" acquaintance with grief" would appear strange and unaccountable : but to the view of faith, it marked him as the chosen of God, the Redeemer of the world.
This subject will be yet more fully illustrated by considering,
II. The reception he met with —
One would scarcely suppose it possible, that such a person as our Lord should sojourn upon earth, and not be universally respected. His exemplary piety, his diffusive benevolence, his instructive discourses, and his blameless conduct, one would think, must conciliate the esteem of all ; and that gratitude at least must bind to him many thousands, whose mala- dies he had healed, or whose friends he had relieved. But, to the shame of human nature be it spoken, all, whom he had benefited, seemed to have forgotten their obligations, and to vie with each other in ren- dering evil for good : so far from honouring him, they despised and rejected him, and even " hid their faces from him," as not deigning to acknowledge him. There was no name so opprobrious, but they thought him deserving of it : they called him a glutton and a wine-bibber, a deceiver and demoniac. Before the high-priest they accused him of blasphemy : and be- fore the Roman governor they charged him with treason ; that so they might secure his condemnation, and have licence to treat him as an enemy both of God and man. The indignities offered him in the last hours of his life were altogether unparalleled : it was indeed the hour of Satan's reign, and all the powers of darkness seemed to be let loose upon him. It ap- peared as if nothing could satiate their malice : not content to wait the issue of a legal process, they loaded him with all manner of insults and reproaches : they dragged him from one tribunal to another ; they ploughed up his back with scourges, and compelled his judge to pass sentence upon him contrary to the con- victions of his own conscience : they forced him, faint and macerated as he was, to bear his cross, till he even sunk under the weight; and, to complete the