his own body on the tree;" enduring in his own person tne curse due to them, that they through him might inherit eternal blessedness d.]
To resemble him should be the summit of our ambition —
[As to the ends and purposes of his humiliation, he must for ever stand alone : for " no man can redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for hime." But we may " bear one another's burthens ;" and we ought to do so ; for this is the law imposed on us by Christ himself f: we may consider all our faculties, and time, and wealth, and influence as talents committed to our care, to be improved for God and for the benefit of our fellow-creatures : we may value them all, only as means of doing good : we may make the good of others to be the great business and end of our lives, and study by all pos- sible means to promote the comfort of their bodies, and the salvation of their souls. We may cheerfully submit to sacrifice our ease, our reputation, our liberty, yea, our very lives, in their service : yes ; we may, and " we ought to, lay down our lives for the brethren," if by such a sacrifice we may promote their eternal interests6. Here, I say, is scope for our am- bition : nor can we possibly be too ardent in such a career as that. We must not indeed labour even in such a way for the honour that cometh of man : to be aspiring after eminence with a view to man's applause, would vitiate all the actions that we could ever perform, and deprive us of all hope of acceptance with God : but, if we abound in works and labours of love for the honour of God and the good of man, then, the more numerous and self-denying those labours are, the more exalted shall we be in the estimation of God himself; and if we would possess the most distinguished place in his kingdom, this is the legitimate and the only method to obtain it. We know that the Apostle Paul was " not a whit behind the very chiefest Apostles :" and the reason was, that " he laboured more abundantly than they all," and rendered both to God and man the greatest measure of difficult and self-denying services'1. In a word, he most resembled his Divine Master: and in proportion as we also resemble Christ, will be our real dignity and honour.]
From this subject we may learn,
1. The true nature of Christian morality —
[The generality of Christians have a scheme of morals scarcely elevated beyond the systems which were established
d 2 Cor. v. 21. e Ps. xlix. 7. f Gal. vi. 2.
e 1 Jolmiii. 16. h 2 Cor. xi. 5, 22— 2S.