always be apparent to the cursory observer. The motive of benevolence may sometimes appear to have been the sole motive of his actions; and spiritual blessings may seem but darkly shadowed under the miracles of his divine love. But to one who seriously contemplates the scenes of Christ's passion, the manifest reference of these his sufferings to his vicarious endurance of the punishment for human guilt, need scarcely be pointed out. There needs but the plain and unadorned narrative of the evangelist, to convince us how justly might Jesus have applied to himself the words of the prophet, " Behold and look, if there was ever any sorrow like unto my sorrow ;" and this conviction must lead us at once to acknowledge that it was because "the Lord had afflicted him in the day of his fierce anger." The simple account of sufferings so bitter, accumulated upon the head of one so pure, and holy, and undefiled, might excite the wonder and move the sympathy of a child, and would prompt the question, Why was God's wrath so hot against the beloved, the only begotten Son?

It is, in fact, only as we regard the sufferings of Christ to have been the infliction of divine. wrath against sin, poured out upon the substitute of man, that we can at all discover any reasonable causes for the intensity of his agony. The bitterness of his sufferings appears to have consisted, not so much in the corporeal pains of

a violent and torturing death, as in the mental anguish that overspread his soul. The draught of wine and myrrh, mingled in compassion for criminals about to suffer the excruciating tortures of the cross, he passed by untasted; and he needed not, nor sought, the alleviation of these his approaching pains by the usual means of a stupifying potion. Yet under the pressure of an agony of less apparent, because not external cause, he expressed a sense of sorrow the most acute, and of depression the most severe. He even prayed, that, if possible, this cup of bitterness might pass from him, if such a relief were consistent with the purpose of the Father. fore the malice of his human persecutors had obtained permission to afflict him, his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death: he prayed in the intensity of his distress, and a bloody sweat bore awful testimony to the reality of his agony.

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It may reasonably be asked, why should that Saviour, whom we believe to be the Son of the Highest, as well as the Son of man, show thus the agony of his mind, and thus exhibit a dread and fear of sufferings which he had voluntarily undertaken, when many of those who followed him in his career of suffering, bore joyfully their sorrows for his sake? It is plain, that a sorrow which no martyr could endure, was the cause of this unparalleled suffering. It is plain that he

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felt as no martyr ever felt who suffered for his adherence to the truth. And herein, with reverence be the thought entertained, the distinction may have consisted. The martyr suffered the persecution of evil men; but he suffered not the anger of his God. The martyr suffered for conscience sake, but not for the sins of a world, which he was reconciling to God. The malice of man might wreak its vengeance upon the body of the martyr, but the wrath of God was not poured out upon his soul. Yet that burden did Jesus bear. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree he suffered as the substitute for the race of men, and endured in their behalf, though guiltless himself, the wrath of God against iniquity. And in proportion to the holiness of his own nature, in proportion to his knowledge of the purity of God as contrasted with the defilement of man's iniquity, in proportion to his estimate of the awful consequences of transgression against the law of a holy God, must have been his estimate of the dread results of sin. And as man, as partaker of human flesh and of human sorrows, as bearing all the infirmities of our nature, sin only excepted; as feeling the warmest sympathy with that race whom he came to save, he must have experienced the most awful sense of the danger of the sinner: and, as man, he deprecated the sufferings to which he had made himself liable as our mediator; as knowing the

riches of God's compassion, he might well entreat not to be made the object of his wrath.

Considerations, then, such as these, may give us some idea, however faint, of the cause of that inward agony of soul which bowed down the innocent and holy Jesus. Considerations such as these, may serve also to show us the merciful kindness of the Saviour, who left not himself without witness of this his humiliation, as he had also provided sufficient testimony to his glory. Those same apostles who had seen the splendour of his transfiguration, and had heard the words of Moses and Elias talking with him of the approaching period of suffering, were now called to contrast his sorrows with his glories, and to view the accomplishment of all that those saints of Israel had described. How changed the scene from that holy mount, to the garden of Gethsemane-from the conversation of that heavenly company, to the solitude of the midnight watch; from the glorious appearance of the Son of God, to the afflicted countenance of the man of sorrows! Yet all these things was Christ to suffer, before he could enter into his kingdom and equally in the displays of his glory, as in the detail of his sorrows, was he bound to fill up the description of the prophetic writers. And to show to us that this description was indeed fulfilled, are these scenes of Gethsemane recorded: to prove to us, that he who came to drink the

bitter cup of sorrow for our sins, did indeed drink it to the dregs; to show the intensity of his sufferings as an evidence of his endurance of God's wrath against sin; and an evidence, also, of the results of final impenitence, if we seek not the pardon which by his blood he has purchased. That wrath must have been severe, which thus overwhelmed the innocent Son of the Highest : that sin must indeed be a grievous evil, which thus pierced him through with many sorrows. That justice must be indeed strict, which could demand so terrible an infliction upon the head even of a holy Being, when placed as the substitute of the sinner; that mercy must be indeed infinite, which thus submitted to torture and to death; that atonement must indeed be complete, which was thus shown to be accomplished by the sufferings of the Son of God.

It is not, however, only as our sacrifice for sin, that we are led to contemplate the holy Jesus in this his hour of humiliation and suffering. As our example, also, he passed through the sorrows of this life, and endured the wrath of God against sin. As our example, also, he poured out before his Father the anguish of his soul; and meekly bowed in submission under the chastisement of our peace, that by his stripes we might be healed. He suffered, indeed, the just for the unjust he bore the calamities of this varied lot of human life, not for himself, but for