See then whether " the visage of any man was ever so marred as his?" Others, if they have been tried in body, have had comfort in their soul : if they have been persecuted by man, they have received succour from God : or if their trials have been of a diversified nature, still they have found some to commiserate, and, by a tender sympathy at least, to participate their lot : but he trod the wine-press of God's wrath alone, and drank, even to the dregs, that cup of bitterness, which the sins of the whole world had prepared for him, and which could not be removed
consistently with God's honour and man's salvation. Well therefore may we put into his mouth those words of the prophet, " Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger h." Well too, as the text observes, might " many be astonished at him ; " for whether we consider the innocence of him on whom these suf- ferings were inflicted, or the greatness of him who submitted to them, or his meekness and patience in enduring them, we are equally lost in wonder and astonishment.
Upon a view of our Lord's unparalleled humilia- tion, we are naturally led to inquire into, II. The end for which he submitted to it —
Moses, speaking of the truths which he was inspired to proclaim, says, " My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass; because I will publish the name of the Lord1." By a similar figure " the sprinkling of the nations" may be understood as relating to the publication of the Gospel to the whole world. And doubtless this was, in a general view, the end for which our Saviour died. But the term " sprinkling" alludes more par- ticularly to the sprinklings which were made under the law. These were sometimes of blood, as when the mercy-seat was sprinkled with the blood of bulls and goats on the great day of annual expiation k. Sometimes the sprinkling was of water, as when a person ceremonially unclean was purified from his defilement by water of separation1. Sometimes the sprinkling was both of water and blood, as when the leper was cleansed by the blood of a bird mixed with running water"1. To all of these there is a reference in the text : and from these ceremonial observances, especially as they are more fully opened to us in the New Testament, we learn distinctly the ends of the Redeemer's sufferings.
h Lam. i. 12. > Deut. xxxii. 2. k Lev. xvi. 15.
1 Numb. xix. 13. In Lev. xiv. 6, 7.