Heb. V. 7 — 9. Who in the days of his Jlesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplicatiojis ivith strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared,- though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things lohich he suffered; ^and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.
THE priestly office, as marked out by God, be- longed exclusively to the tribe of Levi. Yet our Lord, though he was not of that tribe to which the priesthood appertained, was truly and properly a High-priest. He was constituted a priest of a dif- ferent order from that of Aaron, and executed the duties of the priesthood in a far different manner than it was possible for any other person to perform them. He offered not the blood of bulls and of goats, but his own body, for the sins of the world. The Apostle describing the manner in which he mi- nistered, sets before us,
L His conduct under his sufferings —
Never were the sufferings of any creature compa- rable with those of Christ —
[His bodily sufferings perhaps were less than many of his followers have been called to endure^; but those of his soul were infinitely beyond our conceptions'' : the assaults of Satan, and the wrath of God, combined to produce that bloody sweat in the garden of Gethsemane^]
Under them he poured out his heart in prayer unto his heavenly Father —
[He never lost sight of God as his Father, but addressed him with the greater earnestness under that endearing title'':
^ It is possible indeed that the perfect temperature of his body might give a more exquisite sensibility to the organs ; but this is no where affirmed in Scripture.
^ Ps. xxii. 14, 15. -with Matt. xxvi. 38.
« Luke xxii. 44. ^ Mark xiv. 36.