will have a tendency to promote the salvation of others? If any self-denial or forbearance on my part can advance, in the remotest degree, the salvation of a weak brother, I will die rather than gratify myself at his expense.]
That this is no extravagant requirement, will ap- pear if we consult,
III. The examples which Christ and his Apostles have set us in reference to this very thing —
St. Paul calls us to " be followers of him, even as he was of Christ."
Consider how our blessed Saviour acted under circumstances of this kind —
[He was called upon to pay a tribute levied for the sup- port and service of the temple. From this, as being the Son of God, he might have pleaded an exemption : because it is an acknowledged fact, that kings receive tribute from strangers only, and not from their own children. But he knew that the Jews would not be able to see the truth and justice of his plea, and that his acting upon it would give serious offence : he therefore waved his right; and chose rather to work a miracle for the satisfying of their demands, than give offence to them by an assertion of his rights. Nor did he only wave his right in this particular, but gave occasion to all present to deny that he possessed any such right, or stood in any such relation to Jehovah as would have authorized him to assert it. Yet he considered not himself, but others only; and chose to submit to any thing, however humiliating, rather than, by maintaining his right, to put a stumbling-block in their way*^. Thus, by his example, he taught all his followers, not to please themselves, but " to please every man his neigh- bour for good to edification''."]
Observe, also, how St. Paul acted —
[It was not on any particular occasion that he conformed to this rule, but constantly, and in circumstances of continual occurrence. Hear his own account of his daily practice: " Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews : to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law:
^ Matt. xvii. 24—27. « Rorn. xv. 2, 3.