21. The third branch of the divine life is _purity_, a neglect of worldly enjoyments and accommodations, and a resolute enduring of all such troubles as we meet with in the doing of our duty. Now surely if ever any person was wholly dead to all the pleasures of the natural life, it was the blessed Jesus; who seldom tasted them when they came in his way, but never stept out of his road to seek them. Though he allowed others the comforts of wedlock, and honoured marriage with his presence, yet he chose the severity of a virgin life: and though he supplied the want of wine with a miracle, yet he would not work one for the relief of his own hunger in the wilderness. So gracious was he in allowing others such gratifications, as himself thought good to abstain from, and supplying not only their pressing necessities, but also their less considerable wants. We many times hear of our Saviour’s sighs, and groans, and tears, but never that he laughed, so that through his whole life he answered that character given of him by the prophet, _A man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs_. Nor were the troubles of his life other than matters of choice: for never did there any appear on the stage of the world with greater advantages to have raised himself to the highest secular felicity. He who could bring together such a prodigious number of fishes into his disciples net, and at another time receive that tribute from a fish which he was to pay to the temple, might easily have made himself the richest person in the world; nay, without any money, he could have maintained an army powerful enough to have jostled _Cæsar_ out of his throne, having oftner than once fed several thousands with a few loaves and small fishes: but to shew how small esteem he had of all the enjoyments in the world, he chose to live in so poor and mean a condition, that _though the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, yet he, who was Lord of all things, had not where to lay his head_. He did not frequent the courts of princes, nor affect the acquaintance of great ones; but being reputed the son of a carpenter, he had fishermen, and other such poor people, for his companions, and lived at such a rate as suited with the meanness of that condition. _His humility._