The harmony of the divine attributes in the contrivance and accomplishment of man's redemption…

2. His Example is most accommodate to our present State. There must be some proportion between the model and copy that is to be drawn by it. Now the Divine Nature is the Supreme Rule of Moral Perfections. We are commanded to be Holy, as God is Holy. But such is the obscurity of our Minds, and the weakness of our Natures, that the Pattern was too high and Glorious to be expressed by us. We had not strength to Ascend to Him, but He had goodness to Descend to us: and in this present state to set before us a Pattern more fitted to our capacity. Although Light is the proper object of Sight; yet that immense Light which the Sun hath in the Meridian ⟨p. 364⟩is invisible to our sight; we more easily discover the reflection of it in some opacous Body: So the Divine Attributes are sweetened in the Son of God Incarnate, and being united with the Graces proper for the Humane Nature, are more perceptible to our minds, and more imitable by us. This was one great design of his coming into the World, to set before us in doing and suffering, not a mere Spectacle for our wonder,¹ but a Copy to be transcribed in our Hearts and Lives. He therefore chose such a tenor of life as every one might imitate. His Supreme Virtue expressed it self in such a temperate course of actions, that as Abimelech said to his followers, Look on me and do likewise: So our true Abimelech, ²our Father, and Sovereign, calls upon us to imitate him. The first effect of Predestination is to conform us to the Image of the Son, who was for this end made the first-born among many Brethren. He assumed the Humane Nature that we might partake of the Divine, not only by His Merit but by His Example.

2. His Example is most accommodate to our present State. There must be some proportion between the model and copy that is to be drawn by it. Now the Divine Nature is the Supreme Rule of Moral Perfections. We are commanded to be Holy, as God is Holy. But such is the obscurity of our Minds, and the weakness of our Natures, that the Pattern was too high and Glorious to be exprest by us. We had not strength to Ascend to Him, but He had goodness to Descend to us: and in this present state to set before us a Pattern more fitted to our capacity. Although Light is the proper object of Sight; yet that immense Light which the Sun hath in the Meridian