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 victorythere 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

disciples are aware, lanterns and torches are seen glistening amid the gloomy bushes of the valley, and a murderous band, armed with swords, staves, and spears, is seen approaching along the banks of Kedron. The powerful preparation made for this occasion is partly in order to serve as a mask, as if they were banded together for the purpose of seizing a dangerous conspirator and rebel; and partly in consequence of a secret fear and apprehension in the minds of the adversaries that they might probably meet with some unexpected opposition. The superfluous torches and lanterns, in light of the full moon, likewise manifest their conscience-smitten fears. They might, however, have in view the hypocritical announcement that the individual they were about to arrest, despairing of his cause, was only to be found in secret corners and hiding-places. Scarcely ever were so much devilish wickedness, baseness, and craftiness joined with so much inward cowardice, timidity, and faintheartedness, as we meet with in this band of ruffians. It is truly an infernal host with which we have to do the bodyguard of Satan.

Let it not disturb us to inspect it a little more closely. We first perceive the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary. What accusation have they to bring against Jesus? This-that he is undermining their proud hierarchy, stripping them of their false glory, snatching from their hands the scepter of despotism over the consciences of the poor people, diminishing their tithes and resources, and intimating to them, that they ought to place themselves in the ranks of publicans and sinners. All this was intolerable to these proud and domineering servants of mammon, and hence their hatred of the Lord of Glory. Hence also the animosity of numbers of our cotemporaries. All enmity to Christ, regarded in this light, is nothing but the rebelling of proud, self-righteous, human nature, devoted to the service of the world, against a Gospel which places self-denial and the crucifixion of the flesh, with its affections and lusts, at the head of its requirements.

Near the priests we behold the Pharisees, those blind leaders of the blind, the representatives of the delusive idea of individual merit, and hence, also, of repugnance to a doctrine which,

while stamping every one as a delinquent, affords a hope of salvation only by grace, and even to the most pious as the object of their boasting before God, leaves nothing but the freely bestowed righteousness of another. It is easy to understand how these men were offended at a Teacher who set up regeneration as a vital condition for all: whose language was, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister," and who testifies of himself saying, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man cometh to the Father but by me." Let us here ask ourselves, whether, until the Spirit enlightens our darkness, we are willing to be nothing, and that grace should be every thing? Whether we are better pleased than these sons of Gamaliel, to see our justification before God founded solely and exclusively on the blood of the Lamb, and that we are therefore naturally less offended with the Prince of Peace than they? I doubt whether this question will be decided in our favor. The Pharisee dwells in all of us from our infancy.

In the Scribes, who appear next in the band, we see the expression of a spurious wisdom, accompanied by spiritual ambition. No wonder, therefore, that such characters are also met with among the conspirators against Jesus. They, the learned among the people, were told that they must sit on the scholar's bench with the rest, and condescend to take their places at the feet of the Rabbi of Nazareth. They, the masters in Israel, who were stared and wondered at, and who sat with the heads of the people were they to submit to this? How could such an idea fail to rouse and enrage the self-conceited men to the utmost? But do not the words of Jesus continue in force, even to this day? "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent;" as well as those of the apostle, "Not many wise men after the flesh are chosen?" In addition to the universal disinclination to Jesus, which is peculiar to every one who is not healed of the hereditary darkness of the human mind, there was also in the case of the Scribes, a latent vexation at the numerous defeats and mcrtifications they had sustained in the face of the people, as often as they had ventured to assail him. How victoriously had he always driven them from the field! How had he caught them in their own craftiness! How had he taken them

captive in the very snares they had laid for him, and then openly disgraced and triumphed over them! These were the things for which they could not forgive him. And after the weapons of their sophistry had been wrenched from their hands, they were neither noble-minded nor ingenuous enough not to regard those of the basest treachery and rudest violence as suitable for their purpose. O speak no more of the natural man's nobility of spirit! Whatever stage of refinement and mental culture he may boast of occupying, there is always a price for which he will unhesitatingly barter this cause for boasting.

Under the command of the ringleaders above mentioned, we observe the servants of the high priests, those blind instruments of their superiors, who, though less guilty, are any thing but guiltless; and then also, the mercenaries of the Roman temple guard. It becomes, indeed, people of this class unconditionally to obey the command of those who are set over them. Yet they are not mere machines, incapable of guilt in so doing, but answerable, as well as all other men, to God the final judge, for their moral conduct; whose obedience ought to be limited by the well-known maxim-"We must obey God rather than man;" and whose duty it therefore was, in the present case, to prefer dying by the hands of the executioner, to the doubtful praise of having done their duty in the perpetration of the most heinous of crimes. However, for the most part, they know not what they are doing. More reprobate than they, appears the despicable troop, who, for money or favor, have voluntarily joined the band. These cowardly flatterers and men-servers, to whom it is a trifle, for one approving look from a man of rank, to smite their conscience in the face, remind us of those miserable imitators of others, who, because this or that person, on whom they depend, thinks in this manner or that, do not dare to speak otherwise; and carry their baseness to such a point that they even dispose of their independent judgment in affairs of supremely vital importance, for the most miserable price in the world. Woe to such worthless characters!

But let us cast a look also at the troop of catchpoles. Who is it walks at their head, with a gloomy face and confused look? Who is the man, muffled up in a cloak, and bearing the impress