our lord's complaint on the cross.
Ps. xxii. 1. My God, my God, ivhy hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the tvords of my roaring ?
THE prophecies relating to our Lord have not only declared what works he should do, and what sufferings he should endure, but even the very words that should be uttered both by his enemies and him- self. Whatever reference the words of the text misjht have to David, there can be no doubt but that they principally relate to the Lord Jesus ; and in him they received their accomplishment : when he had hung about six hours upon the cross, we are told, " he cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli ! Eli ! lama sabacthani ? that is to say. My God ! my God ! why hast thou forsaken me""?" Perhaps he cried with a loud voice in order to shew, that his natural strength was by no means exhausted ; and that his dissolution, which immediately followed, was voluntary : but he discovered also by that the intenseness of his suffer- ings, and fulfilled in the minutest manner the predic- tion before us. Waving all illustration of the text as applicable to David, we shall endeavour to elucidate it as accomplished in his great afitit?/pe, and shall consider,
L The occasion of our Lord's complaint —
Jesus, in the hour of his extremity, was forsaken of
his heavenly Father —
[We are not to suppose that the godhead actually sepa- rated itself fropi his manhood; but that the sensible mani- festation of the divine presence was withheld from him. This was necessary in various points of view. A banishment from the divine presence was part of the punishment due to sin; and therefore it must be inflicted on him who had become the surety and substitute of sinners. Occasional suspensions, also, of the tokens of God's love are the means whereby God perfects the work of faith in his people's hearts: and " it behoved Jesus to be made like unto us in all things : " " though he was a son,
a Matt, xxvii. 46.