A Saint Indeed

2. Remed. Set before your eyes the most eminent patterns of meekness and forgiveness, that your So••s may fall in love with it.

This is the way to cut off those common pleas of the flesh for revenge: as thus, no man would bear such an affront, yes, such and such have born as bad and worse, I shall be reckoned a coward, a fool, if I pass by this: no matter, as long as I follow the examples of the wisest and holiest of men: never did any suffer more and greater abuses from men than […] did, and never did any carry it ⟨p. 120⟩more peaceably and forgivingly, 53. 7. he was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, &c. This pattern the Apostle sets before you for your imitation 1 Pet. 2. 21, 22, 23. For •ven hereunto are ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps: Who when be was▪ reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteou sly. To be of a meek forgiving Spirit is Christ like, God like, then shall you be the children of your Father, which is in Heaven, for he maketh his […] to rise upon the evil and upon the good, and sendeth rain on the just, and on the unjust, Matth. 5. 45. How eminently also did this Spirit of Christ rest upon his Apostles, never were th•re such men upon earth for true excellency of Spirit. None were ever abused more, or suffered their abuses better: Being reviled (say they) we bless, being persecuted we suffer it, being defamed we entreat. 1 Cor. 4. 12, 13. Mr. Calvin though a man of a quick Spirit, yet had attained such a degree of this Christ like forgiveness that when Luther had used some opprobrious language of him, the good man said no more but this;