82 Comments on Sterne. 
I fhall omit the greater part of the Levite’s 
foliloquy, in Sterne, and only take the laft fen- 
tences. 
** Mercy well becomes the heart of all thy 
** creatures, but moft of thy fervant, a I evite, 
‘** who offers up fo many daily facrifices to Fie 
** for the tranfgreffions of thy people.” 
— ‘ But to little purpofe,” he would add, atin 
** I ferved at thy altar, where my bufinefs was to 
** fue for mercy, had [ not learn’d to practife it. 
Mercy, favs Bp. Hall, becomes well the heart of any 
man, but moft of a Levite. He that had helped to offer fo 
‘many facrifices to God for the multitude of every Ifractite's 
fins, faw how proportionable it was, that man fhould not 
hold one fin unpardcnable. He had ferved at the atar to 
no purpofe, if he (whofe trade was to fue for mercy) had 
not at all learned to pra€tife it. 
It were needlefs to purfue the para'lel. 
Sterne’s twelfth Serm.n, on the Forgivenefs of 
Injuries, is merely a dilated Commentary on the 
beautiful conelufion of t!:e Contemplation * of Jofeph.’ 
‘The fixteenth Sermon contains a more ftriking imi- 
tation. ‘ There is no fmall degree of malicious 
“ craft in fixing upon a Seafon to give a mark of 
enmity and ill-will;—a word, a look, which, 
** at one time, would make no impreffion, —at 
“‘ another time, wounds the heart; and, like a 
fhaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which, 
with itsown natural force, would fcarce have reached 
the object aimed at.” 
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