without a groan, and so, no doubt, might our Lord. But the real weight that bowed down the heart of Jesus, was the weight of the sin of the world, which seems to have now pressed down upon Him with peculiar force. It was the burden of our guilt imputed to Him, which was now laid on Him, as on the head of the scape goat. How great that burden must have been, no heart of man can conceive. It is known only to God. Well may the Greek Litany speak of the "unknown sufferings of Christ." The words of Scott on this subject are probably correct : — "Christ at this time endured as much misery, of the same kind with that of condemned sj^irits, as could possibly consist with a pure conscience, perfect love of God and man, and an assured confidence of a glorious event."*
* I believe that the view maintained in this exposition, is the only reasonable solution that can be given of our Lord's agony. How any Socinian, or any divine who denies the imputation of man's sin to Christ, and the vicarious nature of Christ's sufferings, can account satisfactorily for the agony, I am totally at a loss to conceive. — Upon the principle of the Socinian, who utterly denies the doctrine of atone- ment, and says that our Lord was only a man, and not Grod, He was one who showed less firmness in suffering than many men have shown. — Upon the principle of some modern divines, who say that our Lord's death was not a propitiation and expiation for sin, but only a great example of self-sacrifice, the intense agony of body and mind here described is equally unaccountable. — Both views appear to me alike dishonoring to our Lord Jesus Christ, and utterly unscriptural and unsatisfactory. I believe the agony in the garden to be a knot that notliing can untie, but the old doctrine of our sin being really imputed to Christ, and Christ being made sin and a curse for us.
There are deep things in this passage of Scripture, containing the account of the agony, which I purposely leave untouched. They are too deep for man's line to fathom. The extent to which Satan was .