Thirdly, Our Lord Jesus Christ was yet more humbled in his life, by that poverty and outward meanness which all along attend- ed his condition : he lived poor and low all his days, so speaks the apostle, 2 Cor. viii. 9. " Though he was rich, yet for our sakes t* he became poor ;"" so poor, that he was never owner of a house to dwell in, but lived all his days in other men's houses, or lay in the open air. His outward condition was more neglected and des- titute than that of the birds of the air, or beasts of the earth ; so he told that scribe, who professed such readiness and resolution to follow him, but was soon cooled, when Christ told him, Matth. viii. 20. " The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have " nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." It was a common saying among the Jewrs, when the Messiah comes, he -will not find a place to sit dozen in * Sometimes he feeds upon barley-bread and broiled fish ? and sometimes he was hungry, and had nothing to eat, Mark xi. 12. As for money, he was much a stranger to it ; when the tribute-money was demanded of him, he and Peter were not so well furnished to make half-a-crown betwixt them to pay it -f-, but must work a miracle for it, Matt. xvii. ult.
He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, Mat. xx. 28. not to amass earthly treasures, but to bestow heavenly ones. His great and heavenly soul neglected and despised those things, that too many of his owti too much admire and prosecute. He spent not a careful thought about those things that eat up thousands and ten thousands of our thoughts. Indeed he came to be humbled, and to teach men by his example the vanity of this -world, and pour contempt upon the ensnaring glory of it; and therefore went before us in a J chosen and voluntary poverty : yet he lived not a mendicant life neither ; but was sometimes fed by ordinary, and sometimes by miraculous and extraordinary ways. He had wherewith to support that precious body of his, till the time was
• This passage is manifestly taken from among these which the Jews, even then, carried about as traditions of the fathers, coneerning the coming of the Messiah ; and is applied accordingly : such was the saying of the Gemarists, that when he came, there would not be a place for him to sit down, or to rest his body on. Heinsius «n t'iis passage.
The word far^P, which in Matth. xvii. 27. is rendered a piece of money, contained two drachma, and was in value 25. 6d.
t Christ's poverty was not in consequence of any singular vow, or like that of a mendicant. Ames. Med. p. 104.
*FRM. XIX. TIIE FOUNTAIN OF LIFF. 23<j
come to offer it up to God ; but would not indulge and pamper that flesh, which lie purposely assumed to lie humbled in.
Fourthly, Our dear Jesus was yet further humbled in his life, by the horrid temptations wherewith Satan assaulted him, than which nothing could be more grievous to his holy heart. * The Evangelist gives us an account of this in Luke iv. from the first to the fourteenth verse : in which context you find how the bold and envious spirit meets the Captain of our salvation in the field, comes up with him in the wilderness, when he was solitary, and had not a second with him, verse 1. there he keeps him fasting forty days and forty nights, to prepare him to close with his temptation : all this while Satan was pointing and edging that temptation, with which at last he resolves to try the breast of Christ by a home thrust, verse 2. By this time he supposes Christ was hungry, (as indeed he was) and now he thought it was time to make his assault, which he doth in a very suitable temptation at first, and with variety of temptations, trying several weapons upon him afterwards. But when he had made a thrust at him with that first weapon, in which he especially trusted, " command that these stones may be " made bread,*1 verse 3. and saw how Christ had put it bv, verse 4. then he changes postures, and assaults him with temptations to blasphemy, even " to fall down and worship the Devil.'" But when he saw he could fasten nothing on him, that he was as pure fountain-water in a chrystal phial, how much soever agitated and shaken, no dregs, or filthy sediment would rise, but he remained pure still : I say, seeing this, he makes a politic retreat, quits the field for a season, verse 13. yet leaves it cum animo revertendi, with a resolution to return to him a^ain. And thus was our blessed Lord Jesus humbled by the temptations of Satan : and what can you imagine more burdensome to him that was brought up from eternity with God, delighting in the holy Father, to be now shut into a wilderness with the Devil, there to be baited so many days, and have his esas fitted, though not defiled, with horrid blasphemy ; quantum mutatus ab illo f O how was the case altered with Christ ! from what, to what was he now come? A chaste woman would account it no common misery to be dogged up and down, and soli- cited by some vile ruffian, though there were no danger of de- iilement.
A man would account it no small unhappiness to be shut up five or six weeks together with the Devil, though appearing in a hu- man shape, and to hear no language but that of hell spoken all
* It is the fittest and most ordinary season for Satan to tempt, when he sees men hungering and thirsting after temporal things; as the fowler prepares his net especially in the winter season, when the birds have nothing to eat. Ht.ipleUnis prompt, p. 418,
£40 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SERM. XIX.
that time ; and the more holy the man is, the more would he be afflicted to hear such blasphemies malignantly spat upon the holy and reverend name of God; much more to be solicited by the devil to join with him in it. This, I say, would be accounted no small misery for a man to undergo. How great a humiliation then must it be to the great God, to be humbled to this ! to see a slave of his house, setting upon himself the Lord ! His jailor coming to take him prisoner, if he can ! A base apostate spirit, daring to attempt such things as these upon him ! Surely this was a deep abasement to the Son of God.