Gethsemane-- a Sermon

In pursuing' our remarks on the agony in the
garden, a second circumstance deserving- of our
attention, is the singular behaviour of our Lord
on this interesting occasion. He prayed, as we
have seen, three times to his Father, that the
cup of suffering might pass from him, if it were
consistent with the divine will. Our great High
Priest was fully apprised of the nature and extent
of his future suiferings, before he undertook the
work of our redemption ; and as his mission was
entirely voluntary, we are not so to understand
this prayer, as if it were expressive of a reluctance
on his part, to finish the benevolent undertaking
on which he had so graciously entered. The
vicarious mediation of the Saviour was dictated
by his own gracious will, and executed by his
own free agency. A forced death could neither
have made any addition to his glory, nor brought
any advantage to us. But how, let me ask, could
his sacrifice have been other than voluntary ? It
was evidently impossible for any force, however
great, to wrest life from Him, whose power was
omnipotent ; and the expiatory efficacy of his
sufferings and death must have been weakened or
destroyed, if he had been ordained to suffer and
to die against his will. But on so important a
point we are not left to the guidance of our own
reasoning, however certain and conclusive it may
appear ; for, in his beautiful parable of the " Faith-
ful Shepherd," our Lord describes the voluntary
nature of his passion in the clearest and simplest
language : " I am the Good Shepherd," he ob-
serves, " and know my sheep, and am known of
mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so I
know the Father ; and I lay down my life for the
sheep. Therefore doth my Father love me,
because I lay down my hfe that I might take it
again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it
down of myself. I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it again."
The anxiety or earnestness expressed in his
prayers about the removal of his suffering-? cannot,
therefore, be supposed to arise from any unwilling-
ness felt by him to continue the work of propitia-
tion ; for all its difficulties — in all their extent,
and in all their duration — were clearly foreseen
and cheerfully undertaken. Nor can it be wholly
or even chiefly ascribed to the weakness or fears
of humanity, for it was supported, as we have
seen, by the union of the divine nature and the
extraordinary presence of an angel. His manhood,
indeed, may easily be believed to have been ready
to yield, for his mental pain, if not marked by a
difference of kind, was, beyond all question, much
greater in degree, than any to which mere hu-
manity can ever be subject. But, nevertheless,
the trembling fear or anxious restlessness arising-
from the " infirmity of the flesh," was not, and
could not be, the prevailing cause of the urgent
and affecting manner, in which he repeated the
same request three times to his Father. We can
neither feel nor explain the peculiar suitableness
or propriety of our Lord's prayer on this remark-
able occasion, if we do not keep steadily in our
view the double or two-fold nature of the work of
our redemption. The Redeemer descended into
this world to purchase salvation for our fallen race ;
and this divine plan of benevolence he could not
have executed without magnifying and making-
honourable the law, whose precepts we had dared
to violate, and whose penalties we were bound
to endure. When we peruse the scriptural ac-
counts of his unparalleled sufferings in the garden
and on the cross, we are inclined rather to yield
to the tenderness of compassion, than to bear in
mind, that while he is removing the curse of the
law, he is, at the same time, subjecting himself to
its authority, and working out for us that perfect
righteousness without which we cannot be justi-
fied. The love of the Supreme Being, we all
know, is the most important part of the moral law :
it has been styled the first and great command-
ment ; and this fundamental principle includes, as
its most essential requisites, obedience to the
divine precepts, and submission to the divine •
decrees. In every day of his life upon the earth,
whether in prosperity or in adversity, whether
in joy or in grief, our " elder Brother" ever
expressed a profound respect for the majesty
of heaven, and ever displayed that devout and
virtuous resignation which would disting"uish a
creature possessed of our nature in a condition of
perfect innocence. He acquiesced, with the most
patient cheerfulness, in all the trials of our Media-
tor ; and though, as God, he could clearly foresee and
easily overcome them all, yet, as man, he felt it
to be his duty, if not to decline, at least not to
court them ; and to pray either that they might be
taken away from him, or that he might bear them
with fortitude. If he had not prayed to his Father,
during his agony in the garden, or during his pas-
sion on the cross, he would have failed in one of
the duties of piety ; and if he had not expressed,
in his prayers, a wish, nay, a strong wish, for his
sufferings to be alleviated or removed, he might
have displayed, indeed, the greatness of the Deity,
but he would have risen, at the same time, above
the httleness of humanity. He might have shone
in the infinite excellence of a God, but he would
have failed in exemplifying the finite excellence
of a man. His conduct, however, was perfect in
itself, and suitable to his nature. While he mani-
fested his divine power by the capacity of his en-
durance, he proved his human obedience by the
character of his resignation. Hence, in the be-
ginning of his agony in the garden, he poured
forth his feelings in the pathetic words of human
anxiety, " O my Father, if it be possible, let this
cup pass from me ; " and hence, too, at the ninth
hour, when he was still hanging on the cross, he
cried out, in the broken accents of human despair,
" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?"

The last circumstance, of which it may be
necessary to take a more special notice, is the con-
duct of the three apostles on this memorable oc-
casion, as it is impartially described by the three
first evangelists. If Peter, James, and John,
had walked along with Jesus to the Mount of
Olives, with the feelings of an ordinary day, we
should have expected them to attend, with the
most devout interest, to all the words and ac-
tions of a being whom they were accustomed to
revere and obey. When they were invited by
him to come down from the Mount, the fact of
their being again selected from the twelve could
hardly fail to suggest to their remembrance the
august scene of the transfiguration, and prepare
them for expecting the recurrence of some great
and interesting event. With such a prospect
before them, it was natural for them to be cheerful
in spirit and animated with hope. But, alas !
their condition at those two periods was widely
different. At the time of the transfiguration
their minds were enlivened with joy, but now they
were depressed with sorrow. This saddening
change was mainly produced by the altered be-
'haviour of our Lord himself. For some time
previous to his agony, he had been making some
obscure allusions to the decease which he would
accomplish at Jerusalem. With compassionate
tenderness he had begun gently to insinuate to
them that it was expedient for him to go away
and leave them. He allowed them, for some time,
to meditate in secret on what he had thus darkly
hinted to them. And when they were gradually
prepared for hearing the whole truth, he told them,
more plainly, that he was destined to suffer many
indignities, and, at last, to undergo a violent
death.

The impression produced by such discoveries
partook of the mixed nature of grief and fear.
They could not bear the idea of losing a friend,
whose omnipotent power was the safe-guard of
their life, — whose directing wisdom was the security
of their virtue, and whose tender benevolence was
the foundation of their happiness. They had left
all and followed him ; and if he should leave them
alone and unprotected, they must expect to find
the world a wilderness, and its inhabitants their
enemies. At the supper of the passover these
gloomy ideas were not worn away from their
minds by the festivities of the Jewish holiday ; on
the contrary they were more deeply imprinted on
them by the institution of a more solemn and sig-
nificant service. The symbols of the Christian
sacrament, which was then appointed, gave a pre-
sent and a living form to the future events on the
Mount of Calvary, and dissipated every remaining
doubt, with respect to the truth of his mournful
predictions. The prophecy, too, that " one of them
would betray him, another deny him, and all for-
sake him," inspired so many various sentiments of
shame, surprise, and unbelief, as helped to deepen
their grief and heighten their alarm. On all these
accounts we need not wonder that when they ac-
companied their Master to the garden of Gethse-
mane, all nature appeared to them to be veiled in a
robe of the deepest mourning. The darkness or
gloom that brooded only over their own souls, was
made by the power of association to spread itself
over every near and every distant object, and to
eclipse the beauty of one of the fairest landscapes of
the material universe. But while they were thus
wearied and disturbed by distresses both ideal and
real, sleep, the guardian of health and the softener
of care, came to their rehef. They soon forgot
their Master and themselves in its sweet and un-
conscious slumbers. They saw not all the drop-
ping blood of his agony. They heard not all the
sad accents of his prayers. They felt not with
him through the whole depth of his sorrows. But,
surely, when we reflect upon their fatigue and
wretchedness, we may look upon their sleeping
forms with an eye of pity, and go along with our
Saviour in the considerate apology which he made
for their seeming unkindness, " The spirit indeed
is willing, but the flesh is weak."

I shall conclude the whole of this interesting
discussion with a few reflections naturally arising
from the subject.

How inconceivably bitter, how dreadfully in-
tense must have been our Lord's spiritual conflict
in the garden of Gethsemane ! Surely none but
a divine person could have entered the wine-press
of the Father's wrath, and borne up under the
pressure of such unutterable woe. Surely nothing
less than a love that was infinite could have
prompted a Being, infinitely exalted in rank, and
absolutely perfect in character, to pass through a
fiery trial, so indescribably severe, and for the sake
of creatures so low and worthless. Oh ! let us
never forget the awful scene of the Redeemer's
agony. Let it often engage all the attention of
our reason; let it often awaken all the tenderness of
our heart. And let us not only contemplate it
with interest and compassion, but with reverence
and fear. When we reflect upon the greatness of
tJiat misery which not only the body, but the soul,
is capable of enduring, which every sinner who
continues finally impenitent must endure, and
which would have been our certain inevitable por-
tion if our great Surety had not endured it in our
room, let us be impressed with a strong and lively
belief of the odious nature and mischievous opera-
tion of sin ; and let us manifest our deeply grate-
ful sense of all that the Redeemer has done and
suflfered for us, by hating and avoiding it in all its
degrees, and under all its forms. Let us watch
and pray without ceasing, lest, in an unguarded
moment, we fall into temptation, and dishonour
our Christian name by some sinful compliance or
by immoral conduct. In an especial manner let
us beware of slumbering on in a course of vicious
indulgence, and deluding our souls with unwar-
ranted hopes of the divine mercy ; for it clearly
appears, from the striking and impressive event of
our Lord's agony, that the divine justice will com-
pel the strict fulfilment of every tittle of the law,
both in its letter and in its spirit, both in its pre-
cepts and in its sanctions. Happy are they who
derive instruction from the warning lessons of
Scripture, and are taught by them to forsake every
unrighteous practice, to implore the renewing in-
fluence of the Holy Spirit, and to aim, with
unceasing diligence, after the moral perfection of
the Christian character.