II. Simplicity and unity distinguish the character and conduct of Christ. In all His intercourse with friends and foes, His adherence to truth and righteousness is marked and constant. He was criticised and catechised and calumniated, but His transparency of character was never destroyed. His enemies opposed and threatened, but He never hesitated in the path of duty, or in His devotion to His Father’s will. However captious their questions, and whether they related to political or spiritual matters, He invariably turned them against His opponents, and made them minister to the cause of truth and righteousness. Sometimes He stood single-handed against a multitude of foes, they were often vacillating, cowardly, and inconsistent with themselves; but not so the Saviour. With what authority did He rebuke their selfishness, their duplicity, their sin; and yet how confidently
could He appeal to His bitterest opponents as to the simplicity and purity of His own character and life—“Which of you convinceth Me of sin?” The proud and supercilious Pharisees sought “to entangle Him in His talk;” they charged Him with blasphemy, with disregard for the Sabbath, with breaking the law, and they disputed His authority to act as He did; but their cunning could not ensnare, their threatening could not intimidate. Satan sought by a threefold temptation to turn Him aside; he desired Him to question, in the first place, the providence of God, then to tempt an interposition of Providence by exposing Himself to unnecessary danger, and finally to fall down and worship him; but our Lord indignantly repelled the tempter, and maintained His purity; and “angels came and ministered unto Him.” “I must work the works of Him that sent me,” was the motto of His life—the simple purpose of His mind; nor did He shrink from any portion of that work however hazardous and difficult. “My meat,” said He, “is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.”
In this simple purpose of the Saviour’s mind and conduct we have a beautiful example. Nothing is so difficult, in days like these, as the maintenance of a pure and simple mind. Duplicity,
deception, and selfishness pervade all ranks and conditions of men. You find them in the shop, in the market-place, in the family, and alas! in the church itself; and nothing but a resolute resistance, directed and sustained by the grace of God, can make the Christian proof against these evils. O imitate the Saviour. Mark out for yourselves a definite line of conduct, consistent with your Christian profession, and adhere to it firmly, in spite of custom or contempt, and in the prospect of death itself.
Simplicity produces unity. There is nothing complex in the character and life of Christ. Every part is in perfect keeping with the whole. His teaching, His miracles, His conduct, illustrate each other, and combine to prove His true Messiahship, and exhibit the perfection of His life. If there were glaring inconsistencies in the history of Jesus—if the four Evangelists had written documents which could not be harmonized—if the moral teaching, and the moral conduct of Christ were at variance—if His pretensions were not justified by His works—then we might deny His Messiahship, and disregard Him as our Great Example. But it is not so. What He taught He practised; what He promised he performed; the work He came from heaven to accomplish He actually “finished,” even to the shedding of
His blood. “The cup which my Father hath given me to drink,” said He, “shall I not drink it?” Thus the example of Christ forbids all fickleness and falsehood. It condemns all false appearances; and says to all His followers, with an authority and force which even the words themselves do not contain, “Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” What a wonderful and glorious change would the observance of such a rule effect in the church, and in the world! “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
III. The mind of Christ is distinguished by its sympathy and ceaseless activity. He could weep at the grave of Lazarus, before calling back His friend to life. He could stop at the gate of Nain, to cheer the heart of a bereaved widow, by restoring to life her only son. He could condescend to touch the loathsome leper, and thus make him clean. He could stoop to hold a conversation with a penitent adulteress. He could work a miracle to feed a hungry multitude. He could look conviction into Peter’s heart, and thus send the faithless Apostle out of His presence weeping bitterly. O there was nothing cold, ungenerous, or selfish in the nature of Christ. He was never too much occupied to listen to the
tale of sorrow, nor too dignified to afford relief. He was never unapproachable. The finest sensibilities, the purest affections, the deepest sympathies were exhibited in actions, which, had there been no ultimate purpose in His mission, would have marked Him as a benefactor of our race, and carried down His name and His fame to the latest posterity. And this, in a humbler degree, we are called upon to imitate. How little like the Saviour is the man whose heart is hard, whose temper is irritable, and who has no bowels of compassion for the destitute and afflicted. How little like the Saviour is the man who prides himself upon superior extraction or superior position, and looks down with contempt upon the poor and the penniless. The Son of Man came to seek, and to save the lost: and when John’s disciples asked Him for evidence that He was Christ, His reply was simply this: Go tell your master the things which ye have seen and heard; “the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached unto them.” What an outline is this of the Redeemer’s daily toil! How He “went about doing good!” How He wandered among the cities and villages of Judæa and Samaria; sharing the rough hospitality of fishermen—
the barley-bread of the poorest peasant; working miracles of healing; teaching doctrines of profoundest import; contending with His enemies, the Pharisees and Scribes; and conducting the minds and the hearts of His disciples and the multitudes away from their superstitions and their prejudices, to the heart of His Father’s love, and the results of His own suffering and sacrifice in their behalf: nor did this sublime and ceaseless activity terminate until He hung upon the cross—and then only to be renewed in ceaseless intercession at His Father’s throne. And again He left us an example. This active sympathy is the very genius of our holy religion—the spirit which it breathes—the life which it lives—the pure and blessed element in which it grows and becomes perfect. Happy is the man who thus imitates the Saviour—whose “weariness of life is gone,” by the employment of his talents and his time in “doing and receiving good.”
IV. All these elements of character in Christ were directed and sustained by the holiness of His nature. This is undeniable His enemies being judges. Even devils testified to this—“We know Thee, who Thou art, the holy one of God;” they could not resist His Divine authority; they could not impeach His human purity; and