ness. our Lord prayed with resignation to his Father's will, and not absolutely. "None" took his life from him, but he laid it down of himself. He had power to lay it down, and he had power to take it again." He submitted to death from a conviction of its fitWhen his anguish of mind was allayed, and his commotion natural to man subsided, his language was, "Shall I not drink the cup which my Father hath given me?" "How [else] shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ?" as if this particular reason for his death had been recollected by him, or had been recalled to his mind by the angel who appeared to him. But it may be urged that he, who had a glory with the Father before the world was, must have known the necessity of that event against which he prayed. I answer, that to assert the strict and absolute necessity of Christ's death becomes not us who know so little of God's unsearchable ways: that we do not understand the manner in which the divine and human natures were united in Christ, and therefore may doubt whether the superior nature did not sometimes forsake the inferior, and withhold its e John x. 18. See Mark ix. 12. Luke xviii. 31. * See Ben Mordecai, letter vi. 85. p. 748, &c. 8vo. See Ben Mordecai, vi. 89. "As to the objection that the weakness of the flesh was absorbed in the divinity, it may just as safely be asserted that the power of the divinity was absorbed in the flesh for as to the consequence of the conjunction of the angel of the covenant with the flesh in which he was incarnate; or in what degree the temptations of Christ might affect him; that is, how easy or how difficult it might communications from it: and that the wise provi dence of God might so order events as they would most benefit the world in a moral view; and therefore might exhibit our Lord in such circumstances as furnished most instruction and consolation to his persecuted followers. I now proceed to shew our Lord's composure of mind, after he had thus strongly expressed the perturbation which had been raised in him by his foreknowledge of the many dark events which awaited him, and particularly by his abhorrence of a violent and excruciating death. He went forth to meet the traitor, and the officers sent to apprehend him; he discovered himself to them; and when God had struck them with such a miraculous awe that they fell on the ground, and had thus demonstrated Jesus's power of restraining their violence, our Lord made them this wise and benevolent request, "If ye seek me, let these [my attendants] depart." He a mildly addressed the perfidious Judas: he was so collected as instantly to be for Christ to resist them; I presume we are entirely ignorant : and have no right to argue from our ignorance against the fact itself." And Grotius and Tillotson say that the Divine Wisdom communicated itself to Christ's human soul according to his pleasure, and as circumstances required Grotius on Mark xiii. 32. Tillotson, vol. ix. p. 273. Beza also says, Imo et ipsa brutos plenitudo sese, prout et quatenus ipsi libuit, humanitati assumptæ insinuavit. On Luke ii. 52. These three Jast authorities are quoted by Mr. Farmer on the Temptation, p. 130. See Mark iii 9. Luke ix. 52. Mark xi. 13. xiii. 32. Matt. xxiv. 20 nib. v. 5. or. 6. 18. • Matt. xx. 50 John xviii. 4. Luke xxii. 48. W 9 t r perceive the necessity of working a miracle to prevent the ill consequences of Peter's affectionate but rash violence; and he forewarned that apostle, and all mankind, that drawing the sword in the cause of his religion would involve the good and bad, the persecuted and persecutor, in undistinguished destruction: he declared his readiness to fulfil the scriptures by his death: he meekly "expostulated with the people for their violent and disgraceful manner of apprehending him while he stood before Caiaphas, he shewed a composed attention to Peter's irresolution and timidity, and penetrated him with a sense of them by the majesty of his eye at the same time, he replied with the most exemplary self command to the officer who struck him for answering the high priest in a manner full of reason and dignity: before Caiaphas, and the whole council of the chief priests, elders and scribes, he entered into no vindication of himself, no explanation of his perverted expressions, against the false witnesses suborned to accuse him: but, when adjured by the living God to say whether he was the Christ the Son of the blessed God, he answered, I am; though he knew that they would impute it to him as blasphemy, a crime which by the law of Moses was punishable with death. Fortitude under actual sufferings, is patience; and submission to them because they are the will of God, is resignation. How did Jesus act, when those who held him a spat in his face; when they blindfolded him, and smote him on the face with the palms of their hands, or struck him with their staves; when they derided his prophetic spirit and Messiahship in this taunting language, Prophesy who he is that smote thee? Under all these circumstances of indignity," he opened not his mouth, like a lamb led to the slaughter." When he stood before Pilate, he astonished him by not seeking to avert death in the usual way of defending himself against the accusations of his enemies and as before the Jewish high priest and council he acknowledged himself to be the Christ the Son of God, which had the appearance of blasphemy; so before the Roman governor he confessed that he was a King, which had the appearance of sedition. e d Before Herod he conducted himself with the same majesty, the same patient endurance of wrongs, and the same resolution to decline the means of self preservation which became his peculiar circumstances. He refused to gratify the idle curiosity of Matt. xxvi. 67, 68. and p. p. What a very strong mark of contempt spitting on a person is accounted in the east, see in Bishop Lowth on Isai. 1. 6. Demosthenes closes the aggravating circumstances of a striker in this manner, ötav xoydúacıs, ötav læì xóppus, when with the hand, when on the cheek he adds, these circumstances wsi xì 'isnoi, mode and transport with rage; and in the same oration he observes, sx si säv manlar 88ev ûßgeas a'pognlólegor, of all things there is nothing more intolerable than petulant and insolent injury. In Midian. So Quinct. I. vi. c. 1. Plurimum affert atrocitatis modus, si contumeliosè: ut Demosthenes ex parte percussi corporis invidiam Midiæ quærit. b Isai. liii. 7. Matt. xxvii. 13, 14. d John xviii. 37. Luke xxiii. 8-11. the Tetrarch by working a miracle, and to give that account of his life and ministry which might have been credited on the authority of others: for which Herod and his soldiers treated him with contempt and scorn, and sent him back to Pilate arrayed in a gorgeous robe, in derision of his claim as a king. When our Lord was again brought before Pilate, 'a robber and a murderer was preferred to him by that very multitude who had heard his divine instructions, and seen, or perhaps experienced, his ben. eficial power: nor did even this vile indignity extort from the meek Jesus a word of expostulation. g Then Pilate commanded that Jesus should be scourged; after which severe and ignominious punishment the whole band of the Roman soldiers made him their sport, crowned him with thorns, clothed him in purple, delivered him a mock sceptre, paid him mock adoration, addressed him with mock titles of royalty, spat on him, and smote him on the head. The sight of Jesus, thus derided and afflicted, did not satiate the fury of his enemies; but after they had afforded him a further opportunity of displaying his dignity, and resolution to meet death, by giving no i answer to Pilate's question, "Whence art thou ?" Josephus speaking of the Phari f Matt. xxvii. 29. and p. p. sees, says, τοσαύτην δὲ ἔχεσι τὴν ἰσχὺν παρὰ τῷ πλήθει, ὡς καὶ κατὰ βασιλέως τι λέγοντες, καὶ κατὰ αρχιερέως, εὐθὺς πισεύεσθαι. Ant. 13. 10. 5. Quoted by Harwood on John ii- 24. They have so much power with the people that even if they allege any thing against the king or high priest, they are immediately believed. John xix. 1-3. and p. p. 'ib. v. 9. h |