"Be ye therefore followers ([Greek: mimaetai], imitators) of God, as dear children." (Eph. v. 1.)
"He that in these things [righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost] serveth Christ is acceptable to God." (Rom. xiv. 18.)
Seneca (Letter 95): "Do you wish to render the gods propitious? Be virtuous. To honour them it is enough to imitate them."
Letter 124: "Let man aim at the good which belongs to him. What is this good? A mind reformed and pure, the imitator of God, raising itself above things human, confining all its desires within itself."
5. Hypocrites like whited Sepulchres.
"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matt, xxiii. 27.)
Seneca: "Those whom you regard as happy, if you saw them, not in their externals, but in their hidden aspect, are wretched, sordid, base; like their own walls adorned outwardly. It is no solid and genuine felicity; it is a plaster, and that a thin one; and so, as long as they can stand and be seen at their pleasure, they shine and impose on us: when anything has fallen which disturbs and uncovers them, it is evident how much deep and real foulness an extraneous splendour has concealed."
6. Teaching compared to Seed.
"But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit; some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold." (Matt xiii. 8.)
Seneca (Letter 38): "Words must be sown like seed; which, although it be small, when it hath found a suitable ground, unfolds its strength, and from very small size is expanded into the largest increase. Reason does the same.... The things spoken are few; but if the mind have received them well, they gain strength and grow."