him, and in his sacred humanity he endured what they deserved. Let us, therefore, now consider him in the character of our representative, and the sufferings he endured, and the wrongs he sustained, will then appear in their proper light.

A horrible scene presents itself to my mind, in which every one ought to recognize his own likeness. I see a murderer; for it is written, “He that hateth his brother is a murderer." I perceive a robber; one who is guilty in two respects; toward God, in depriving him, by unbelief and pride, of his glory; and toward his neighbor, whom he has injured by envy or evilspeaking. Thus the curse of the law impends over him, and the divine denunciations attend his steps. A dreadful fate awaits the unhappy mortal-first, an assault in an hour of darkness, and then a dreadful arrest and captivity. He proceeds for a while freely and securely upon his path, and yields obedience to his fleshly lusts fearing no evil. But before he is aware, the sentence is pronounced over him, "Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe!" Horrible beings, the one more dreadful than the other, put themselves in motion. The day has disappeared, the night has overtaken the man. The gloom of his dying hour envelops him. What occurs? In what situation does the miserable being find himself? Are they ministers of vengeance which surround him? Are they demons and spirits from the pit? He hears the clashing of irons and the clanking of chains and fetters. He finds himself in the power of another, surrounded, seized, and apprehended. He can no longer go where he likes. A horrible guard take him between them, and an iron necessity indicates to him the way that he must take. As long as he sojourned on earth, it was, perhaps, only the flattering voice of applause and commendation that reached his ears. The hour of his accusers now arrives, and he hears on every side the thundering accusation, "Thou art the man!" Hitherto he had experienced so little annoyance from the powers of darkness that he thought himself at liberty to doubt their existence. They now emerge from their hiding-places, and he learns to believe in the devil, now that he finds himself in his power. For it is he, and his infernal bands, who have fallen upon him, in the midst of his fancied security, in order that they may bind

him in chains of darkness, and drag the resisting criminal, with yells of execration, thither, where he will be reserved for that burning day, when the Judge of the world will pronounce the final sentence, even the dreadful words, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels!" Such is the horrible future which presents itself to my mind. It is no empty product of a heated imagination, but contains in it real truth and substance; for in this representation we each behold ourselves, as in our natural state, and are conscious of the curse, which, as long as we remain in it, impends over us, and the gloomy fate that awaits us.

But to return to our narrative. What does it present to us but a picture resembling in every feature that which we have just been contemplating? How wonderful and striking is this circumstance! We see at the entrance to Gethsemane one who would seem to be nothing better than a robber and a murderer. In the dead of night he is set upon by order of the public authorities with swords and spears, surrounded by an armed band, and taken prisoner. And what is the language of the captive? "This," he exclaims, "is your hour;" by which he means to say, "You, my adversaries, have full liberty to deal with me as you please. Fall upon me, accuse me, disgrace me, and drag me to the scaffold; I am at your mercy." And then he says further, "This is the power of darkness"-the meaning of which is, “Hell is now granted free access to me, and can do with me as it likes; for by a judicial decision I am given up to its power." And lo, the man is actually seized, bound like a dangerous malefactor, dragged with rude threats before the bar of judgment, and ere long we shall hear him cry, in the deepest distress, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

We here see the same situation and fate as we saw before was the deserved lot of every individual sinner. And who is the man on whom those horrors are poured out? One who is ignorant of it would say "Who can he be but a criminal of the worst description?" And this would be relatively correct. who is arrested is such a one, and yet, at the same time, "the Holy and the Just." How this can agree together is intimated by Paul, in the well-known words, "God made him to be sin

He

for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

A blissful and heart-cheering mystery is here presented before us. If I possess saving faith, I find myself in a peculiar relation to the sufferer at Gethsemane. For know that the horrors he there experienced are not his curse but mine. The Holy and the Just submits himself, representatively, to the fate of the guilty and the damnable; while the latter are forever liberated, and inherit the lot of the holy Son of God. Wonderful and incomparably blissful truth! Our only shield and comfort in life and death!

O ye blessed, who belong to Christ, who can worthily describe the glory of your state! We hail the wondrous exchange which the eternal Son of God has made with you. We glorify the Surety and the Liquidator of your debts. Never forget the nocturnal arrest of your High Priest. Paint it, in bright and vivid colors, on the walls of your chambers. If you are again reminded of the curse which your sins had brought upon you, accustom yourselves to regard it only in this sacred picture, where you no longer behold it lying upon you, but upon him, in whose agonies it eternally perished.

Therefore, let not shadows any longer disturb you. There will never be a period in eternity when you will be compelled to say to your enemies and accusers, "Now is your hour and the power of darkness." Your representative uttered it, once for all, for you; and henceforward only the hour of triumph and delight, which shall never end, awaits you. Peace be with you, therefore, ye who are justified by his righteousness, and forever perfected by his one offering! No longer dream of imaginary burdens, but know and never forget that your suit is gained to all eternity. Behold Christ yonder bears your fetters; and nothing more is required of you than to love him with all your heart, and embrace him more and more closely who took your entire anathema upon himself, that you might be able eternally to rejoice and exclaim, "Jehovah Zidkenu-the Lord our Righteousness."

XVIII.

CHRIST BEFORE ANNAS.

THE armed band have executed their object, with regard to Christ, and the Eleven, perceiving it, have fled to the right and left. A young man who also belonged to the little flock, and resided near, having heard the tumult, in holy indignation against the banditti, had hastened from his couch to the revolting scene, in his night-dress. But no sooner was he observed by the mercenaries, than he was laid hold of, and only escaped from bonds and probably even death, by leaving in their hands his linen covering, and fleeing away naked. This little circumstance is related by one of the Evangelists, doubtless in order to point out and excuse the flight of the disciples, as rendered imperative by the most imminent danger.

Surrounded by a bristling forest of swords and spears, the Lord Jesus suffered his hands to be bound, like a captive robber, by a troop of rude mercenaries, in the name of public justice. Think of those hands being bound which were never extended except to heal and aid, to benefit and save, and never to injure, except it be considered as a crime to uncover to mankind their wounds, in order to heal and bind them up; to destroy the Babels of delusion, and in their place to erect the temple of truth; and to pull down the altars of false gods, in order to make room for that of the only true God.

Jesus bound! What a spectacle! How many a prophetic type of the Old Testament finds its fulfillment in this fact! If you inquire for the antitype of Isaac, when bound by his father as a lamb for a burnt offering; or for that of the ram on Mount Moriah, which was caught in the thicket because God had destined it for the sacrifice; or of the sacred ark of the covenant, when it had fallen into the hands of the Philistines, only, however, to cast down the idols of the latter; or of that of Jacob's son, arrested and imprisoned in Egypt, whose path lay

through the company of criminals, to almost regal dignity and crowns of honor; or for that of the paschal lambs, which, before being slaughtered for the sins of the people, were wont to be tied up to the threshold of the temple; or finally, for that of the captive Samson, who derided Delilah's band, and came forth victoriously from the conflict with the Philistines-all these types and shadows found their entire fulfillment in Jesus, thus bound, as their embodied original and antitype.

Jesus bound! Can we trust our eyes? Omnipotence in fetters, the Creator bound by the creature; the Lord of the world, the captive of his mortal subjects! How much easier I would it have been for him to have burst those bonds than Manoah's son of old! However, he rends them not; but yields himself up to them as one who is powerless and overcome. This his passive deportment must have for its basis a great and sublime intention. And such is really the case, as we have already seen.

Behold them marching off in triumph with their captive. They conduct him first to Annas, the previous high priest, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, a sinner of a hundred years old. But why first to him? Perhaps out of compliment to the old man, who probably wished to see the fanatic of Nazareth. His being brought before him, however, seems to have been the result of a secret arrangement between him and his son-in-law; and he, the old Sadducee, was perhaps more deeply interested in the whole affair with Jesus than outwardly appears to be the case. The preliminary hearing, which now commenced, was doubtless instituted by him, and not by Caiaphas. Even the irregular course which it takes, places this beyond a doubt. What appears in the Gospels to contradict this assumption, loses all its importance, as soon as we suppose-for which there is sufficient reason that Annas was residing in the high-priestly palace with his son-in-law.

Thus, the Lord stands at the bar of his first judge—one of those miserable men, of whom, alas! not a few are to be found among us, and who, "twice dead," estranged from the truth of God, and satisfied with the most common-place occurrences of life, think of nothing better, but treat the most sublime things