my head." At another time the admiring populace are forcibly endeavouring to make him a king; then thrusting him out of their city, and leading him unto the brow of the hill on which it was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

But were we here to follow him through the innumerable vicissitudes by which he was so continually tossed, and which were most of them of a nature common to man, it would lead us into too wide a field; we shall, therefore, only point out one species of misery endured by our blessed Saviour, and which was peculiar to himself. This was his prophetic knowledge of the sufferings that awaited him. The book of fate is kindly shut to us, and if presumptuously, superstitiously, and wickedly, we try to pry into its contents, by application to the wayward tribe who delude the unwary by their false pretences to the knowledge of futurity, and it suits their subtle purposes to give an unfavourable or alarming answer to these impious interrogatories,-what a foundation for uneasiness (if weakly credited) do such predictions lay, and how justly is this temerity punished by the misery that is oft endured in consequence of it! And when on any reasonable ground we have cause to dread impending danger, though slow in its advances, and still distant from us, what solicitude does it excite, and how injurious does it often prove unto our mortal frame! But no degree of comparison can exist between those threatenings and forebodings that are solaced by supporting hope, which scarce ever totally for

sakes us in our deepest woe, and that dreadful certainty of sufferings which our blessed Lord was pledged to endure? For, as He himself observed, did He not stand firm in this tremendous contest, how could the Scriptures be fulfilled? how could the power of darkness be utterly destroyed? how could the Creator's honour be gloriously vindicated? and how could the intellectual system throughout the boundless universe be reconciled to God? Awful considerations unto him who was compassed with infirmities, and distressingly assailed with the tormenting passion fear. What perpetual agitation, what acute sensations, must the conflict He through life maintained with this torturing infirmity, have exasperated! When we are destined to combat with this passion, the conflict is generally soon decided, but in the case of our blessed Saviour it must have been perpetually renewed. How harassing were such incessant struggles, and what anxiety must constantly have preyed upon his mind previous to the termination of his irrevocable doom!

These conclusions we have already found the history abundantly propounding, by the declaration of the noble Sufferer: "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished! But to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth." Now the nature of the vicissitudes we have enumerated, the frequent if not continued perturbations of the Redeemer's mind, the weight and pressure that

hung so heavy on it; "the incessant fatigues attendant on his indefatigable labours; his often travelling several miles on foot when his body had been heated by preaching in the day; his being exposed, under these circumstances, to the copious dews which fall by night in those parts;"* these united causes, with others that might be named, were eminently calculated to debilitate his human frame, "depress his spirits, and impair the tone of his nerves."+ Borne down, oppressed, and almost quite exhausted with these calamities, he probably entered the garden of Gethsemane; when the long-dreaded hour did fast approach that was to decide this wondrous contest, break the serpent's head, destroy the power of darkness, and dethrone the king of terrors. The recital is as follows: "When Jesus had concluded his fervent prayer to God in behalf of his disciples, he came out and went forth, as he was wont with them, over the brook Cedron, to the mount of Olives, where was a garden, into the which he entered; and his disciples also followed him. Then cometh Jesus with them to a place called Gethsemane; and when he was at the place, he saith unto his disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, and began to be sorrowful, sore amazed, and very heavy." Various have been the conjectures respecting the cause of the acute and poignant anguish with which our Lord was seized at this distressing juncture; but we think his Doddridge's Expositor.

*

+ Ibid.

own declaration on entering the garden clearly ascertains this point: "My soul," exclaimed our blessed Saviour, "is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." That the horror and dismay with which He then was seized was principally, if not solely, occasioned by the close approach of the tremendous sufferings on the point of being inflicted on his feeble human frame, is further and fully proved by the following relation:-" Who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him who was able to save him from death." We thus perceive the object of his fervent supplication was, to be saved from death. It also plainly appears that the torturing conflict he endured from fear of the excruciating death which just awaited him, involved and produced another fear; for it is immediately subjoined, "that he was heard in that he feared." Now, we all well know he was not saved from death, though heard in that he feared. There is therefore good reason to conclude that the fear involved with the fear of death was exasperated by a distrustful, dismaying apprehension, whether the weak feeble nature which now he bore so heavily loaded with infirmities and woes, was equal to the terrific contest in which it was engaging with the combined power of darkness; whether it could wrestle with and stand against all the wiles of the devil; against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places; all up in arms against him. For did it not in this tremendous combat obtain full victory over

these tremendous foes; obtain full victory over every infirmity, and in particular over that distressing passion, fear-did it not demonstrate, in opposition to this passion, magnanimity unparalleled, and perfect lamb-like patience, while enduring the most excruciating torments-did it not evince perfect forgiveness of its barbarous foes under the very tortures they were cruelly inflicting did it for a moment, while suffering agonies of the body, and the still more poignant agony, agony of mind,* forget the happiness of others, -all had been lost, darkness had triumphed over light, and the intellectual system of the boundless universe had not obtained salvation.

And if sufferings of the mind are still more agonizing than agonies of the body, how terrific were the sufferings which the blessed Son of God was doomed to endure from the causes already stated; from others unto which he was, as the Son of God, exclusively exposed, and which we shall soon have occasion to point out; and also from others unto which man is liable. For we must throughout this melancholy survey keep in mind that the express object of the Saviour's mission was to defeat the evil one, whereinsoever he had defeated man. And as by haunting man's imagination with illusive terrors, he had oft achieved his purpose, reason itself suggests that

* It has been already noticed that there is good reason to believe that sufferings of the mind are infinitely more exquisite than those of the body; an observation which we have found fully supported by the able opinions of Dr. Blair and Dr. Johnson.