his ministerial office, he was subjected to evils and distresses of every kind ; being from first to last " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," as his daily and hourly companion? So poor was he, that he had not a place where to lay his head: and so hated, that he was " a sign spoken against," a butt of contradiction to all the people of Israel. There was not any thing he either said or did, that did not subject him to fresh reproaches, and prove an occasion of offence to all around him. Incessantly was he represented as a deceiver, a blasphemer, and a devil, yea, as one who should not be suffered to live. His very first sermon would have been his last, if he had not miraculously withdrawn himself from his persecutors. Was all this undertaken and submitted to, to please himself? View him in his death. Was it to please himself that he consented to drink the cup of bitterness which his Father put into his hands ; or that he was bathed in a bloody sweat in the garden of Gethsemane ; or that he endured the hidings of his Father's face, and expired under all the shame and agonies of cruci- fixion ? No : at no one moment of his life do we find him consulting his own pleasure : his only object, his very meat and drink, was to do the will of Him that sent him.]
2. He submitted to all manner of indignities purely for our sake —
[It had been foretold by David that he should do so. The passage cited by the Apostle undoubtedly refers to Christ. Whatever reference in a subordinate way it had to David, its main import is that affixed to it in our texta. Every one that was an enemy to God the Father, was an enemy to him : and every shaft directed against the Majesty of heaven, pierced his breast. Nor did he withdraw himself from this inconceivably distressing situation, till he had accomplished all that his sufferings were intended to effect. Such was his stupendous love to God, whose glory he sought; and to men, whose souls he had undertaken to redeem ! This was the end which he proposed to himself in all : and " this was the joy that was set before him, as his only inducement to endure the cross, and to despise the shame." Consult all the sacred records, the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, or the uniform declarations of the New Testament, and the sal- vation of man will be found to have been the one end of all that he either did or suffered: "He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" ]
a Ps. Ixix. 9, 20. The other passages connected with these in ver. 9. and 21. shew infallibly that the Apostle cites the text in its true, and not in an accommodated, sense.