Inf. 4. Lastly we infer ; Though all other things do, yet Chiist neither doth, nor can grow stale. Here is an ordinance to preserve his remembrance fresh to the end of the world. The blood of Christ doth never dry up. The beauty of this rose of Sharon is never lost or withered. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. As his body in the grave saw no corruption, so neither can his love, or any of his excellencies. When the saints shall have fed their eyes upon him in heaven, thousands and millions of years, he shah be as fresh, beautiful, and orient as at the begin- ning. Others beauties have their prime, and their fading time ; but Christ abides eternally. Our delight in creatures is often most at first acquaintance ; when we come nearer to them, and see more of them, the edge of our delight is abated : but the longer you know Christ, and the nearer you come to him, still the more do you see of his glory. Every farther prospect of Christ entertains the mind with a fresh delight. He is as it were a new Christ every day, and yet the same Christ still.
Blessed be God for Jesus Christ.
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The third preparative Act of Christ for his own Death,
Luke xxii. 41, 42, 43, 44. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled dozen, and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me : nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And there appeared an. angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly : and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground,
X HE hour is now almost come, even that hour of sorrow, which Christ had so often spoken of. Yet a little, a very little while, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. He hath af- fectionately recommended his children to his Father. He hath set Ins house in order, and ordained a memorial of his death to be left with his people, as you have heard. There is but one thing more to do, and then the tragedy begins. He recommended us, he must also recommend himself by prayer to the Father ; . and when that is done, he is ready, let Judas with the black guard come when they will.
This last act of Christ's preparation for his own death, is con- tained in this scripture ; wherein we have an account, 1. Of his prayer. % Of the agony attending it. 3. His relief in that agony, by an angel that came and comforted him.
1. The prayer of Christ; in a praying posture he will be found when the enemy comes ; he will be taken upon his knees : he was pleading hard with God in prayer, for strength to carry him through this heavy trial, when they came to take him. And this prayer was a very remarkable prayer, both for the solitariness of it, he withdrew about a stone's cast, verse 41. from his dearest inti- mates, no ear but his Father's shall hear what he had now to say; and for the vehemency and importunity of it; these were those ixcnjgfafe Heb. v. 7. strong cries that he poured out to God in the days of his flesh. And for the humility expressed in it ; he fell upon the ground, he rolled himself as it were in the dust, at his Father's feet And in divers other respects it was a very remark- able prayer, as you will hear anon.
c2. This scripture gives you also an account of the agony of Christ, as well as of his prayer, and that a most strange one : such as in all respects never was known before in nature. It was a sweat as it had been blood, which, [as] is neither an hyperbole, as some would make it: nor yet a similitude of blood, as others fancy,
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but a real bloody sweat For so [as] is sometimes taken for the very thing itself, as John i. 14. And as a * worthy divine of our own well notes, that if the Holy Ghost had only intended it for a similitude or resemblance, he would rather have expressed it, as it were drops of water, than as it were drops of blood, for sweat more resembles water than blood.
3. You have here his relief in this his agony, and that by an angel dipatehed post from heaven to comfort him. The Lord of angels now needed the comfort of an angel. It was time to have a little refreshment when his face and body too stood as full of drops of blood, as the drops of dew are upon the grass. Hence we note,
Doct. That oar Lord Jesus Christ was praying to his Father in an extraordinary agony, when they came to apprehend him in the garden.
To open and explain this last act of preparation on Christ's part for our use. I shall at this time speak of these particulars. First, The place where he prayed. Secondly, The tithe when he prayed. Thirdly, The matter of his prayer. And lastly, The manner how he prayed.
First, For the circumstance of place -f*, where was this last and remarkable prayer poured out to God ? It was in the garden : St. Matthew tells us it was called Gethsemane, which signifies, (as Pareus on the place observes) " the valley of fatness, viz. of olives, " which grew in that valley or garden most plentifully." This garden lay very near to the city of Jerusalem. The city had twelve gates, five of which were on the east side of it, among which the most remarkable were the fountain gate, so called of the fountain Siloe. Through this gate Christ rode into the city in triumph, when he came from Bethany, the other was the sheep-gate, so' called from the multitude of sheep driven in at it for the sacrifice, for it stood close by the temple ; and close by this gate was the garden called Gethsemane, where they apprehended Christ, and led him through this gate, as a sheep to the slaughter. Betwixt this garden and the city, ran the brook Cedron, which rose from a hill upon the south, and ran upon the east part of the city, between Jerusalem and the mount of olives : and over this brook Christ passed into the garden, John xviii. 1. To which the Psalmist alludes in Psal. ex. 7. " He shall drink of the brook in the fct way ; therefore he shall lift up the head." For this brook running
* Mr. Ambrose, Looking to Jesus.
f In locum Gethsemane, Gr. "Xptgiov ; reddunt villam, vel jncedium dictum Gethsemane,. Heb. tD'ODU? m quod sonat vulkm ± lugwuiUinerape ckarumquce nimirumistic uberius l>roicniebanl. Par,
5ERM. XXII. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 273
through the valley of Jehosaphat, that fertile soil, together with the filth of the city which it washed away, gave the waters a black tincture, and so fitly resembled those grievous sufferings of Christ, in which he tasted both the wrath of God and men.