovereignty over as many cities. He describes himself under the figure of a petty king, who sets out for a foreign country to have his title confirmed by a higher power, as was not unusual in that age of Roman pre-eminence, and of which Archelaus, the last sovereign of Judea, was a recent instance. Not only did he visit Rome for the purpose, and succeed, but his countrymen sent an embassy, as in the parable, to defeat the scheme, and were many of them, in consequence, put to death by him on their return, when we may presume he rewarded his adherents. Thus our Lord, instead of taking immediate possession of his sovereignty, would, for a season, ascend to his Father, and after a long time, that is, at the judgment day, come again to punish his enemies, and reckon with his servants. In Matthew we find the similar parable of the talents, but that was only addressed by Christ to his disciples, and takes no notice of his enemies. In the one, the deposits are equal, and the rate of profit different; in the other, the sums are unequal, and the improvement made the same. Some commentators therefore understand by the pounds, the grace bestowed either upon ministers or private Christians; and by the talents the natural gifts of intellect, or our respective shares of property, power, and influence, which, it is well known, are unequally distributed, as the dispenser of them sees fit. We learn from both, that the future reward of the obedient will be in proportion to their diligence; that each servant is responsible only for what has been entrusted to him, and that mean abilities and little property are no justification of neglect; for the servants who buried the single talent, and laid by the pound,

represent those who deem it sufficient to abstain from positive sin. Such are ever ready to misrepresent the gracious Giver of what they have, as a severe and rigid taskmaster, unreasonable in his demands; like one who should claim to reap the field which he has not sown, or to take up the pledge which he did not deposit. But they will be condemned out of their own mouth; for the very character they falsely ascribe to him, should have stimulated them to exertion; and if they were not able, like the others, to augment their capital by trade, they might at least have put it out on good security to the bankers, who would have returned it with interest. In both parables, the neglected sum is given to the servant who traded with most success. This in that of the pounds excites surprise, and probably displeasure; but they are assured, that it was the principle of his government to take away the deposit which had been neglected, and to confer more on those that had improved their talents and opportunities. Usury, from the Latin usura, originally meant the profit, great or small, made by the loan of money; but when first rendered legal in our country, under Henry the Eighth, which was done with great reluctarce, the rate appointed was denominated interest; and usury became an odious term, being restricted to that amount which the law pronounced to be exorbitant. Strange as it may seem to us who live in an age when sounder no:ions prevail, it is a fact, that the practice was formerly universally condemned, both by moralists and political economists. Aristotle" and his great rival Bacon", were alike unfriendly to this "barren and bastard employment of money,” as the latter was pleased to call it; yet in his Essay o Usury, he inconsistently suggests regulations for it, observing, that it is better to mitigate it by declaration, than to suffer it to rage by connivance. The School divines brand it as contrary to nature as well as revelation, and the Canon law condemns the taking any interest as a mortal sin,

and punishes it with excommunication. A misconception of the Mosaic prohibition, which was clearly a political and not a moral precept, since it allows Israelites to take interest from strangers; and an excessive deference to the authority of Aristotle, have no less biassed the judgment of the earlier Protestant divines; and among our own, I know of none, previous to the Revolution, that do not regard the lending on interest, if not sinful, yet of a questionable character. Aristotle's reason, "the natural barrenness of money," is unworthy of that great man, and is as valid against the rent of houses, or taking a recompence for the use of many other articles. His argument was suggested by the etymology of the Greek word for interest, Tóxos, which seems to imply, that the principal generates the interest—“ a breed of barren metal"." The prejudices against usury among the ancient philoso phers, was the natural result of the state of society, which fell under their observation. In countries where there is little or no commerce, the great motive for borrowing being necessity, the value of a loan cannot be ascertained by calculation, as it may be where money is borrowed for he purposes of trade, and in such circumstances every moneylender will be regarded in the same odious light tha: a pawnbroker is now. In countries where it is borrowed for the purposes of commercial profit, the borrowers are often the rich, the lenders the comparatively poor. The prohibitior of usury to the Jews in their mutual transactions, was in perfect consistency with the other principles of their political cole, commerce being discouraged, and mortgages prevented, by the indefeasible right which every man had to his lard. Calvin is, I believe, the first who confuted this sophistry, and maintained that the practice must be determined by the rule of equity. It is satisfactory to observe, that on this as on

c Dugald Stewart's Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers, vol. p. 180.

d Shakspeare's Merchant of Venice.

In an Epistle quoted in a note in Stewart's Dissertation on the Progress of Philosophy, prefixed to the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica.

other subjects, the word of God and the dictates of sound reason coincide; and that the former fairly examined will be found to give no countenance to any erroneous position, though the best and wisest of uninspired men have maintained it.

108. Jesus proceeds from Jericho to Bethany, where he is entertained in the house of Simon the leper. John xi. xii. Matt. xxvi. Mark xiv. Luke xxii.

THE Jews, who had gone up to Jerusalem, to purify themselves preparatory to their eating of the paschal lamb, sought Jesus from various motives, and questioned one another whether he would have courage to show himself or not, since a proclamation for his apprehension had been published. This decree of the council was occasioned by the miraculous restoration of Lazarus to life, and could not have passed unanimously, for we know that neither Nicodemus nor Joseph of Arimathea consented to it; and there might be other members of that assembly averse from so iniquitous a measure. It was obtained through the influence of the high priest, who avowed the maxim, that the end justifies the means, and declared in his official capacity, that it was expedient that one person should die instead of the whole nation. This he meant of their national preservation, and was so understood by the council; but the real import of the speech, which was suggested by the Holy Spirit, (who here, as in the case of Balaam, made use of the agency of a wicked man,) was, that Christ should die to save from eternal death all real believers; not Israelites alone, but his whole people gathered both from them and the Gentiles.

The rulers had determined not to put him to death at the feast, for fear of a tumult, but it pleased divine Providence, that both the mode and time of that event should be contrary to their intention, and that He, the real paschal victim, should be sacrificed in the most public manner during the passover, when Jerusalem was full of worshippers; and the fact of his death decreed by his own nation, and confirmed

and effected by the Romans, would thus be made known throughout the world. Jesus, I apprehend, proceeded direct from the house of Zacchæus to Bethany, before he made his solemn entry into the city, and an entertainment provided in honour of him there, at the house of Simon, who had been a leper, was the occasion of altering their plan. The presence of Lazarus brought a concourse of people from the city, to see a man who had been restored to life, and whatever augmented the popularity of Jesus, at this crisis alarmed the rulers; an incident that occurred at the feast, provided them with the very instrument wanted for their purpose, and our Lord's proceeding to the temple as the Messiah, probably satisfied them that delay would be dangerous. Martha, reported by tradition to be Simon's daughter, waited at table, and her sister Mary, desirous of publicly showing her respect for Jesus, brought forth a vessel of the most fragrant and costly balsam, with which she anointed not only his head but his feet. Some of the disciples murmured at what they regarded as the waste of a precious article; and Judas complained that it had not been sold, and the produce given to the poor, not because he commiserated them, but because he kept the common purse, and (Bartale) stole out of it for his private use. Three hundred denarii, nearly ten pounds, the price which he stated it might have fetched, must have seemed a considerable sum to him who betrayed his Master and Friend for thirty shekels, that is, three pounds and fifteen shillings. That was the legal fine paid to the owner of a slave who had been killed accidentally by a beast, (Exodus xxi. 32.) so literally did our Lord assume the form of a servant; and it is the precise value which Zechariah had predicted would be set by the people of Israel upon him, who was not only their Prince but their God. "A goodly price that I was prized at of them," saith Jehovah, chap. xi. 13. Our Saviour's reply intimated that they did not duly appreciate him. The poor they had with them always, and at any time they could

f Carried off.