thy holiness degenerates into wickedness. 'Wliat greater impiety than pride, — such a pride as lords it over Christ, and alters the method which God himself hath set for saving souls ? O soul, if thou wouldst be holy, learn to he lunnble ! They are clasped together, Micah vi. 8 : ' What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God !' and how he that trusts in his own holiness, should be said to walk humbly, it cannot enter into our heart to conceive. God sets not thee to earn heaven by thy holiness, but thereby to shew thy love and thankfulness to Christ that hath earned it for thee. Hence the great argument Christ useth to provoke his disciples to holi- ness is love : ' If ye love me, keep my commandments,' John xiv. As if he had said. You know what I came into the world, and am noM' going out of the world, for ; l)oth upon your service, for whom I lay down my life, and take it up again, that I may live in heaven to intercede for you; if these, and the blessed fruits you reap from these, be valued by you, love me ; and if you love me, testify it in keeping my commandments. That is gospel holiness which is bred and fed by this love, when all the Christian doth is by him oflered up as a thanksgiving sacrifice to Christ, ' that loved us to death.' Thus the spouse to Christ, Cant, vii. 12: 'I will give thee my loves;' what she means by her loves, she ex- presseth ver. 13 : ' All manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved !' In ver. 10, she had professed her fiith on Christ, and drimk deep of his love : and now, to rebound his love in thankful- ness, she bestirs herself to entertain him with the pleasant fruits of his own graces, as gathered from a holy conversation, which she doth not lay up to feed her pride and self-confidence with, but reserves them for her beloved, that he may have the entire praise of them.
Section I V. — Fourthly, Often look on the perfect pattern which Christ in liis own example hath given thee for a holy life. Our hand will be as the copy is we wi'ite after, if we set low examples before us, it cannot be expected we should rise high ourselves ; and, indeed, the holiest saint on earth is too low to be our pattern, because perfection in holiness must be aimed at by the weakest Christian, 2 Cor. vii. 1 : and that is not to be found in the best of saints in this lower v/orld. Moses, the meekest man on earth, at a time his spirit is ruflfled ; and Peter, the foreman of the apostles, doth not always, ' foot it right,' accord- ing to the gospel, Gal. ii. 14. And he that would follow him then is sure to go out of his way. The good soldier follows his file-leader, not when he runs away, but when he marches after his captain orderlj^, 1 Cor. xi. 1 : 'Be ye fol- lowers of me, as I also am of Christ.' The comment must be followed no further than it agrees with the text. The master doth not only rule the scholar's book for him, but writes him a copy with his own hand. Christ's command is our rule, his life oiu- copy ; if thou wilt walk holily, thou must not only endeavour to do what Chrisfrtcommands, but as Christ himself did it ; thou must labour to shape every letter in thy copy, action in life, in a holy imitation of Christ. By holiness we are the very 'image of Christ,' Rom. viii. 29. We present Christ, and hold him forth to all that see us. Now two things go to make a thing the image of another: first, likeness; secondly, derivation. It must not only be like it, but this likeness must be deduced and derived from it ; snow and milk are both white alike, yet we cannot say that they are the image one of another, because that likeness they have is not derived either from other. But the pictiu-e which is drawn every line by the face of a man, this may pi'operly be called the image of that man, after whose likeness it is made. Thus true holiness is that which is derived from Christ, when the soul sets Christ in his word, and Christ in his example, before him : as one would the person whose picture he intends to draw, and labours to draw every line in his life by these. O this is a sweet way indeed to maintain the power of holiness ! when thou art tempted to any vanity, set Christ before thy eye in his holy walking ; ask thy soul. Am I in this speech, action, company I consort with, like Christ ? Did he, or would he, if again to live on earth, do as I do? Would not he be more choice of his words than I am ? Did ever such a vain s])eech drop from his lips.' Would he delight in such company as I do? Spend his time upon such trifles and impertinences as I do? Would he bestow so much cost in pampering of his body, and swallow down his tlu-oat at one meal, what would feed many poor creatin-es ready to starve for want ? Would he be in
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