exhortation referring to the example, as St. Matthew does : but instead of the general phrase used 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 same sermon, and of the same passage; 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 Saviour had been recommending, and is of no greater extent than St. Luke's, Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.' The holy writers often require of us that we should be perfect and blameless; that is, as St. Paul expresses it in the fourth of the Colossians, and twelth verse, 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 manifested to us, is the proper rule of the perfection we ought to aim at; but the transcendent perfections of the Deity are to be reverenced and adored, but never attained to by any creaturé.

It is true, that as the moral perfections of the Deity afford us the truest image of holiness and purity, so are they the best patterns to place before our eyes for the conduct of our own lives. It is praiseworthy 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 room to exhort men to be perfect as God is perfect, yet it is reasonable to press them to imitate their heavenly Father. For neither he who advises the imitation, nor he who attempts it, go on the supposition that it is either necessary or possible to be as perfect as he: but this they both agree in, that the nearer any one can come to the pattern, the more perfect he will be; and therefore the imitation of God has not for its end the attaining to the perfections of God, but the attaining to the greatest perfection we are capable of. In this sense St. Peter exhorts us to be holy, because God is holy: For as he,' says the Apostle, 'which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation' 1 Peter i. 15. And St. John, in his first Epistle, chap. iii. 3. to the same purpose: "Every man that hath this

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hope in him, purifieth himself even as he is pure.' The notion we have of the purity and holiness of God is a very powerful motive to us to be holy and pure, since nothing but holiness and purity can recommend us to the favor and protection of a being who is holy and pure. A conformity therefore to the divine nature in the moral perfections of it, is the utmost excellence and happiness of human souls, and that which we ought to labor to attain with the greatest ardor and contention of mind. It is a noble subject for the entertainment of our thoughts; but it has had the misfortune to owe more to the power of imagination than to the light of reason; and has had so great a place allowed it in some enthusiastical writers, as to be less cultivated than it deserves by soberer inquirers. And yet this conformity to the divine nature was a lesson taught by some few wise heathens, who found, by the light of reason and nature, wherein the true dignity and happiness of man consisted for the imitation of God is not a new principle introduced into religion by the revelation of the gospel, but has its foundation in the reason and nature of things.

And this was the second thing I proposed to consider.

That we should endeavor to be perfect, even as God is perfect, in the strict meaning of the words, is no more the direction of reason than it is of revelation; he knows but little of himself, and less of God, who is capable of such a thought. But that we should aim at the resemblance of the divine perfections, as far as our present state will permit, is but the natural consequence arising from the knowlege we have of God, and the obligation we are under to cultivate and improve our own minds. God is a rational being, and so are we, though at a great distance from him. As we are thus far made in the image and likeness of God, so are we capable, by the enlargement of our faculties, of a nearer approach to him for the moral perfections of all rational minds are in kind the same, however vastly they differ in degree. Were it otherwise, the perfections of the Deity could not be so much a pattern for us to follow. Were holiness, righteousness, justice, and mercy, of a different nature considered in God, from what they are when considered in man, it is plain that the holiness or goodness of God could be neither the example nor the motive of

holiness in men: and it would be absurd to say, as the Scripture does, Be ye holy, for I am holy;' unless holiness in both cases, as applied to God, and as applied to man, denoted a moral perfection of the same kind, proper to both as rational beings, though attainable by us only in that proportion which our weak nature will allow. Since then the perfections which are essential to God, considered as a rational being, are the very same which we, as rational beings, ought to aspire to, since they are in him in the utmost perfection also; to say that we ought to conform ourselves to the divine nature, and to imitate the excellences of it, is no more than to say that we ought to endeavor after those perfections which are natural and proper to rational minds; and which belong to us in consequence of that image and likeness of our Maker, which was stamped on us at our first creation.

But though the example of God be in itself a very strong motive and argument for holiness, yet in the nature of the thing example is but a secondary argument, and supposes an antecedent obligation to the duty, the due performance of which we learn from the example set before us. It is no reason for me to endeavor to do this or that, because I see another do it; for it may be fit for him to do, and yet very unfit for me to attempt; and therefore example can have no place till the rule of duty is first settled. It would be very absurd to think that every thing that God does yields a proper example for us to follow; and therefore we are to search for a reason why some of his perfections are proper examples, and others not so: that is, we are to search for their primary rule of duty, which obliges us to endeavor after some of the perfections discoverable in the Deity, and not the others.

In all inquiries of this kind, the last resort must be to the light of our own minds; from hence arises the obligation we are under to moral virtue. We are a law to ourselves, and such a law as no power whatever can absolve us from the obedience due to it, as long as we continue to enjoy the same powers and faculties of reason which at present we are endowed with. From this light of nature we learn both the law and the example which we are now inquiring after, that is, we learn our own obligation to holiness, and we learn to know God, who is perfect

holiness. Did reason discover to us the moral perfections of the Deity, without showing us at the same time any obligation incumbent on us to follow after the like perfections, the holiness of God so discovered would be no more an example for our imitation than his power is. It is therefore from the light of - our own minds that we discover the difference of moral good and evil, and the obligations consequent on that difference; it is from the same light that we find the moral perfections to be possessed by the Deity in their utmost beauty: so that the same reason and nature which holds forth to us the rule of our duty, holds forth also the perfect example of it. Now, since no example is a good one which does not teach the same doctrine with the rule of duty, and the rule of duty in this case being the light of our own minds; it must necessarily follow that to obey the dictates of reason, and to imitate the example of God, is in the end one and the same thing.

That it must be so will appear by considering that we can no other way trace the perfections of the Deity, but from those natural notions of perfection which we find in our own minds: we should not ascribe to God holiness, justice, and mercy, did not the light of reason discover to us the excellences of these attributes. Now the holiness, justice, and mercy, which the light of reason discovers, are the moral virtues which we are obliged to follow after; they are also the perfections which we ascribe to the Deity: so that whether we follow the dictates of reason in endeavoring after these virtues, or whether we look up to the Deity, and copy from the perfections of his nature; it is evident that in both cases we follow the same virtues, though placed before us in a different view. For since our notion of the perfections of the Deity must be formed from such natural notions of moral perfection, as reason and the light of nature can supply: whether we consider these perfections as inherent in the Deity, and endeavor to copy after the first and great original, or whether we take our natural notions of moral virtue, as principles and rules of religion, which ought to influence and direct our lives, the issue will be the same with respect to our practice. It is easier for men, when once they have a notion of a perfect righteous Being, to consider, in particular cases, what such a Being would do or approve, than to run up

in an abstracted way of reasoning to first principles and maxims for direction. But whichever way you take, the inquiry is the same, namely, what is fit and reasonable to be done in this or that case and let the method of inquiry be what it will, the judgment must be such as our present share of reason will enable us to make. And therefore the imitation of God is a principle of religion arising from and depending on the right use and exercise of reason, as much as any other whatever. And this may serve to show on what foundation the imitation of God stands in natural religion, and how we may apply this principle for our direction in particular cases. It may show also what is to be understood by being perfect, as God is perfect: it is absurd to aim at the measure of his perfection; but we are then, to all the purposes of life and religion, perfect as he is perfect, when we do nothing but what he will approve: for to stand approved in the eye of an all-perfect and holy Being, is the true perfection of every creature. This is the Christian excellency, as described by St. Paul in the words once already quoted, and with which I shall conclude this discourse, 'That we may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.'