ON THE IMITATION OF CHRIST.*

HEBREWS xii. 1, 2.-Let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

THERE is something singularly instructive and beautiful in the idea on which this exhortation of the sacred writer is founded,—namely, that the life of Christ was meant to be a model to men of all times of the manner in which they ought to acquit themselves, as beings who are gifted with a laborious and suffering nature,—and who have a task of great moment to themselves to perform,

* See note (P).

amidst a continued succession of perplexities and discouragements. The life of Christ was thus an exhibition of human nature not surrounded with such circumstances, and placed in such a sphere only as are fitted to draw forth sentiments of wonder, unaccompanied by any desire to imitate the excellencies by which it was distinguished,but of human nature as it is daily seen in the cases of those who are poor, and humble, and despised by men,—it was human nature struggling with its usual accompaniments of labour, and anxiety, and opposition, and reproach,―pursuing, however, its appointed task with a steadfastness and high principle which no difficulties could discourage, and no opposition subdue,—and though called, as it approached the termination of its course, to an increased endurance of all the horrors and of all the shame with which it had hitherto contended, yet passing even through this last accumulation of horrors with unshaken trust in the good providence of God, and with a triumphant assurance that he would yet" perfect that which concerned it."

It is quite true, indeed, that our Saviour, in the endurance of all this labour and sorrow, had a work appointed him of transcendent grandeur,

and suited, in the peculiarity of its character, to the high dignity of the nature which he sustained, and to the imposing relation in which he now stands to the whole family of man. His task, indeed, far outstripped in splendour and in value the most boasted of all the works that have ever been achieved by any other partaker of human nature; for he was to be the Instructor, and Regenerator, and Saviour of the human race, -and it is accordingly from this pre-eminent grandeur of his office, that all the courses of the divine economy were made to converge towards the time when he was to be manifested in the flesh,-that, in the execution of his work, he seems to us as if invested with a glory, far surpassing that of even the most illustrious of the good or wise who have been permitted to bestow important benefits on our world,-and that, in consequence of his enterprise, a "name has now been given him which is above every name,—that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

In those greater characteristics of his nature and work in which he thus stands out to our notice as

the Saviour of mankind, we certainly are not capable of imitating him,-and are not, therefore, invited, in any exhortation of Scripture, to so unsuitable a task. But the striking feature of his life is, that while his work was of this magnificent kind, it was wrought out by him, not as those who looked for his coming anticipated, in the character of a Prince or a Conqueror, nor as we who live after he has been actually manifested are too apt to imagine, with views, and feelings, and circumstances of character and station, as far above all the ordinary conditions of human nature, as the work assigned him was superior to every other that has been imposed upon man,—but, on the contrary, that it was accomplished by him as a Man struggling like other men with humble circumstances,—and apparently poor means,-amidst fears,—and sorrows,-and difficulties, and temptations,―with the awful weight of human reproach as his portion,-during years in which the results of his labours seemed utterly disproportioned to the ultimate purpose at which he professed to aim,—and at last by a resolute endurance of the deepest suffering and the most depressing ignominy into which human nature can