Example of the Deity, whom no Afflictions can approach, but in Confideration of his Goodness and Power, who thinks fit to inflict them on us. In the Inftance of Mercy and Forgiveness, to which the Exhortation in the Text stands applied, there can be no greater or properer Motive to Obedience than the Example of our heavenly Father; it cuts off all the Pretences which Men have for Anger or Revenge. Has your Enemy abused or affronted you? What then? Are you greater than God, who bears with fo much Lenity the perpetual Abuses and Affronts of wicked Men? Or are you provoked to revenge the Iniquities you behold, and to extirpate the Prophane and Ungodly? Believe at least that God is not unconcerned for his own Honour; and therefore, even in this Cafe, you cannot be more fafe or fecure than by following the Example which he fets you in the daily Administrations of his Providence.

Suppofing then that this Example is confined to the Exercise of Love and Mercy; yet ftill, can we pretend to be as good and as merciful as God is, or does our Saviour require it of us? If not, where is the Limitation to be placed? It must be placed undoubtedly

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doubtedly where our Saviour himself has placed it. He tells you how imperfect the old Doctrine was, because it required of us only to love our Friends, and permitted us to hate our Enemies: But God, says he, loves and does good to his Enemies, as well as his Friends. This is perfect Love, not reftrained by Partialities. When therefore it follows, Be ye perfect, as your Father; the precife Meaning is, let your Love be univerfal, unconfined by Partialities, and, with respect to its Objects, as large as God's is: Not that our Love either to Enemies or Friends can be supposed in other Respects, and as to the Effects of it, to bear any Proportion to the Divine Love.

But, as in this Cafe of extending our Love, the Example is proper, and therefore alfo the Exhortation to follow it; fo in others it would be very injurious to the Deity to fuppose, that any Example could be drawn from his Perfections. In our prefent State of Corruption, it is a great Part of Religion to govern our Thoughts well, and the inward Inclinations of our Hearts; but it would be as reasonable to bid us govern the World as God governs it, as to govern our Thoughts as he governs his: He is liable to none of the Imperfec

tions, which make the Government of our Thoughts to be a neceffary Duty in us: He has told us, My Thoughts are not as your Thoughts: And where is no Similitude in the Cafes, no Example can be drawn from the one to the other. So that in this, and in many other Instances which might be given, we have a Duty incumbent on us, towards the due Performance of which we can draw no Example from the Divine Perfections. Since then the Exhortation to imitate the Divine Perfections cannot reach to all Parts of our Duty, I see no Reason why it should be extended to any upon the Authority of our Saviour, to which he himself has not extended it; and as the Ufe of it is peculiarly referved in Holy Writ to the Cafe of Mercy and Forgiveness, it ought by no means to be drawn into a general Precept, to the perplexing as well the Understandings, as the Confciences of the Weak. St. Paul, in his Epiftle to the Ephefians, exhorts them to be Followers of God as dear Children: But then it is with regard to this very Cafe; for he had faid immediately before, Chap. iv. 32. Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's Jake hath forgiven you; and, with reference to

this Duty, he adds, ver. 1ft of the next Chapter, Be ye therefore Followers of God, as dear Children; to which he fubjoins, And walk in Love, as Chrift alfo hath loved us, giving himself for us, yer. 2. So that his Exhortation to follow God ftands inclosed on both Sides with the Precepts of Love and Charity, as if he intended to fecure it from being applied to any thing else. And if our Saviour meant any thing more in the Text, if he had a View to any other Duties or Commands than that of Love and Mercy only, when he placed before us the Example of our heavenly Father, St. Luke, I am fure, has done him great Injury in reporting his Doctrine. He, in the fixth Chapter of his Gospel, gives us the Sermon on the Mount; when he comes to the Topic of Love and Forgiveness, he introduces the Example of God, who is kind to the Unthankful, and to the Evil. He concludes alfo with an Exhortation referring to the Example, as St. Matthew does: But instead of the general Phrase ufed by St. Matthew, Be ye perfect, as your Father is perfect; St. Luke has it only, Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. The two Evangelists are giving an Account of the fame Sermon, and of the

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fame Paffage; and if they are consistent, St. Matthew's, Be ye perfect, as God is perfect, can relate only to that particular Perfection of Mercy and Forgiveness, which our Şaviour had been recommending, and is of no greater Extent than St. Luke's, Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father alfo is merciful. The Holy Writers often require of us that we should be perfect and blameless; that is, as St. Paul expreffes it in the fourth of the Coloffians, and twelfth Verfe, that we should Stand perfect and complete in all the Will of God: But it is one thing to be perfect in all the Will of God, and another to be perfect even as he is perfect. The Will of God, however manifefted to us, is the proper Rule of the Perfection we ought to aim at; but the tranfcendent Perfections of the Deity are to be reverenced and adored, but never attained to by any Creature.

It is true, that as the moral Perfections of the Deity afford us the trueft Image of Holinefs and Purity, fo are they the best Patterns to place before our Eyes for the Conduct of our own Lives. It is praise-worthy to imitate a Perfection as far as we are able, though we can never hope to come up to the great Original: And though there is no