343 Mark He repeats his prayer with submission to his Father's will. SECT. but for one hour, when I was in such an agony? clxxxii. And you that were so ready to join with him in the same profession, could neither of you be XIV.37. mindful of me; and in this time of my extreme distress were ye all so unable to perform your resolution as not to watch one single hour with 38 me? I must again exhort you to watch and 38 Watch ye, and pray with the greatest earnestness, that ye may temptation: the spirit pray, lest ye enter into not enter into and fall by that dangerous temp- truly [willing], but tation which is now approaching: the spirit the flesh is weak. indeed is forward, and ready to express the duti- [MAT. XXVI, 41.} ful regard that you have for me, and I know your resolutions of adhering to me are very sinbut yet, as your own present experience may convince you, the flesh is weak; and as you have been so far prevailed upon by its infirmities, as to fall asleep at this very unseasonable time, so if you are not more upon your guard, and more importunate in seeking for assistance from above, it will soon gain a much greater victory over you. 39 40 cere; 39 And again he went away [the second time], and prayed, and spake the same words, [saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, Fa- except drink it, thy And when he had thus gently admonished them, he went away again the second time, to a little distance from them, and prayed as he had done before, speaking much the same words, or expressing himself to the like effect, with the same ardour and submission, saying, O my ther, if it be necessary, in pursuance of the will be done.] [MAT. great end for which I came into the world, that XXVI. 42.] I should endure these grievous sufferings, and this cup cannot pass from me without my drinking it, and wringing out, as it were, the very dregs of it, I will still humbly acquiesce, and say, Thy will be done, how painful soever it may be to flesh and blood. And returning back to his three disciples, he found them asleep again; for the fatigue and trouble they had lately undergone had exhaust e Watch and pray, &c.] How poorly is this exhortation answered by those vigils and nocturnal offices of the Romish church, which are said to have had their original from hence! Rhemish. Testam. p. 79.-I think it more proper, on a review, to render όπως εκ ισχύσατε in the preceding verse, with Dr. Hammond, Were ye so unable, &c. than to retain our version of alws, what, which scems a less common and less forcible sense. f The spirit indeed is forward and ready, but the flesh is weak.] So gentle a rebuke, and 90 kind an apology (as Archbishop Til ed 40 And when he re turned, he found them asleep again (for their eyes lotson very justly and beautifully observes), were the more remarkable, as our Lord's mind was now discomposed with sorrow, so that he must have the deeper and ten. derer sense of the unkindness of his friends. (See Tillots. Works, Vol. II. p. 435.)— How apt are we to think affliction an excuse for peevishness! But how unlike are we to Christ in that thought, and how unkind to ourselves, as well as our friends, to whom, in such circumstances, with our best temper, we must be more troublesome than we could wish! & Speaking An angel appears to strengthen him in his agony. eyes were heavy); nei ther wist they what to answer him. [MAT. XXVI. 43.] MAT. XXVI. 44. And he left them, and prayed the third time, saying the same words; LUKE XXII. 42. Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this went away again, and cup from me; nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. 43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, 349 ed their spirits, and their eyes were quite weigh- SECT. ed down with weariness and sorrow: and he ad- cxxxii. monished them again as before; and they were Mark so thoroughly confounded, that they knew not XIV.40. And, having roused them for the present from Mat. strengthening him. 44 And, being in an agony, he prayed morc earnestly: and his ous Speaking much the same words.] It is combat in which he was now actually enplain, by comparing ver. 39 and 42, that gaged. (See Limborch's Theol. lib. iii. cap. the words were not entirely the same; and 13, § 17.) This throws great light on it is certain that λy often signifies mat- Heb. v. 7, He was heard in that he feared. ter; so that no more appears to be intend-Since the former editions I have had the ed than that he prayed to the same purpose as before. h If thou pleasest to take away this cup from me.] The observing reader will easily perceive by the paraphrase, that I do not suppose our Lord here prayed to be excused entirely from sufferings and death. Such a petition appears to me so inconsistent with that steady constancy he always shewed, and with that lively turn (John xii. 27, 28, p. 170) in which he seems to disown such a prayer, that I think even Hooker's solution, though the best I have met with, is not satisfactory. (Hooker's Eccles. Polity, lib. v. § 48.) It appears to me much safer to expound it, as Sir Matthew Hale does (in his Contemplations, Vol. I. p. 59), as relating to the terror and severity of the pleasure to find this interpretation beauti- An angel from heaven strengthening k His 44 350 SECT. He tells his disciples that the traitor was coming. falling down to the ous over all, his terror and distress continued; sweat was as it were clxxxii. and, being in an unspeakable agony, he prayed great drops of blood Luke yet more intensely than before, insomuch that, ground. XXII.44 though he was now in the open air, and in the 45 cool of the night, his sweat ran off with uncom- 45 And when be rose up from prayer, rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. them, Why sleep ye? And rising up from prayer, after this dreadful conflict, he came back to his disciples the third and was come to his time, and, notwithstanding the repeated admo- disciples, [MARK, the nitions he had given them, he again found them third time,] he found sleeping; for their senses were quite stupified, row, [MAT. XXVI. them sleeping for sor46 and their spirits exhausted with sorrow. And 45.-MARK XIV. 41.] he said to them, Why do you still go on to sleep at 46 And said unto such a season as this? This drowsy disposition makes it necessary to renew my exhortation, and to call upon you yet once more to arise and pray that you may not enter into a circumstance Mat. of very dangerous temptation. But as all this did not sufficiently rouse them, and he knew those that came to apprehend him were just now and take your rest; entering the garden, he altered his voice, and [it is enough;] besaid to them in an ironical manner, You may [come], and the Son now sleep on if you can, and take your rest as long of man is betrayed inas you please. I have been calling you to watch; to the hands of sinners. [MARK XIV. but it is now enough; for this season of watch- -41.] ing is over, and I have no further need to press you to it: you will now be roused by another kind of alarm than what my words have given; for behold, the long expected hour is at length come, and the Son of man is even now betrayed XXVI. 45 His sweat was as it were great drops of blood, &c.] Many expositors have thought, as Mr. Le Clerc did, that the expression [oldfus aule wall Trouba aspal 3] only implies that his drops of sweat were large and clammy like clots of gore: but Dr. Whitby observes that Aristotle and Diodorus Siculus both mention bloody sweats as attending some extraordinary agony of mind; and I find Leti, in his Life of Pope Sextus V. p. 200, and Sir John Chardin, in his History of Persia, Vol. I. p. 126, mentioning a like phenomenon; to which Dr. Jackson (in his Works, Vol. II. p. 819) adds another from Thuanus, lib. x. p. 221.- Dr. Scott and Mr. Fleming both imagine that Christ now struggled with the spirits of darkness: into MAT. XXVI. 45. And he saith unto them, Sleep on now, hold, the hour is the former says he was now surrounded with a mighty host of devils, who exercised all their force and malice to persecute and distract his innocent soul; and the latter supposes that Satan hoped, by overpowering him here, to have prevented the accomplishment of the prophecies relating to the manner and circumstances of his death. (See Scott's Christian Life, Vol. II. p. 149, and Fleming's Christology, Vol. II. p. 130.) But however this be, I can hardly think, as Dr. Scott suggests, that there was some supernatural agency of those evil spirits in the drowsiness of the disciples, since the sacred historian is silent on this head, and refers it to another cause. Reflections on Christ's agony in the garden. 46 Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth be tray me. [MARK XIV. 42.] 351 clxxxii. Mat. into the hands of the most inhuman sinners; SECT. IMPROVEMENT. On the most transient survey of this amazing story we cannot but fall into deep admiration. What a sight is here! Let our souls turn aside to behold it with a becoming temper: and surely we must wonder how the disciples could sleep in the midst of a Mat scene which might almost have awakened rocks and trees to compassion. xxvi. 40, 43 Luke xxii. Mark Behold the Prince of life, God's incarnate and only-begotten Son, drinking of the brook in the way (Psal. cx. 7); and not only tasting, but drawing in full draughts of that bitter cup which his 41, 42 heavenly Father put into his hands on this awful occasion. Let us behold him kneeling, and even prostrate on the ground, and there pouring out his strong cries and tears to him that was able to save him from death. (Heb. v. 7.) Let us view him in this Luke bloody agony, and say, If these things be done in the green tree, what xxii, 44 shall be done in the dry? (Luke xxiii. 31.) If even Christ himself was so depressed with sorrow and amazement, and the distress and anguish he endured were such, that in his agony the sweat ran from him like great drops of blood, when our iniquities were laid upon him, and it pleased the Father to bruise him, and to put him to grief (Isa. liii. 6, 10); how must the sinner then be filled with horror, and with what dreadful agonies of anguish and despair will he be overwhelmed, when he shall bear the burden of his own iniquities, and God shall pour out all his wrath upon him? Behold, how fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God! (Heb. x. 31.) Mat. xxvi. 38 Here was no human enemy near our blessed Redeemer; yet such invisible terrors set themselves in array against him, that his very soul was poured out like water; nor was there any circumstance of his sufferings in which he discovered a greater commotion of spirit. Nevertheless, his pure and holy soul bare all this without any irregular perturbation. In all this he sinned not by a murmuring word, or an impatient thought: he shone the brighter for the furnace of affliction, and gave us at once the most wonderful and the most amiable pattern of resignation to the Divine dis- 39, 42 posal, when he said, Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt.-May 352 clxxxii. Judas comes to the garden with soldiers to seize him. SECT. this be our language under every trial! Lord, we could wish it was; and we would maintain a holy watchfulness over our own souls, that it may be so! But in this respect, as well as in every 41 other, we find that even when the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. How happy is it for us that the blessed Jesus knows our frame, and has learnt, by what he himself suffered in our frail nature, to make the most compassionate allowance for its various infirmities! Let us learn to imitate this his gentle and gracious conduct, even in an hour of so much distress. Let us bear with and let us pity each other, not aggravating every neglect of our friends into a crime; but rather speaking of their faults in the mildest terms, and making the most candid excuses for what we cannot defend. Let us exercise such a temper, even in the most gloomy and dejected moments of life; which surely may well be expected of us, who ourselves need so much compassion and indulgence almost from every one with whom we converse; and, which is infinitely more, who owe our all to the forbearance of that God, of whose mercy it is that we are not utterly consumed. SECT. John SECT. CLXXXIII. Jesus is betrayed by Judas, and seized by the guard, to whom, after glorious displays of his power, he voluntarily surrenders himself, and is then forsaken by all his disciples. Mat XXVI. 47-56. Mark XIV. 43-52. Luke XXII. 47-53. John XVIII. 2-12. JOHN XVIII. 2. JOHN XVIII. 2. disciples. betrayed NOW when our Lord was thus retired to the AND Judas also clxxxiii. garden, Judas also that betrayed him knew him, knew the place: the place; for Jesus often resorted thither in com- for Jesus oft times reXVIII. 2 pany with his disciples, and had particularly sorted thither with his done it again and again since his coming up to spend this passover at Jerusalem. (Compare 3 Luke xxi. 37. p. 268.) Judas therefore taking with him a band [of soldiers], or a Roman cohort, with their captain (see ver. 12), and some a Jesus often resorted thither with his disriples.] It was probably a garden which belonged to one of Christ's friends, and to which he had a liberty of retiring whenever he pleased. And here accordingly he often used to spend some considerable time in prayer and pious converse, in the evenings or nights after his indefatigable labours in the city and temple by day. It is indeed amazing how flesh and bloodcould go through such incessant fatigues; but it is very pro Jewish 3 Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the |