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33.

Peter answered, and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.

34. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee that this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

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35. Peter said unto him, though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee: likewise also said all the disciples.

REFLECTIONS.

1. We have occasion to observe again how odious was the character of Judas! He was the familiar companion of Jesus, permitted to be near his person, honoured with the freest conversation, entrusted with a confidential post: he sits at the same table, and dips his hand in the same dish: yet this is the man who, notwithstanding all these ties, lifts up his heel against him, who delivers him into the hands of his enemies, and receives money as the price of his treachery. Thus he betrayed and injured a most excellent character and his own best friend: he does this, too, after repeated. warnings to beware of what he was doing. After every allowance that can be made, on account of not expecting that the issue would be so fatal to his master, it must be acknowledged that such conduct discovers a very high degree of baseness and depravity; for though he did not foresee all the consequences which ensued, he could not but know that he exposed him to great danger.

2. We see that although Providence employs wicked instruments to accomplish its purposes, this does not lessen the guilt of the agent. When the most important benefits are to be conferred, when mankind are to be saved, when the world is to be christianized, Judas Iscariot, a mercenary traitor, is to be the instrument: thus God brings good out of evil, and overrules the passions and vices of mankind for correcting and reforming the human race! But let no one imagine that because good may eventually arise from his misconduct, it is therefore justified or excused. Where men are influenced by bad motives, their actions must be criminal; and they will be severely punished: from no one action did so much good arise as from the treachery of Judas: yet he is threatened, notwithstanding, with the most dreadful calamities.

3. We see how plain and simple is the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, as it was instituted by Christ: it is nothing more than eating bread and drinking wine, as memorials of the death of Christ, in the same manner as eating the passover, was a memorial of the deliverance of the children of Israel, when the first born of the Egyptians were destroyed. Yet the ignorance of Christians has converted this simple rite into a stupendous miracle, in which, by a few words speaking, the bread and wine are suddenly transubstantiated into the real body and blood of Christ, and continue to be his real body and blood, notwithstanding our senses inform us to the contrary. Other Christians, forgetting the religious purposes for which the ordinance was instituted, have ordered it to be employed as a test of political principles, and a qualification for civil offices: while many of those who condemn this application of the Lord's Supper, fall into an opposite, and equally glaring, mistake, by considering it as an ordinance of peculiar solemnity, which none are to engage in but those who have attained a high degree of Christian excellence, nor they, without much careful preparation. None of these errors receives any countenance from the plain language of the institution.

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4. The generous resolution of Peter and of his fellow-apostles, is worthy of all Christians." Although all men be offended because of thee, yet will not I be offended; and although I should die, yet will I not deny thee." Such language well becomes us: for there is no friend of whom we have less occasion to be ashamed; none to whom we have stronger motives of attachment. But, whenever we form such resolutions, let us remember what happened in the melancholy case of Peter and his associates, and beg of God to strengthen our purposes, and to preserve us from so disgraceful a fall.

Matthew xxvi. 36----46.

36. Then cometh Jesus with them, unto a place called Gethsemane, which was some part of the mount of Olives, whither, we are told, verse 30th, they retired, and seems indeed intimated by the name, which signifies Oil-press, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.

Jesus, knowing that his crucifixion was approaching, and feeling the insupportable burthen which the apprehension of suffering produced, wishes to relieve his mind by prayer, and to retire from his disciples for this purpose.

37. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, i. e. from that part of Gethsemane where he left the rest of the apostles, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy; rather, exceedingly distressed;

38. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; i. e. I am almost dead with sorrow, tarry ye here, and watch with me.

The agony of distress which Christ felt at the approach of his sufferings, has appeared to many a great difficulty in the evangelical history; and they have had recourse to extraordinary suppositions to account for it; some supposing that the devil was now let loose upon him, and permitted to fill his mind with these horrors; others, that he was penetrated with a sense of the divine wrath, inflicted upon him by the immediate hand of God, which he suffered as the substitute of mankind; others, again, that the divine nature, which usually resided in Christ, was withdrawn, and his human nature left to itself. But the agitation of Christ may be explained in an easier manner: "those divines," says the Bishop of Waterford, "entertain the most just and rational notions, who do not think that our Lord's broken and dejected spirit was a trial supernaturally induced, but assign natural causes which shook his inmost frame*." The whole of what our Lord felt, upon this occasion, may be accounted for upon the principles of human nature, without supposing any miracle; if we recollect how much men usually suffer from the approach of violent pain, and how greatly his sufferings must have been aggravated by his long previous knowledge of all the dreadful circumstances of his death. The prospect of common evils, such as bodily pain, is very distressing, and frequently much harder to bear than the actual pain itself: but those which Christ had in view, had in them every thing that was dreadful: he knew that he was to be publicly insulted, nailed alive to a cross, exposed naked upon it to public view, for several hours, in company with malefactors who justly deserved so painful and ignominious a punishment. Not to have been distressed at such a prospect, would have argued

Newcome's Observations on our Lord's Conduct, &c. 2 Ed. p. 426.

either gross stupidity, or something superior to human nature. This deep distress at it, is to be attributed to his having had communicated to him, for twelve months before, a distinct knowledge of his death, accompanied with all these dreadful circumstances. Where violent bodily pain is to be endured, the longer men know it before, the more do they suffer from the apprehension: for every time they think upon the subject their feelings must rise to a higher pitch of acuteness, just as repeating a blow upon a part already sore from a wound, increases the pain. In this manner were the feelings of Christ increased, to that agony of distress which we see him suffering in the garden. This account is rendered probable by observing that he frequently foretold his own crucifixion, and that the prospect of it made a strong impression upon his mind at an early period*.

While we admit that the weakness of human nature appeared in these distressing apprehensions about approaching evils, we should also remember, that they were accompanied with perfect resignation to the Divine will, that they lasted but for a short time, probably not more than half an hour, and were succeeded by compleat and uninterrupted tranquillity, during the whole of the dreadful scenes which followed. These circumstances render our Lord's conduct more instructive and encouraging, than if he had discovered no degree of perturbation; because it is better suited to the common feelings of mankind, when placed in similar circumstances.

Whatever there might be in our master's conduct on this occasion which some might condemn, he, it seems, was not ashamed or afraid to have it known: for he took with him three of his disciples, that they might be witnesses of his behaviour; and, although he removed from them to a small distance, in order that he might apply himself without interruption to the subject which engaged his thoughts, he was still within hearing.

39. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying,

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