Life laborious and flenderly accommodated. And all this Hardship he willingly underwent; all this Abasement and Contempt, his infinite Love reconciled him to, that the Defign of our Salvation might be the more effectually promoted: For though he was rich in himself, yet for our Sakes he became poor.

From the Words, I fhall take Occafion to offer fome Reafons, why our bleffed Saviour did not choose eafy and fplendid Circumftances, nor appear in the Pomp' of a temporal Prince.

2. I. Because if he had appeared in this Manner, he could not have fulfilled the Prophecies of the old Teftament. 'Tis true the fenfual Apprehenfion of the Jews, made them miftake his Character, and mifinterpret thofe Defcriptions, which related to him: Their ambitious Defires made them wreft thofe Places to his first, which were only meant of his fecond Coming, their fond Imaginations made them stick in the Letter, and judge only by the Sound of the facred Oracles, without any farther Enquiry into the Scope

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and Analogy of them; they concluded that worldly Greatness was fecured them by thofe Predictions, which were only intended to intimate the Flourishing, and Dominion of Virtue and Truth. They expected his Kingdom fhould have been of this World, that he fhould have gone forth with their Armies, delivered them from the Roman Yoke, and made them a glorious and formidable People; they fanfyed no less then universal Monarchy, to have had the Heathen for their Inberitance, and the uttermoft Parts of the Earth for their Poffeffion. But it was determined by the Counsel of God, that the Meffiab fhould come in a quite dif ferent Manner; and therefore none of this Grandeur agrees with the humble Character the Scriptures have given him. There he is reprefented as a Root grow ing out of a dry Ground; He is foretold to have no Form nor Comeliness, fo that when we should see him, there will be no Beauty that we fhould defire him. And as the Prophet goes on, he is despised and rejected of Men; we bid as it were

our Faces from him, he was defpifed, and we efteemed him not: He was oppreffed and afflicted, taken from Prifon and from Judgment, and cut off from the Land of the Living*. So Pfalm xxii. where the Circumstances of his Paffion are fo plainly and particularly defcribed, he is faid tobe a very Scorn of Men, and the Outcaft of the People. All which Places are undeniable Evidences of the obfcure and defpicable and fuffering State, the Meffiah was to appear in: And where he is called a King, to prevent all Expectations of his reigning in this World, 'tis added that he was to be meek, or poor and lowly, without the usual State and Ornaments of Majesty; and when this Scripture was fulfilled at his Entrance into Jerufalem, there was nothing like a regal Port, na Marks of Sovereignty, either in himself, or his Retinue; as we may fee in St. Matt. xxi. 5. &c. And fince the infallible Spirit had described the Messiah under a

Ifa. liii. 8. Pf. xxii.

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private and mean Character, had distinguifhed him no lefs by his Poverty and ill Ufuage, than by his Miracles: When he came, it was abfolutely neceffary he fhould fubmit to all these Inconveniences; for whatever God has foretold, must certainly come to pafs; and therefore if our bleffed Saviour had fet up his Kingdom here like other Princes, if his Way of living had been great and profperous, according to the vulgar Notions of thefe Things, all his other extraordinary Acctions might well have been fufpected, his Claim to the Office of the Meffiah, could never have been justified; because his Condition was fo very different from that, which the Holy Ghoft had defcribed the Meffiah by.

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II. If he had chosen a plentiful and flourishing Condition, his Doctrine, and probably his Miracles too, might in a great Measure have been attributed to the Improvements of Study, and the Advantage of Education, and fo the divine Power by which he acted, would have been the lefs understood.

Moft

People

People understand what a great Difference there is between uncultivated Nature, and the Advantages of Art; it's generally acknowledg'd that Industry and Meditation, and a frequent Converfe with the knowing and judicious, is a mighty Enlargement of thofe Capacities Men brought into the World with them: It makes their Underftanding more sharp and apprehenfive, fets an Edge upon their Reason, and widens the Profpect of the Soul, makes them fee farther, and more exactly into the Pro perties and Connexion of natural Causes, into the Tempers and Paffions of their Neighbours: It makes them more nice in distinguishing, more folid in comparing and weighing of Things; it enriches the Imagination, raises a Sprightliness of Thought, and adds Force and Order and Beauty to Difcourfe: fo that had our blef fed Saviour been brought up at the Feet of the Jewish Rabbies, been inftructed by the Athenian Philofophers, or Roman Orators, had his Education been polished and expensive, and made him like Mofes learned in all the Wisdom of the Egyp