he had come into the world for the express purpose of suffermg all that was due to our sms''. In the garden of Gethsemane his sorrows came yet more heavily upon him, so that he cried, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death'." On this occasion he cried repeatedly, " O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me"" ! " And such was the agony of his soul, that " he sweat great drops of blood" from every pore of his body \ To this period in particular we may suppose the peti- tions in our text to refer : for then " he offered up his suppli- cations with strong crying and tears™:" and such were the intenseness of his agony, and the ardour of his importunity, that " his throat was dried," " his eyes failed," his whole nature was exhausted", and he needed " an angel to be sent from heaven to strengthen him °." It must be remembered, that in all this time no man had approached to hurt him : and there- fore we are sure that his sorrows proceeded from " the powers of darkness" who were now let loose upon himP, and from the hand of God himself, who now concurred to inflict upon hinii the curse due to our iniquities ^ which by a covenant-engagement he had undertaken to sustain ^]
2. Those which he sustained during his trial — [It was no slight aggravation of his troubles that he was betrayed into the hands of his murderers by a kiss from one of his own disciples, and that " one who had eaten bread with him lifted up his heel against him*." And when he was seized and bound, he was yet further wounded in his soul by the intemperate zeal of another of his disciples, who, instead of submitting with meekness to the will of God, sought to destroy the adversaries of his Lord''. From the garden he was hurried to the palace of the high priest, and, subsequently, from one tribunal to another, only to be treated with all manner of indignities, and to be denied that justice which his judges pre- tended to administer. How inconceivably painful to his mind must it have been, to be arrayed in mock majesty, to be made an object of profane scofiing, to be smitten, and buffeted, and spit upon, and loaded with all manner of accusations, and all this time not to have so much as one of the many myriads whom he had healed to bear testimony in his favour ''; yea, even his own disciples having forsaken him, one indeed ex- cepted, whose presence only aggravated his sorrow, by his impious oaths, and pertinacious denial of his Lord. Even a measure that was adopted with a view to preserve his life,
h John xii. 27. with John xii. 23, 32, 33. ' Matt. xxvi. 37, 38. ^ Matt. xxvi. 39,44. i Luke xxii. 44. ^ Heb. v. 7. ^ ver. 3. ° Luke xxii. 43. P Luke xxii. 53.
q Isai. liii. 10. ^ Gal. iii. 13. ^ Ps. xl. 6—8.
t Johnxiii. 18, " Matt. xxvi. 51, 52. ^ ver. 20.