years, without feeking deliverance, till once the fea was perfectly calm, and every elect foul out of danger. Marvellous loving-kindness! Oh that I could, with a fuitable frame of heart, both remember and admire redeeming love, and redeeming blood, when I go to fit down at my Redeemer's table. O that I may there get faith's fight of the various inftances of his love, that paffeth knowledge. Let me there view Chrift in the womb, and in the manger; in his weary steps and hungry bowels; in his proftrations in the garden, and clotted drops of bloody fweat. Let me view his head with a crown of thorns, and his face befieared with the foldier's fpit. Let me view him in his march to Calvary, and his elevation upon a painful cross, with his head bowed down, and his fide streaming blood! O unparalleled love! It had been wonderful love to have fent one of the lofty seraphims to suffer for us; but to give him whom all the feraphims ferve and adore, is love that paffeth knowledge! Let me view the fcripture defignations and titles of him that loved us, and gave bimfelf for us, that he might wash us in his blood.

He is our Emmanuel, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlafting Father, the Prince of Pease, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, the Prince of the kings of the earth, the Lord of glory, the rofe of Sharon, the plant of renown, the brightness of his Father's glory, the exprefs image of his perfon, the bright and morning ftar, the fun of righteoufnefs, the light of the world, the bead of his church, the beginning and first born from the dead, the appointed heir of all things. This is he that loved us, and gave himself to die for the redemption of a crew of rebels, grace-abufing, and gofpel-flighting finners! Oh, what am I that thou fhouldeft fpare, yea, ranfom and feaft me in fuch a manner! Long ago mighteft thou have fhaken off the hand of thy providence fuch a viper as I am into fire unquenchable; and there made me to know to fad experience, what it is to abufe free grace, by the lofs of eternal glory.-But, instead of that, thou haft pitied me, loved me, become my furety, to appeafe juftice for F

my heinous fins by thy blood, when no other facrifice would do. Lord, I welcome thy love feaft; I lay my hand on the head of the facrifice, and rest upon it; I believe, Lord, help my unbelief. O that I may henceforth live under the continual fenfe of my infinite obligations to my glorious furety, that would make his foul an offering for my fin. O what return fhall I give him for all his foul-travail and agonies for me? O that I could fpend my whole life, and each day of it, in magnifying his love, and living to his praife. Now, bleffed be his glorious name for ever and ever let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen.

MEDITATION XIV.

from LUKE xxii. 44. And being in an agony-bis sweat was as it "were great drops of blood.

O MY foul, this text affords thee great fubject of thoughts, when thou goeft to remember thy dear Saviour at his table. Here I fee him in a bloody agony! And first, let me obferve the place where his agony began, the garden of Gethsemane, which lay in the valley of Jehoshaphat, on the eaft fide of Jerufalem, at the foot of the mount of Olives. Now, it was in the valley of Jehoshaphat that God did plead with the nations in Chrift their furety, Joel iii. 2. The word Gethfemane fignifies a mill or prefs for olives, as being probably the place where they preffed the olives that grew on the mount, and there fqueezed the oil out of them. In this place it pleafed the Father to bruise Chrift our true olive, that fo out of his fulness the fresh oil of his merit and grace might flow out abundantly to needy fouls. Never was there fuch an olive prefsed there before, fince the first planting of that mount! Never was there fuch precious oil feen as Jefus's blood! that I may partake of the root and fatnefs of that good olive which was preffed here, and of that oil, which will make my grace to grow and my face to fhine ?

O

As it was in a garden that man's fin and mifery first began, fo it was in a garden that our bleffed Surety began his laft expiatory fufferings for fin, which caft him into a fearful agony. As the garden of Eden produced man's mifery, fo the garden of Gethsemane provided a remedy. O that when I walk and retire myself in a garden, I may have grace to think ferioufly, and with fuitable affections, upon the fins of men, and the fufferings of my Saviour for them; and, at the fame time, to fend up my ejaculations to God, for an intereft in his agony and atonement, and for the comfortable intimation thereof to my foul. When my dear Redeemcr was in his agony of foul, I read of his offering up prayers and fupplications, to God, with ftrong crying and tears, Heb. v.. 7. and have I no prayers or tears to offer up to God at the remembrance of his agony ! efpecially when I confider how much my fins contributed to throw him into it.. O how ftrong and bitter were my Surety's cries at this time, when God bruifed his foul, and poured down a flood of his wrath upon him? He cried till he was spent with crying; he grew hoarfe with it, and his throat fo dried, that he could cry no more, Pfal. Ixix. 3. Now was his foul in travail, and great caufe had he for his ftrong crying and tears. filent under all the pains of his body, and under his fufferings from men; all that time he is dumb, as a sheep before her fearers: But, behold, when fierce wrath from God alighted on his foul, he cries vehemently; and he prayed moft earnestly and importunately for fupport and through-bearing under this terrible ftorm. O'that, from my Saviour's example, I may learn, when under foul-trouble and inward distress, to make my prayers to God more earnest and fervent, and to persevere without fainting; which I have encouragement to do from this, that my Saviour's fervent prayers and tears have made way for mine.

He was

I obferve alfo in this paffage, that the agony of Chrift's foul increased fo much, that it produced a fweat of blood over his body; yea, great drops or clots of blood,

which, by his violent agony, burst through his very clothes, and watered the ground where he lay. O what trouble and anguish, pangs and forrows, defertions and ftrugglings, muft his foul have endured at this time, under the burthen of God's wrath for his people's fins, which put his facred body and blood into fuch a dreadful commotion and ferment! O what a prodigious and preternatural fweat was this! Never was the like heard of fince the world began! According to the course of nature, Chrift lying in the open air, in a cold night, upon the cold ground, with the greatnefs of his confternation, fhould have drawn all his blood inward from the external parts of his body: But Chrift's fweating and bleeding was altogether preternatural. He fweat without external heat, he bled without external wound. The fire of divine wrath, now kindled in his foul, was fo very hot and raging, that it made the blood about his heart to boil, and burst through both flesh and garments. He had received at this time, no wound nor external violence from any hand; no Judas, no foldier, no tormentor, had yet attacked him; no fpear, no nail, no thorn or fcourge had yet touched his facred body, and yet he bleeds moft plentifully! Oh, but the fword of Juftice had reached him, and made a deep wound and wide gafh in his foul; at which breach a sea of wrath brake in with fuch violence, that it overwhelmed him; made him fall firit on his knees, and then flat on the ground, where he lay agonizing and crying, till all the waves and billows of divine vengeance went over him. Oh, what a dreadful preffure was my Saviour's foul under at this time! What fqueezing anguifh had he about his heart, that made his body to ftruggle, and fweat in such a manner, fo that every pore of his body became a bleeding wound! O how awfully fhould I be affected with this tragical fight! How thankfully should I remember my Redeemer's love, when he calls me to do it at his holy table!

In my Saviour's agony I may fee, as in a glass, the malignant evil and curfed nature of fin, that no lefs

could atone for it, than the foul travail and agony of the dear Son of God! Can I ever make light of fin, when I view the great drops of blood standing above his garments, while he lay grovelling on the earth in the anguifh of his foul! Shall I not henceforth abhor fin, and stand in awe of offending a just and holy God, feeing it is fuch a fearful thing to fall into his hands : If fuch things were done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Was the cup of wrath fo terrible to the innocent human nature of Chrift, when prefented to him, that he fhrinked and cried. O! what will it be to guilty finners? Here I may fee how coftly the redemption of fouls is; ere this could be compaffed, God must be made man, Eternity muft fuffer death, the Lord of angels must weep in a cradle, the Creator of the world muft hang like a flave! He muft lie in a manger at Bethlehem, cry in an agony at Getlifemane, die on a cross at Calvary! Unfpotted Righteousness muft be made fin, and unblemished Bieffedness must be made a curfe! O did Chrift value fouls at fo high a rate, and fhall men be fo foolish as to throw them for a thing of nought!

away

Here I may fee the great difficulty of making peace with God, when once his law is broken; no lefs could do it than the blood, and foul-agony of the Son of God: even an infinite ranfom must be paid ere God would be reconciled to man. O how much am I beholden to Chrift that undertook the reconciliation, that prevented my ruin, by taking the cup out of my hand! O the cup he drank for me was mingled with wrath and curfes, a cup full of vengeance preffed down, heaped up, fhaken together, and running over; a cup, which if men or angels had but tafted, they had reeled, staggered, and fallen headlong into hell: Yet, faid Chrift, ere any of my elect ones drink it, I will do it for them; reach it hither to me, bitter as it is. O how ready was Chrift to engage for men! and how willing was he to perform! how ready, full, and free was the fountain of his blood to wash the defiled! Behold how freely it