delightful to fee others in danger; but when others " are in great difficulties and dangers, it is a pleasure to find ourselves fafe and out of danger."

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And if it should pleafe God to exercife us with great pains or tedious fick nefs, we should make ufe of all the confiderations which reafon and religion do furnifh us withal, to help to mitigate and deceive our troubles, and to make that fhort, way a little more fmooth and easy. For the best of us have no privilege and exemption from the common accidents of humanity, no piety can certainly fecure to any of us an eafy and comfortable death; and therefore it is a groundlefs confidence for any man to reckon upon it; we muft in this, as in all other things, refign up ourfelves to God's good pleasure, and fubmit to him the time and manner, and all other circumstances of our departure out of this world; whether our fun fhall fet in a cloud, or fhine brightest and look biggest when it is going down. But however it fets, it is the fun ftill, and the fountain of light, and will rife gloriously. There are always the feeds of joy and comfort in the confci ence of a good man; and though they be hid and bu ried for a while, they will fpring forth one time or other. Light is fown for the righteous, and gladness for the up right in heart, as David affures us, Pfal. xcvii. 11. I will conclude all with the words of the author of this Pfalm, Deut. xxxii. 29. O that they were wife, that they understood this, that they would confider their latter end!

SERM ON CLXXXIX.

The life of Jefus Chrift confidered, as our example.

1 PET. ii. 21.

· Leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps. The firft fermon on this text.

T

HE Apoftle here propounds to Chriftians the example of our Saviour, as an argument to perfuade them to one particular grace and virtue, namely, patience under fufferings unjustly laid upon us, ver. 19. 20. 21. For this is thank-worthy, if a man for confcience toward God endure grief, fufferng wrongfully. For what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if when ye do well, and fuffer for it, ye take it patiently: this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: becaufe Chrift alfo fuffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye fhould follow his fteps.

But though the example of our Saviour be here propounded to us upon a particular occafion, and with a more efpecial regard to the particular virtue of patience under unjuft fufferings, which did fo eminently appear in our bleffed Saviour, the moft meek and patient endurer that ever was, of the greatest and most wrongful fufferings; yet the Apoftle does not limit this great pattern of all righteousness to the fingle virtue of patience, but propounds it to us, as an example of univerfal holinefs and goodnefs; for fo he extends it in the next words, leaving us an example, that ye fhould follow his Steps; who did no fin, neither was guile found in his mouth

In this latitude and extent I fhall difcourfe of it at this time, and that under thefe following heads;

1. That

I. That his life is a moft abfolute and perfect pat

tern.

'

II. That it is a very easy and familiar example. III. Very encouraging to the imitation of it. IV. An univerfal pattern fitted for the imitation of all forts of persons, 'of what rank or condition foever. V. In the nature of it, very powerful to engage and oblige men to the imitation of it.

1. The life of our blessed Saviour is a moft abfolute and perfect pattern of holinefs and goodness, compleat and entire in all its parts, and perfect to the utmost degree, in the following whereof there is no danger of being mifguided, no fear of mifcarriage: whereas all other examples of mortal men are fallible and uncertain guides, which if we follow too clofely, will fome time or other mis-lead us. In the lives of the best men recorded in fcripture, we may difcern fome fpot and blemish, fome error and overfight, fome fall or flip; fo that the lives of the holieft men are no fure rule, no perfect measure of our duty, and are therefore to be imitated with great wisdom and warinefs, left if we follow all their actions indifferently and implicitly, in confidence they are good because they are theirs, we may fall into great errors and failings; and therefore in following the lives and examples of the beft men, we must have an eye to the rule, and by that judge of the example which we propofe to imitate; otherwife we may easily be feduced by the authority of a great example.

But the example of our Lord is a living law and rule, his precepts and his pattern are of equal perfection, and the imitation of his life and actions is the very fame thing with obedience to his laws. For the life of our bleffed Saviour here on earth, is the life of God in the nature and likeness of man; he was God as well as man, and the divine nature is certainly the pattern of all perfection. As he was the Son of God, he was the brightness of his Father's glory, and the exprefs image and character of his perfon; and as he was the Son of Man, though he had natural frailties and infirmities, and was fubject to hunger and thirst, wearinefs and pain, like other men, yet he had all the moral perfections belong. ing to human nature, without any of the evil inclin

ations,

Ser. 189. ations, and finful frailties to which it is incident; and his human nature was affifted in an extraordinary manner by the Spirit of God, which was not communicated to him by measure, but he was anointed with that boly unction above his fellows, above all the fons of men, above all the Prophets and messengers of God that ever were sent to mankind; he had no fin, neither was guile found in his mouth. And indeed it was requifite, that be that was manifested to take away our fins, and to make expiation for them, fhould himself be without fin, as the Apostle to the Hebrews reafons, Heb. vii. 26. Such an high priest became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, Jeparate from finners: and had he not been fo, he could neither have been an example, nor an expiation.

And this is no fmall advantage to mankind, to have fo excellent a pattern of the fame nature with ourselves to imitate, fo perfect a copy to write after. For whoever would excel in any kind, must (as Quintilian fays) optima quæque exempla ad imitandum proponere,

propofe to himself the highest and most perfect ex-. "amples of that kind for his imitation;" and the example of our bleffed Saviour is unquestionably fuch a perfect pattern of all goodness and virtue, to the perfection whereof though we can never attain, yet it is a great advantage to have it always before us, and in our eye, that we may correct the errors and deformities of our lives, by the unfpotted purity and perfect innocency of his life, and that we may be always afpiring after farther degrees of goodness; for furely we can no way better learn how God would have men to live in this world, than by feeing how God himself lived, when he was pleafed to become man, to affume our nature, and dwell among us.

II. As the life of our bleffed Saviour is a most perfect, fo likewife it is a familiar and eafy, example. The divine nature is the great pattern of perfection; but that is too remote from us, and above our fight; no man bath feen God at any time, nor can fee him; and though his perfections are reprefented to our minds in fome degree, yet they are fo glorious and dazzling an object, that we cannot bear to behold them with that ftedfalt

nefs,

nefs, with which we ought to eye our pattern; and therefore God hath been pleafed to condefcend fo far to our weakness, as to give us a vifible example of thofe virtues he requires of us, in his own Son, appearing in the likeness of finful flesh; and the Son of God is an example of equal perfection with God himself, but much more eafy and familiar, and level to us, in which we may fee the feveral virtues of a good life practifed in fuch inftances, and upon fuch occafions, as do frequently happen in human life.

Nothing ever was more fimple and open, more obvious and easy to common imitation, than the life of our bleffed Saviour, in which there was nothing dark and mysterious, abftrufe and intricate; it was all perfect innocency and goodness, and he carried on one plain, and intelligible, and uniform defign, which was to do all the good he poffibly could to all men: this he purfued with all his might, with the greatest vigour and industry, with an undaunted courage and refolution, with an unwearied diligence, with a conftant chearfulness and ferenity of mind; this was his meat and drink, his great business and delight, his life and his happiness; he was not fupercilioufly morofe, had no affected fingularities, no peculiar aufterities in habit or diet, different from the common ufage of men; his converfation was kind and innocent, free and familiar, open and indifferent to all forts of perfons; for he was a phyfician, and every body had need of him, all mankind were his patients. He did not place religion (as fome have done fince) in retirement from the world, and fhunning the converfation of men, and taking great care to do no body good; not in profound myfteries and fine fpeculations, but in the plain and honeft practice of the folid and substantial virtues of a good life; in meeknefs and humility, in kindness and charity, in contentedness in a low and mean condition, and a calm composure of mind under all accidents and events, in patience under the greateft reproaches and fufferings, and a perfect fubmiffion to the will of God in all his difpenfations, how harfh and unpleafant fo

ever.

Now there is nothing in all this, but what lies open

to