16th Sunday after Pentecost on Good Example
It came to pass that when Jesus went into one of the homes of the Chief of the Pharisees, on the Sabbath day to eat bread, that they watched him. Luke 6 14 V1.
As Our divine Master Christ, Jesus was ever careful to enforce by His own example the lesson which He taught. Delineated in His conduct, the distinguishing features of His true disciples, and exhibited in his own person, a perfect image of all the virtues which are to compose and finish the character of a Christian. There is not any one action of His life so minute and inconsiderable but, if we observe it with attention, and with hearts desirous of improvement, we may draw from it some useful instruction.
In the gospel of this day, He is represented entering into the house of a leading man among the Pharisees to take his meal and we read that those who were present took particular notice of His conduct. Although they watched Him with a very malevolent design, and with no other view than to find Him doing some action which they might construe into a violation of the Sabbath, yet they must have no doubt observed, they must have admired that air of ….. modesty and humility, which appeared in His countenance and in His whole comportment. They beheld the temperance which presided over His frugal repast, they caught the words of grace which fell from His lips, they heard the instruction, the heavenly conversation by which he informed the minds and inflamed the hearts of his disciples. In a word Our divine Lord set before them the example of so many virtues, on this apparently trifling occasion, that had they not beheld them through a false medium with eyes obscured by prejudice and passion, they must have become enamoured of the beauty of virtue and been efficaciously excited to now model their own lives and conduct after so excellent an original….
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