is too strong to be applied to any part of the Redeemer's sufferings yet mentioned : It was in the concluding scene of his humiliation that they were realized in all their emphasis, and may be considered as including all that he then endured from earth, and hell, and heaven.

The Saviour suffered much in his last hours from the men of earth. A full and very affecting history of this is given by those who were eye witnesses of the fact, and inspired by the Holy-Ghost to record it. Judas Iscariot introduced the tragical scene by shamefully betraying, and selling his Lord. “Lo! Judas, one of the twelve came, and with him a great multitude, with swords and staves, and they laid hands on Jesus, and took him.” This deed was ren

. dered inconceivably more afflicting to our Lord from the very circumstance of the person by whom it was perpetrated. The betrayer was not a stranger; he was not a professed enemy, but his familiar friend, and avowed disciple ; the companion of his life ; a witness of that celestial truth which flowed from his mouth, and the many miracles of mercy which were wrought by his hands, one who ought therefore to have sympathized, and soothed the anguish of his soul in the hour of his calamity. This treachery of Judas was succeeded by every species of contempt, and insult, and violence on the part of the multitude into whose hands he delivered him. Then did

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they spit in his face, and buffet him, and others smote him with the palms of their hands, saying, prophecy unto us, thou Christ, who is he that smote thee. Then the soldiers took Jesus into the common hall, and stripped him, and put on him a purple robe, and when they had platted a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and a reed in his hand they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, hail king of the Jews." All that their individual and united malignity could devise was done to deepen his humiliation and add to the poignancy of his sufferings. Not satisfied with spitting upon him, and smiting him, "they put upon his head a crown of thorns," a mock emblem of royalty, and "a reed in his hand" the representation of affected, but empty power, and then insolently cry out, "hail, king of the Jews." To a feeling, generous mind such mockery gives a deeper gash, and occasions more exquisite pain than all the punishment which can be inflicted on the body. But the rage of the persecutors of our Lord did not terminate here. When his thirst became ardent through pain of body, and the vehemence of divine wrath which was consuming his soul they "gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall." What deep humiliation is here! He who had formed the fountains which rise in ten thousand hills and filled up the larger caverns of ocean is denied a drop of water to quench his thirst, or cool the fervor of that indignation of the

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Almighty which was drinking up his spirit. His enemies inflicted the last degree of either ignominy, or torture which their malice could invent by nailing him on the cross. There they suspended him, between heaven and earth, a public spectacle of scorn and execration, “for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” It ought to be remarked that this was a mode of dying peculiar to slaves, and never inflicted on a free citizen of Rome. To add even to the infamy and bitterness of the cross they

placed him between two thieves, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. And they that passed by railed at him, wagging their heads, and saying, ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself, and come down from the cross.' Little did they reflect that soon he will come, and “every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him.

Earth, however, was not alone in aggravating the sufferings of the Son of God. The powers of hell combined with the men of this world in adding to the sorrows of his dying hour. Those fiends of darkness which are so malignant against the members were much more malignant against Jesus the Head: While they are throwing their fiery darts at the spiritual soldier, they levelled their heaviest artillery against him, the “Captain of our salvation :” They knew well that if he was vanquished, his followers must speedily be put to flight. But at this

hour the powers of darkness were inspired with the highest possible rage against the Son of God. They probably knew that now the decisive battle was to be fought ; that the contest, whether heaven or hell should triumph, was coming to an issue, and that the victory on their part must now be secured, or they and their compeers driven from the field, and exposed to perpetual shame. With an obstinacy, and fury unexampled before “the dragon and his angels now fought.” In the prospect of this assault, the Redeemer informs his disciples, « the Prince of this world cometh ;" collects all his forces; he rouses them to the highest possible rage to aim at defeating me, and destroying my kingdom on earth: Again, when accused by the “chief priests, and captains of the temple,” he declares, “this is your hour, and the power of darkness :" This is your hour; the time has now arrived that I must “ be made perfect through sufferings,” and you will be permitted to execute your hostile designs against me; and “ the power of darkness," hell is now combined with earth in opposition to me, and my mediatorial kingdom. The particular temptations with which the great adversary assailed our Lord, in his last conflict, are not recorded in scripture, yet no doubt they were varied, repeated, and unusually virulent, and blasphemous in their nature; all to add to the bitterness of his sufferings, and brighten the splendors of that triumph which

he was shortly to obtain. We find that, in the wilderness, when one temptation was resisted, the devil immediately made trial of another, and we cannot but remark that they were all artful in their nature, and calculated to succeed. Our Lord having fasted forty days “afterwards hungered,” the seducer then suggests that he “ should command the stones to be made bread;" he tempts him not to wait for a supply in the ordinary course, but work a miracle, and thus dishonor his Father by manifesting a distrust of his providence: When our Saviour was in the wilderness alone, remote from the observation of men, the arch deceiver offers him “the kingdoms of the world, and their glory, if he would fall down and worship hin,” insinuating, although with an insolence of impiety which could originate only in hell, that our Lord might easily promote his own interests, and the act by which it was done should be unnoticed and unknown. Thus, although scripture is silent, we may readily conjecture that temptation after temptation was suggested by the infernal spirits to seduce the Son of God in his last struggle, and if possible defeat his mediatorial work; dart after dart was thrown hot from hell to vanquish the Captain of our salvation, and demolish that kingdom which he came to establish. The arch-fiend would probably insinuate to the suffering Saviour that the Father was unkind to him; that it was in