on him; and by his ftripes we are healed," If liii. 4, 5. Thefe clouds of wrath, thofe cataracts of vengeance, broke out upon him, in his foul and body, in his life and death: and though there was no period of his humiliation, in which he was not bearing as well as doing, fomething, in the room of finners; yet there were particular seasons, in which he was more remarkably overwhelmed by the wrath of God. Now, we find " his foul exceeding for"rowful, even unto death;" then, we fee him "fweating great drops of blood;" and again, we hear him crying unto a hiding Father, and groaning after a forfaking God.

As, in fuch a pit, the ears of the forlorn prifoner are continually filled, and his heart perpetually alarmed, with the noise of these falling waters; and with the breaking of thofe impending clouds, ready to burft in with redoubled force; fo, the humbled ftate, was noify, an horrible pit, to Jefus Christ. In it he heard the curfes of the holy law; the demands of his Father's juftice, thundered, as from mount Sinai, against him. Taken by the throat, as his people's furety and cautioner, he practically heard these alarming founds, "Pay what thou "oweft." He heard likeways a noife from earth, while men fet their mouths against him, in strains of irony and contempt; "All they that fee me laugh

me to fcorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the "head; many bulls have compaffed me about, "ftrong bulls of Bashan have befet me round; they "gaped upon me with their mouths, as a gaping " and a roaring lion," Pfal. xxii. 7, 12, 13. "When I "wept and chaftened my foul with fasting, that was

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to my reproach; I made fackcloth alfo my garment, "and I became a proverb to them; they that fit in "the gate speak against me, and I was the fong of "the drunkards," Pfal. Ixix. 10, 11, 12. Nor did

our Lord, in the pit of his humiliation, only hear a noife from heaven and earth, but likeways from hell. He had immediate perfonal rancounter with the wicked one; particularly, in the wilderness of Judea, where Satan tempted him with the most guileful and impious words; and befides his hearing that grand adversary speak out of wicked men ; he heard him, on a certain occafion, fpeaking out of his own difciple and fervant; obliging the meek Emmanuel to fpurn that apoftle from him, with a "Get thee "behind me Satan."

The mire in the bottom of fuch a pit, ciftern or bafon, yielding and giving way to the perfon's feet placed in it; fo as he does, and muft, inevitably, however gradually, fink downward, exhibites the plaineft intimation of our Lord's circumstances in the pit of his humiliation. No fooner was he bora at Bethlehem, than he found the finking, fuffering, nature of the ftate upon which he had entered. His harmelefs feet at once dipt into the mire of fuffering; as his holy head was dafhed with torrents of wrath in the fame proportion as the engines of his Father's vengeance blazed upon him, did his fuffering, or finking in this mire, grow and encrease. This fatal, but to finners joyful, truth will appear to demonstration, could we trace him from Bethlehem's manger to mount Calvary, and follow him, from the firft to the last breath he drew in our world.

The Man Christ was no fooner separate from his mother's womb, than the mire, in which he flood, be gan to give way. He was not fo much as furnifhed with a proper and decent lodging, could not be allowed the common privilege of a bed, couch,

or

or cradle, whereupon to ftretch his infant limbs. A ftable was the only houfe, and a manger the only apartment, our world had to bestow upon this heavenly stranger, when an infant of days. "Mary "(fays the evangelift) brought forth her first born "fon, and wrapped him in fwaddling clothes, and "laid him in a manger, because there was no room "for them in the inn," Luke ii. 7. Well was the circumftance of an inn fuited to the character of the Man Chrift, who on earth was a ftranger, and from first to laft treated as fuch. But was there no room for him? did the inn open its gates to receive others, of mixed, indifferent, or even ignoble characters; and shut them upon the innocent, the fpotlefs, and the blameless Saviour? were others, under whofe iniquities the earth groaned, accomoda ted with every thing neceffary, perhaps, with many things fuperfluous; and could he, of whom the world was not worthy, find no better accommodation, than that of a ftable and manger? O what finking in the mire was this! that he, who, from everlasting ages, dwelt under the immediate canopy of uncreated glory, was now obliged to retire for fhelter, from scorching heats and nipping colds, under the fame roof with oxen and affes: that he to whom the palaces, the ivory palaces, in Emmanuel's land belonged, fhould be thus reduced, to dwell in a low, grovelling and uncomely hut. While our Lord was a tender fuckling,. the mire in which he flood continued to give way. As there was no room for him in the inn, it foon appeared there was no fafety for him in his native land: ere ever he had well breathed our air, plots were laid against his precious life; ere ever he had acquired any friends among men, unknown enemies way-laid him, in order to his deftruction; which rendered a speedy flight from Bethlehem neceffary; nay, obliged his

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supposed

fuppofed father, to tranflate him from the land of Judea entirely, and to enter, for a time, into voluntary exile and banishment. "Behold (fays the

evangelift) the angel of the Lord appeared to "Jofeph in a dream, faying, Arife, and take the "the young child, and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee "word; for Herod will feek the young child to "deftroy him. When he arofe, he took the yo ing "child and his mother, by night, and departed in"to Egypt: and was there until the death of He"rod," Matth. ii. 13, 14, 15. What could ail thee, O Bethlehem! what ailed thee O Judea! what meant thy madness, O Herod! thus to perfecute the bleffed franger, and fo quickly to diflodge the heavenly gueft. Not only did the Jews at Bethlehem refufe him accefs, and the land of Judea fpue him out; but, as if the earth itself had been wholly in league against its rightful Sovereign, a fixed habitation was abfolutely denied him. You have already feen him hurried from one nation to another; and if you will follow him in his weary pilgrimage below, it will appear how he was hunted, chafed, purfued, and fometimes obliged, of his own accord, to retire from place to place, from one city and village, or it may be from one mountain and defart place, to another. When he was informed of the Baptift's death, "he departed thence by fhip, into "a defart place apart," Matth. xiv. 13. When the Pharifees were offended at his miniftry, they faid unto him, "Get thee out and depart hence," Luke. xiii. 31. and when the Gergefenes underflood that he had permitted the devils to enter into their swine," they befought him that he would "depart out of their coafts," Matth. viii. 34. But our Lord's own account of the matter is vaftly more expreffive and emphatical than all fuch particular

particular inftances, gathered from his hiftory. "The foxes have holes, (faid he) and the birds of "the air have nefts, but the Son of man hath not "where to lay his head," Matth. viii. 20. no house, no home, no dwelling, or fettled abode. Instead of a fine and splendid palace, the fpangled heavens were often his only canopy; instead of a downy bed, the wilderness was his frequent couch, and the faftned, but rugged ftones his then pillows. Was it ftrange to fee a man of Jacob's worth, as well as wealth, lying in this posture, between Beer-fheba and Hafan? But how much more furprifing to fee Jacob's Lord reduced to equal, if not greater ftraits. O earth! why fo fhy and unfriendly, when the Lord of heaven, as well as earth, needed and defired a comfortable dwelling place? why fo liberal to the wicked and prophane, and yet fo unaccountably refer ved toward the holy One of God? wherefore thus furnish the worthlefs with your choiceft apartments, and deny him who is thrice worthy, an agreeable where to lay his weary head? As the world refufed him lodging, fo at times, it denied him fubfiftance; for "having fafted forty days and forty

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nights he was afterwards an hungred," Matth. iv. 2. and when ftretched upon the accurled tree, he faid, thirft," John. xix. 28. Strange does the world and the fulness thereof belong to the Lord? are the cattle on a thoufand hills his own? is it under his influence that corns grow, and waters break out? is the whole creation fuftained by the continued exertion of his bounty? and could no crumb of his own bread, no drop of his own water, be produced, when, in this finking mire, he groaned and panted for want! why fo exuberant the breafts of the creatures to others, and yet yielding no fupply to him? Befides, in the world, his cha racter was undermined, and, how far in the power