DISCOURSE IX. 197 holy soul was incapable of such sort of sufferings till he put on this clothing of human nature, and became a surety for sinful perishing creatures. Let us survey his sufferings a little. He was born to sorrow, and trained up through the common uneasy circum- stances of the infant and childish state till he grew up to man: What pains did attend him in hunger and thirst, and weari- ness, while hetravelled on foot from city to city, through wilds and deserts, where there was no food nor rest ? The Son of man sometimes wanted the common bread of nature, nor had he where to lay his head. What uneasy sensations was he exposed to, when he was buffeted, when he was smitten on the cheek, when his tender flesh was scourged with whips, and his temples were crowned with thorns, when his hands and his feet were barbarously torn with rude nails, and fastened to the cross, where the whole weight of his body hung on those wounds? And what man or angel can tell the inward an guish, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful unto death, and the conflicts and agonies of his spirit forced out the drops of bloody sweat through every pore. It was by the extreme torture of his nature that he was supposed to expire on the cross; theso were the pangs of his atonement and agonies that expiated the sins of men. 00 O blessed Jesus ! what manner of sufferings were these? And what manner of love was it that willingly gave up thy sa- cred nature to sustain them ? And what was the design of them, but to deliver us from the wrath of God iu hell, to save our flesh and spirit from eternal anguish and distress there ? Why was he made such a curse for us, but that he might redeem us from the curse of the law; Gal. iii. 13. and the just punish- ment of our own iniquities ?" Let us carry our thoughts of his love, and our benefit by it, yet one step further : Was it not by these sorrows, and this pain- ful passion, that he provided for us tiffs very heaven of happi- ness, where we shall be for ever freed from all pain ? Were they not all endured by him to procure a paradise of pleasure, a mansion of everlasting peace and joy for guilty creatures, who had merited everlasting pain ? Was it not by these his agonie$ in the mortal body which he assemed, that he purchased for each of us a glorified body, strong and immortal as his own when he rose from the dead, a body which has no seeds of dis- ease or pain in it, no springs of mortality or death.? May glory, honour and praise, with supreme pleasure, ever attend the sacred person of our Redeemer; whose sorrows and anguish of flesh and spirit were equal to our misery, and to his own compassion. 5. Another lesson which we are taught by the long and tire N 3
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