121) FALLING SHORT OF HEAVEN. Believe me, friends, the natural habit of christianity is all decency and loveliness : We put the religion of our Saviour into .. a disguise, and make it look unlike itself; if our temper be sour and fretful, if our carriage be coarse and rude, and our speech savour of roughness and wrath. A Jew might make a bet- ter apology, for a harsh and severe deportment, than á chris- tian could do ; he might put on a morose air with better countenance, and plead the dispensation he was under, the bondage of the law, and the terrors of mount Sinai. But we under the gospel, are free-born ; Gal. iv. 26-31, and our carriage shouldbe ingenuous in all respects. John the bap- tist, in his garment of hair, maybe indulged in a roughness of speech ; he was but a forerunner of the gospel, and can hardly be called a christian : but the followers of the Lamb should have a mild aspect, a pleasing manner, that every one whobeholds us may love us too ; that the Son of God, if he were here upon earth, might look upon us and love us inboth his natures, with a divine and human love. Thirdly, The last address I would make to those who are furnished with every good quality, and every divine grace, who are beloved by God and men. Such aone was our Lord Jesus Christ in the days of his flesh He, from his very childhood, grew in wisdom, and in stature; and in favour with God and man ; Luke ii. 52. I3e had further discoveries of divine love made .to him daily : and as his acquaintance increased in his younger years, so did his friends too, till his divine commission made it necessary for him to oppose thecorruptions ofhis country, and reform a wicked age, and thus expose himself to the anger ofa nation that would not be reformed. There was something lovely in his human nature, beyond the common appearance of mankind; for his body was a temple, in which the godhead dwelt in a peculiar and transcendant manner, and his soul was intimately united to divinity. Icannot but think, that, in a literal sense, he wasfairer than the children of men, and that there was grace in his lips, and a natural sweetness in hislanguage: Psal. xlv. 2. If the Jews beheld no comeliness inhim, ifhis visage was marred more than the sons of men, it was because he was a man of uncommon sorrows, and acquainted withgrief; which might cast something of heaviness or gloom upon his countenance, or wear out the features of youth too soon. But surely our Lord, in the whole composition of his nature, in the mildness ofhis deportment, and in all the graces ofconversation, was the ehiefest of ten thousands, and altogether lovely. How amiable are those who are made like him ? Such was John the beloved disciple ; you may read he temper of his soul in his epistles : What a spirit of love breathes
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=