‚ ble man; if he had not trembled at it, he had not been an innocent man.'

Though the person of our Saviour was but one, yet he having two natures, had two wills, a divine and a human; otherwise, he were not God and man. His human will is swallowed up in the divine will of the Father; hence he says, Thy will be done 1" Having sweat bloody sweat, to cleanse his mystic body the church, from pollution, guilt, and filth, he knowing all things that should come upon him, goes forth to meet the traitor Judas, who came with a company of armed men, furnished with lanterns and torches, and weapons. The band of soldiers if complete, consisted of a thousand men ; Judas, one of Christ's apostles, was at the head of them, and was a guide to them. Our Lord goes forth to meet them, and says, "Whom seek ye?" They answer him, Jesus of Nazareth. He replied, "I am." Which words of his, being accompanied with the majesty and power of his divinity, caused them to go backward, and they fell to the ground. After they had recovered their fright, he asked them

again, "Whom seek ye?" On their reply, he says, "I have told you that I am," and then gives orders concerning his eleven apostles, who were all with him in the garden, saying, “If ye seek me, let these go their way."

Let us now follow Christ, and take a view of the places he was carried to, and the circumstances and sorrows that befel him. Behold him as giving himself freely into the hands of his implacable enemies, who bound him, and led him away first to Annas; from him to Caiaphas, where the chief priests and elders, and all the council sat in judgment upon him; Our Lord being dragged hither like a criminal, now suffered the contradiction of sinners against himself: he is charged with blasphemy, and they seek most unrighteously to take away his life.

While Christ was thus detained, and arraigned by the Sanhedrim, one of the officers, with hellish spite, "struck Jesus with the palm of his hand," gave him a slap on the face, by way of insult and contempt. Here also he appears a man of sorrows, as betrayed by Judas, forsaken by his dis

ciples, led to Caiaphas, and followed afar off by Peter, who falls so low as to deny his Lord. Now our Jesus being condemned as a blasphemer, and pronounced by sinners as worthy of death, is used in the following manner; the servants of the high priest and the officers, who were the guard upon him, seeing and hearing him condemned as guilty of death, wreak their hellish malice upon him: they spat on his face, boxed him with their double fists, smote him with the palms of their hands, either giving him many a slap on the face with their open hands, or else striking him on the face with rods. Hereby was accomplished the prophecy in Mic. v. 1: "They shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek." Having covered his face and blindfolded him, they, by way of pastime in a ludicrous way, make him their sport and diversion, saying, "Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, who is he that smote thee?" Here we behold again Christ a man of sorrows, and may view him as described and set forth by the prophet: "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off

the hair: I hid not myself from shame and spitting." (Isaiah 1. 6.) Is this the perfection of beauty, the desire of all nations? "How is his visage marred more than any man's, and his form more than the sons of men!" What a spectacle of sorrow must our Lord now appear to be? His face besmeared with blood and spittle, and his cheeks bruised with cruel blows, given him by the profane mockers, who looked on him, gnashing with their teeth.

After this night of sorrows and sufferings, the morning being come, the Sanhedrim sat again upon our Lord, and having already adjudged him to death, they now consult what death to put him to, and in what manner; and they chose crucifixion, as the most ignominious and painful. They therefore bound him as a malefactor, and led him away to Pilate the Roman governor, and delivered him to him. In the pretorium, before Pilate, Christ is examined and accused by the Jews, but declared innocent by the judge; who sends him to Herod, who insulted him, mocked him as a king, and

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made sport and pastime of him, arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, (perhaps an old worn-out robe of one of the officers or soldiers) treating our blessed Lord as a fool, and casting the utmost obloquy, shame, disgrace, and contempt upon him. After this, Herod and his men of war having set Christ at nought, he is sent back again to Pilate; upon which Pilate pronounces Christ's innocency again before the Jews, and joins Herod's testimony of it with his own; all of which only increase the malice and rage of our Lord's enemies.

His life they seek, his blood they thirst to spill, his death only can satisfy them; the governor therefore gives commandment for Christ to be scourged; which was accordingly done. The Roman soldiers stripped him naked, bound him to a pillar, and whipped him severely. At which time that prophecy was fulfilled, 66 I gave my back to the smiters; the ploughers ploughed upon my back, and made long their furrows." Our Lord's sufferings at this time must be inconceivable; for this was done preparatory to