was ever pursued with such bitter unrelenting animosity as he. No terms were too vile to be applied to him : he was called " a glutton and a wine-bibber," a deceiver and blasphemer, a Samaritan and a devil : and the whole nation rose against him with that indignant cry, " Crucify him, crucify him." Of his assaults from Satan, what shall we say? What words can express the conflicts he maintained with all the powers of darkness, in the wilderness, and in the garden of Gethsemane, when through the agonies of his soul his whole body was bathed in a bloody sweat ? From the hidings of his Father's face also, and from a sense of his wrath, when, as we are told, " it pleased the Lord to bruise him," his sufferings infinitely sur- passed all that any created imagination can conceive. When his soul was sore troubled, even unto death, he prayed indeed for the removal of the bitter cup, yet drank it, when put into his hands, without complaint : but when he was called to endure the consummation of his misery in the hidings of his Father's face, he could not forbear pouring forth that heart- rending complaint, " My God, my God, why hast thou for- saken me?" Thus was he foremost in almost every trial that we can possibly be called upon to sustain ; and notwithstanding in him was no sin, he was, far beyond any of the sinners of mankind, " a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."]
Having experienced in his own person all that we can feel, he sympathizes with us in all our trials —
[The double negation in our text is very expressive ; and imports much more than a simple affirmation. Our High- priest is most assuredly a tender sympathizing Friend : and one great end for which he submitted to be tempted like us, was, that he might learn to appreciate aright our sufferings, and " be able to succour us in our temptations ^" He now can say, more emphatically than heretofore, " I know their sorrows^:" and more justly may it be said of him, " His soul is grieved for the misery of Israel'^." So acutely does he feel for all his members, that " whoso persecuteth them, perse- cutes him'^;" and " whoso toucheth one of them, toucheth the apple of his eye^" What he felt when he wept at the grave of Lazarus, he still feels, as it were, when he beholds his sorrowing and afflicted people. From whatever quarter their troubles arise, from men or devils, from body or from mind, yea, or even from the hand of God himself, his compassion is the same, and his sympathy is ready to exert itself for their relief.]
a Heb. ii. 18. '' Exod. iii. 7. '■ Judg. x. 16.
^ Acts ix. 1. e Zcch. ii. 8.