two, that was the very triumph of the martyrs in times of persecution, that tormented their tormentors, and made them more than conquerors, even in sufferings.

Now that we are called both to suffering and to this manner of suffering, the apostle puts out of question, by the supreme example of our Lord Jesus Christ; for the sum of our calling is, to follow him. Now in both these, in suffering and in suffering innocently and patiently, the whole history of the gospel testifies how complete a pattern he is; and the apostle gives us here a summary, yet a very clear account of it.

The words have in them these two things: I. the per fection of this example; II. our obligation to follow it.

I. The example he sets off to the full-in regard of the greatness of our Saviour's sufferings, and in regard of his spotlessness and patience in suffering.

1. The first we have in that word, He suffered; and afterwards, ver. 24, we have his crucifixion and his stripes expressly specified.

The Captain or Leader of our salvation was made perfect by sufferings; that was the way by which he entered into the holy place, where he is now our everlasting High Priest, making intercession for us. If he be our leader to salvation, must not we follow him in the way he leads, whatsoever it is? If it be, as we see it is, by the way of sufferings, we must either follow on in that way, or fall short of salvation; for there is no other leader, nor any other way than that which he opened: so that there is not only a suitableness in it, that his followers be conformed to him in suffering, but a necessity, if they will follow him on till they attain to glory. And the consideration of both these cannot but argue a Christian into a resolution for this royal way of suffering that leads to glory, through which his King and Lord himself went to his glory. It could hardly be believed at first, that this was his way, and we can as hardly yet believe that it must be ours. O fools and slow of heart to believe! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? Would you be at glory, and will you not follow your leader in the only way to it? Must there be another way cut out for you by yourself? O absurd! Shall the servant be

greater than his master? Are not you fairly dealt with? If you have a mind to Christ, you shall have full as much of the world's good-will as he had. If it hates you, he bids you remember, how it hated him.

But though there were a way to do otherwise, would you not, if the love of Christ possessed your hearts, rather choose to share with him in his lot, and would you not find delight in the very trouble of it? Is not this conformity to Jesus the great ambition of all his truehearted followers? We carry about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, says the great apostle, 2 Cor. iv, 10. Besides the unspeakable advantage to come, which goes linked with this, that if we suffer with him, we shall reign with him, there is a glory even in this present resemblance, that we are conformed to the image of the Son of God in sufferings. Why should we desire to leave him? Are you not one with him? Can you choose but have the same common friends and enemies? Would you willingly, if it might be, could you find in your heart to be friends with that world which hated your Lord and Master? Would you have nothing but kindness and ease, where he had nothing but enmity and trouble? Or would you not rather, when you think aright of it, refuse and disdain to be so unlike him?-as that good duke said, when they would have crowned him king of Jerusalem, "No," said he, "by no means; I will not wear a crown of gold where Jesus was crowned with thorns."

2. His spotlessness and patience in suffering are both of them set here before us; the one ver. 22, the other ver. 23.

Whosoever thou art who makest such a noise about the injustice of what thou sufferest, and thinkest to justify thy impatience by thine innocence, let me ask thee, art thou more just and innocent than he who is here set before thee? Or art thou able to come near him in this point? Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. But all Christ's words as well has his actions, and all his thoughts, flowed from a pure spring that had not any thing defiled in it; and therefore no temptation, either from men or Satan, could seize on him. Other men may seem clear as long as they are unstirred, but move and trouble

them, and the mud arises; but he was nothing but holiness, a pure fountain, all purity to the bottom; and therefore stir and trouble him as they would, he was still alike clear. The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. This is the main ground of our confidence in him, that he is a holy, harmless, undefiled high Priest; and such a one became us, says the apostle, who are so sinful, Heb. vii, 26. 'The more sinful we are, the more need that our high Priest should be sinless; and being so, we may build upon his perfection, as standing in our stead, yea, we are invested with him and his righteousness.

Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. This spotless Lamb of God, was a Lamb both in guiltlessness and silence; and the prophet Isaiah expresses the resemblance, in that he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter. He suffered not only an unjust sentence of death, but withal unjust revilings, the contradictions of sinners. No one ever did so little deserve revilings; no one ever could have said so much in his own just defence and to the just reproach of his enemies; and yet in both he preferred silence. No one could ever threaten so heavy things as he could against his enemies, and have made good all he threatened, and yet no such thing was heard from him. The heavens and the earth, as it were, spoke their resentment of his death who made them, but he was silent; or what he spoke makes this still good, how far he was from revilings and threatenings. And when all the torments of the cross and all the revilings of the multitude, racked him as it were for some answer, yet they could draw no other from him than this, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Instead of revilings and threatenings, he committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. And this is the true method of Christian patience, that which quiets the mind and keeps it from the boiling tumultuous thoughts of revenge, to turn the whole matter into God's hand, to resign it over to him, to prosecute when and as he thinks good-not as most men, who had rather, if they had power, do for themselves and be their own avengers; and because they have not power, do offer up such bitter curses and prayers for revenge unto . Div. No. VI.

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God, as are most hateful to him, and are far from this calm and holy way of committing matters to his judgment. The common way of referring things to God is indeed impious and dishonorable to him, being really no other than calling him to be a servant and executioner to our passion. We ordinarily mistake his justice, and judge of it according to our own precipitant and distempered minds. If wicked men be not crossed in their designs and their wickedness evidently crushed just when we would have it, we are ready to give up the matter as desperate, or at least to abate of those confident and reverential thoughts of divine justice which we owe him. Howsoever things go, this ought to be fixed in our hearts, that he who sitteth in heaven judgeth righteously, and executes that his righteous judgment in the fittest season. poor worms, whose whole life is but a hand-breadth in itself, and is as nothing unto God, think a few months or years a great matter: but to him who inhabiteth eternity, a thousand years are but as one day.

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II. Our obligation to follow the example of Christ, besides being enforced by its own excellency, is intimated in these two things contained in the words the design of his behaviour for this use, to be as an example to us; and our interest in him and those his sufferings, wherein he so carried himself.

1. That his behaviour was intended for an example; Leaving us an example. He left his footsteps as a copy, as the word in the original imports, to be followed by us. Every step of his is a letter of this copy; and particularly in this point of suffering, he wrote us a pure and perfect copy of obedience, in clear and great letters, in his own blood. His whole life is our rule; not, indeed his miraculous works, his footsteps walking on the sea, and such like, they are not for our following; but his obedience, holiness, meekness, and humility, are our copy, which we should continually study.

He that aims high, shoots the higher for it, though he shoot not so high as he aims. This is what ennobles the spirit of a Christian, the propounding of this our high pattern, the example of Jesus Christ.

2. The other thing obliging us, is, our interest in him and his sufferings; He suffered for us. And to this

267 the apostle returns, ver. 24. Observe only from the tie of these two, that if we neglect his example set before us, we cannot enjoy any right assurance of his suffering for us; but if we do seriously endeavour to follow him, then we may expect to obtain life through his death, and those steps of his wherein we walk, will bring us ere long to be where he is.

Ver. 24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed. THAT which is deepest in the heart is generally most in the mouth; that which abounds within, runs over most by the tongue or pen. When men light upon the speaking of that subject which possesses their affection, they can hardly be taken off or drawn from it again. Thus the apostles in their writings, when they make mention any way of Christ suffering for us, love to dwell on it, as that which they take most delight to speak of; such sweetness is there in it to a spiritual taste, that they like to keep it in their mouth, and are never out of their theme, when they insist on Jesus Christ, though they have but named him by occasion of some other doctrine; for he is the great subject of all they have to say.

Thus here; the apostle had spoken of Christ in the foregoing words very fitly to his present subject, setting him before Christian servants and all suffering Christians as their complete example, both in point of much suffering and of perfect innocence and patience in-suffering, and he had expressed their obligation to study and follow that example; yet he cannot leave it so, but having said that all those his sufferings, wherein he was so exemplary, were for us, as a chief consideration for which we should study to be like him, he returns to that again and enlarges upon it in words partly the same, partly very near those of that evangelist among the prophets, Isaiah, liii, 4.

And it suits very well with his main scope, to press this point, as giving both very much strength and sweetness to the exhortation; for surely it is most reasonable, that we willingly conform to him in suffering, who had never been an example of suffering, nor subject at all to