God. All that is implied in being separated from God, deprived of his favor, estranged from his affection, and a child of wrath, he feels as deeply, inwardly, and vitally, as if he himself were in that situation. He descends the gradations of such feelings into the distress of the damned, and into those infernal horrors where the prophetic lamentations in Psalm xxii. find their fulfillment: "Be not far from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me into the dust of death." He is only able, by naked faith, to struggle through the flood of opposite impressions and feelings, to the consciousness that God is still his Father as before. His soul is unconscious of God's gracious presence, and tastes only the pain and distress of abandonment. Alas! the sight of his Father's smiling face was his heaven; the consciousness of paternal favor, his entire felicity. But he now beholds it enveloped in gloomy clouds; and instead of intimate nearness, he experiences only a feeling of distance on the part of God. But he was not to be spared these bitterest drops in our "cup of trembling," in order that the words of prophecy might be fulfilled in him: “He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows."-(Isaiah, liii. 4). Even the heavenly peace of his heart belonged to the things which it was necessary for him to sacrifice as the ransom for our souls. Can we, therefore, feel surprised that when his sufferings rose to this state of inward abandoment, the inquiry as to the possibility of the removal of the cup should, with still stronger effort, be wrung from his soul?

The third cause of our Lord's bitter distress in Gethsemane, is to be sought in the world of fallen spirits. It is beyond a doubt that Satan essentially contributed to the horrors of that scene. The Lord himself intimates as much in the words, "The prince of this world cometh," and "This is the hour and the power of darkness." And his repeated call to his disciples, when overcome by gloomy slumber, to watch and pray, lest they should enter into temptation, places it beyond question in what kind of society and atmosphere they were at that moment. The infernal powers have been let loose upon the Divine Redeemer. They are permitted to array against him all their cunning, might,

and malice. If they are able to drive the soul of the Holy One of Israel to despair, they are at liberty to do so. It is in their power to distress and torment him to death, for no one hinders them. They may try him as much as they please, no one stands by him to help him. He must look to it, how he can maintain his ground. What I am saying sounds horribly; but he who voluntarily endured the punishment due to us, was not permitted to escape being given up to the assaults of the powers of darkness. What the latter did to him is not expressly mentioned; but it is certain that they assailed him in the most fearful manner, and strove, with terrific visions, which they conjured up before him, with revolting blasphemies, which they poured into his ear, and with lying suggestions, to induce him to suspect the conduct of his father toward him, and tortured him with insidious dissuasions from the work of human redemption. Suffice it to say that our Lord's faith, as well as his patience, fidelity, and perseverance in the work he had undertaken, were never put to a fiercer ordeal than under the fiery darts of the "Wicked One," which he endured in Gethsemane. Here the complaints of the Psalmist, in Psalm xviii., were realized: "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about, the snares of death prevented me."

Thus has the night of Gethsemane become light to us, although that light be glimmering. The connection between that scene of horrors and the garden of Eden, of which it is the awful antitype, is unmistakable. While in paradise the first Adam reposed in the lap of Divine Love, and, like a child at home, held peaceful converse with Jehovah and his holy angels, we see, in the garden of Gethsemane, the second Adam sinking in agony to the ground, under the oppressive burden of guilt, languishing, forsaken of God, and horrified in the company of dark and infernal spirits. How evident it is, from this contrast, that what was transgressed and violated in the former, was suffered and compensated for in the latter; and how loudly does the narrative itself testify to the truth, that Christ suffered in the character of a satisfying surety, and an atoning representative !

After having thus developed the mystery both of the causes

and nature of Christ's suffering in Gethsemane, so far as we have been enabled so to do, let us now inquire into the blessed result which has accrued to us from them. For this purpose it is necessary that we should apprehend the conflict in Gethsemane, not in the abstract, but in its inseparable connection with the whole of Christ's mediatorial sufferings. We see, however, in every single stage of our Saviour's passion, some particular part of the salvation he accomplished brought before us in a clear and obvious light; and, accordingly, as we find ourselves placed in circumstances which require especial consolation, first one and then another station on his path to the cross invites us under its peace-inspiring shade.

Let us hasten to Gethsemane, therefore, beloved readers, when we feel oppressed in a world where selfishness reigns paramount, and what still remains of the charity of the Gospel threatens to expire in self-seeking and self-love. The loving Saviour, whom we behold struggling for us in Gethsemane, continues ours; and how faithfully, ardently, and disinterestedly is he attached to us! What a price did it cost him to elevate such unworthy creatures as we are from our misery, and to procure eternal salvation for us! O love divine, how do our hearts expand at the contemplation of thy beauty! How blissful it is to escape from a selfish world to meditate on thee, to sun ourselves in thy light, and to know that we are reposing on thy bosom! What a happiness is this—what a foretaste of heaven in the house of our pilgrimage! O love, stronger than death, and more invincible than the grave, never depart from our view! Be thou the star to shine upon us day and night; and the colder the wind of a self-loving world blows upon us during our sojourn here below, the more brightly do thou display to the eyes of our spirits the gracious radiance of thy heavenly beauty!

Resort to Gethsemane, my readers, when you stand uncertain which way to choose whether to give yourselves to God or to the service of the world. Gethsemane will make it evident to you what sin is. Look at Jesus. He did no sin, but only took upon him that of others. How did it fare with him? "Now is the hour and the power of darkness," said he. He was given up to the assaults of the infernal hosts. How they fell upon

him! How they tormented his holy soul! What horrible company! what nameless terrors! But know that what tortured him for a time, menaces you forever! Think of being eternally doomed to endure the society and the scourges of the infernal powers! Is it possible to conceive of any thing more terrible? Jesus prayed that the cup might pass from him, but no answer was afforded him. God heeded not his agonizing cries; and yet Jesus was only the sinner's representative, while you must answer, each one for himself. Remember the rich man in the Gospel, who vainly besought a drop of water to cool his parched tongue. Who among you can bear to dwell with devouring fire, or abide with everlasting burnings? Be irresolute no longer. On the left yawns the pit, on the right shines the crown! Sin begets death, but the fruit of righteousness is life and peace.

Let us repair to Gethsemane, lastly, when the storms of temptation roar around us, and Satan goes about seeking whom he may devour. The days in which our lot has fallen are dangerous, and few there are who are not carried away with the stream of impiety. Even in the circle of the believing and the pious how much weakness of faith, decrepitude of spirit, want of peace, and discouragement do we perceive! How do the complaints increase of inward darkness, doubt, and blasphemous imaginations, which can not be repelled! All these are signs that the Wicked One is using every effort, and as the Scripture says, is "in great wrath." He, therefore, who wishes to be secure, must resort to Gethsemane. There we shall not only find a confederate in the conflict, who will point the way to victory— there we shall not only be aroused with the alarming cry, "Watch and pray lest ye fall into temptation;" but there the conviction is renewed within us, that the prince of this world is already judged that every rightful claim of the adversary upon us is extinguished, and that what the Evil One suggests to us of an abominable nature against our wills, falls upon his own head, and not upon ours, since it has been long ago atoned for by the bloody sweat of Immanuel, in the case of penitent sinners, and can only have a purifying effect upon us according to the will of God. This faith is the victory, which has already overcome the prince of darkness.

Looking thus at Gethsemane, in its proper light, it becomes to us an 'Eden," and is transformed, with its horrors, into a peaceful retreat. Within its circuit we are safe from the judicial inquiry, “Adam, where art thou?" In this garden flows the never-failing river of God, which waters the new paradise. How many thousand anxious souls have gone forth out of it, from the conflicting bustle of the world, into divine Sabbatic repose! Its holy gates are open to us. Come, therefore, let us reverentially enter, and inhale its peaceful atmosphere!

XIV.

THE SUDDEN ASSAULT.

AFTER coming off victorious from his spiritual conflict in Gethsemane, the divine sufferer prepares to enter upon the thorny path of bodily affliction. We must bear in mind that under the latter the former not only continues, but each of the trials to which he is subjected must be regarded only as the reflection of incomparably more real and inward states and situations. His being taken prisoner, his being brought before the bar of judgment, his condemnation by the Sanhedrim, and his passage to the cross, are only symbolical representations of infinitely more exalted events, which were behind the vail, in the relations of the Mediator to God, the supreme Judge. He who is unable to regard the individual scenes of our Lord's passion from this point of view, does not penetrate through them, and will never find his way in the labyrinth of the history of our Saviour's sufferings.

We imagine ourselves still enveloped in the darkness of that eventful night, in which our Lord said, in a tone of serious warning, to his disciples, and which may still be uttered to thousands in the present day, "All of you shall be offended because of me this night." Scarcely has the Saviour risen up from the ground when a new cause of alarm awaits him. Before his