$3 THE ATONEMENT OE CHRIST. ISERM. XXxv. had nothing else to encounter with ? When this dreadful hour was come, and the powers of darkness were let loose Upon him, " he began tobe sore amazed, and very heavy," Mark xiv. 33. He told his disciples, My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death ; He went forward a little, and fell 'on the ground, and prayed, that if it were possible that hour might pass from him." He entreated his Father, " with prayers and supplications, with strong cries and tears," Iieb. y, 7. Such a terror was upon his spirits, that three times he repeated the same petition, that he might be excused if possible from drinking that cup of sorrow. The agonies of his soul pressed great. drops of blood through the pores of his body, and bathed him in a crimson sweat. These cries and tears, these agonies and these sweats of blood preached the doctrine of atonement with dreadful power, and uncontested evidence. And as upon the cross, so in the- garden, it is probable his Father forsook him, or hid his face from him, so that he had need of an angel to be sent down from heaven on purpose to comfort or strengthen him ; Luke xxii. 43. It was here that he learned feelingly what was the curse of the broken law, what was that indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, that were due to the sin of man. -Here the seed of the woman maintained a combat with that great serpent, the devil, and had his heel bruised ; that is, his dower nature filled with anguish. And it is most proba- ble, that his nature being worn out with this load of dis- tress, was the true reason why he expired on the cross much sooner than was expected, so that " Pilate mar- yelled to hear that he was already dead," .Mark xv. 44. I think it is impossible for the socinians, who repre- sent the death of Christ chiefly as a martyrdom for the truth of his doctrine, and an exampleof patience in suf- fering, to support their scheme against this argument, or to give any tolerable account of this amazement which possessed his spirit before his enemies came near him, and of these agonies of soul which our blessed Lord sustained. Surely such sorrows and such terrors de- monstrate the work of propitiation, and the dreadful la, hour of reconciling an offended God and sinful man. VII. This doctrine of satisfaction for sin by the death of Christ is declared, and confirmed, and explained at
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