3. The examples of God's children are but the word exem})lified, the rule drawn out into practice. The word is the means of conversion, wherever it is written, preached, or lived, and every christian is as it were a walking bible. As it was said of a learned man that he was fiovielov irepLaiTTovv, a walking library ; so a child of God that walks in innocency and strictness of lite is a walking and a living reproof ; there- fore his life must needs convince and condemn the world. There are some Avhose special office it is to preach ; but every christian may live a sermon. You may be all preacliei-s in this kind : 2 Cor. iii. 3, ' For- asmuch as you are declared to be the epistle of Jesus Christ.' Mark. Christ doth by his servants, as it were, declare and write his mind to the world ; they are a living rule. You that are believers are to make out the glory of Christ, the efficacy of his Spirit, and the strictness of his doctrine to the world ; you are to show forth — ra^ apera? — ' the virtues of him that hath called you,' 1 Peter ii. 9, to declare M^hat manner of person Christ is, and what is his glory ; he sends you out as so many lively copies and stamps of liis image. The gospel is called the image of God, and a christian is the image of God too. The gospel is the glass wherein we behold his glory : 2 Cor. iii. 18, ' We all as in a glass beholding the glory of the Lord,' &c ; it is the picture which Jesus Christ hath sent to his bride. As you know there is Caesar's image upon his coin, and Cfesar's image upon his son, he is his living image ; so the scriptures are the image of God, where he hath displayed the excellency and perfection of his nature as we are capable to under- stand it ; but christians who are his sous and children are his living image that must discover his glory.
4. The example of the godly shows the strictness and severity of religion is possible ; so that l)y that means it condemns the world of their negligence. Men think the rules of the gospel, because they exceed the power and force of nature, are only calculated for angels.
VeK. 7.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 211
But now when men that live in the flesh, that Hve such a kind of life as we do, yet live ahove the flesh, the world is left without excuse, and their negligence and carelessness is hereby condemned. 1 Peter iv. 4, ' They think it strange,' saith the apostle, ' that you run not with them to the same excess of riot.' Carnal men think that there is such a felicity in their kind of lives that they wonder others are not as greedy of it as they ; but now they are condemned in their thoughts when they behold the strictness, the mortification, the self-denial that is in the lives of christians. You may do it, it is possible ; for there are many about you that have done it ; and if you do not, you are left without excuse : Heb. vi. 12, ' Be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.' When the apostle speaks of resisting of Satan, and maintaining the spiritual life against the assaults of the powers of darkness, he gives this as one reason : 1 Peter v. 9, ' Knowing that the same afflictions are accom- plished in your brethren that are in the world.' Your brethren in the flesh — that have bodies as you have, that need the common supports of life as you do, that have not divested themselves of the interests and concernments of flesh and blood — they can resist a busy devil and a naughty world, and can wrestle with the corruptions of their own hearts : they tliat are of the same lump and nature that you are, they can do these things.
5. Because the examples of others make conscience work whenever you see it. Natural conscience doth homage to the image of God which is stamped upon his children. AYhen they see their works and their strictness raised to such a height and proportion as nature cannot reach it, then they tremble ; it makes their conscience to work : 1 Peter iii. 1, 2. ' They that obey not the word may without the wOrd be won by the conversa;tion of the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation, coupled with fear.' The word ' coupled' is not in the original, and the sense is perfect without it ; it may be read thus. 'When they behold your chaste conversation with fear.' A wicked man cannot look upon a strict christian without trembJing ; wiien they behold the strictness and severity of their lives, it makes them to quake. It is said of Herod, Mark vi. 10, that ' he feared John ; ' not so much because he was a severe preacher, one that would rub truth upon his conscience ; he did not only fear him as a prophet, but as a 'just man.' Innocency and strictness beget fear ; they are objects reviving guilt, and make conscience return upon itself ; when they see their holy and godly conversation, it makes them to think of their own carelessness and sin; it is like a blow upon a sore, which makes the heart ache. The presence of God is dreadful to sinners anywhere, be it in eminent providences or in ordinances ; but in the lives of his cliildren it begets secret fear and some nips of conscience : Deut. xxviii. 10, ' All the people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee ; ' when they behold the graciousness of conversation which the godly hold forth. That is the reason why wicked men are in prison when they are in good company ; they are taken with a fit of trembling. How despicable soever the godly are in their eyes, yet there is one of their judges present that condemns them for the present, and will pass judgment upon them hereafter. Ignatius,