Matth. xxvi. 38. and Mark xiv. 34. There he cries out, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." We never hear of one groan from Christ for all his bloody sufferings; when crowned with thorns, scourged, and laid on the cross; "As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth: but on the first entrance of his soul sufferings, he fell a lamenting,. My soul is exceeding sorrowful:" the original words are most emphatic, He was begirt with sorrow;' he was plunged over head and ears in the wrath of God: all the faculties and powers of his soul were begirt with sorrow; "He began to be sore amazed," Mark xiv. 33. The word signifies the greatest extremity of amazement, and such as makes a man's hair stand, and his flesh creep; and it is added, "He was very heavy :" if we consult the derivation of the word, it signifies, a sinking of spirit; his heart was like wax melted at the sight of that terrible wrath. But the evangelist Luke has yet a stronger expression, Luke xxi. 44. "Being in an agony, his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood, falling to the ground:"Being in an agony, engaged in a combat,' as the Greek word signifies: he had before combated with principalities and powers in the wilderness; but now he is combating with the Father's wrath. He was in agony, and swate great drops of blood: all sweats arise from weakness and pressures of nature; therefore a dying sweat is a cold sweat; but never one, but Christ, swate a bloody sweat; and great drops of blood, in such abundance, that it came through his garments, and fell to the ground: and this was all but the first onset, a little skirmish before the main battle; for the main fight was to be on Mount Calvary, after they nailed him to the cross; then, on a sudden, the curtain of heaven is drawn, the sun loses his light; he was now combating with all the powers of hell and darkness, and therefore the field he was to fight in was dark. The punishment of loss and sense both was due to us for sin, he therefore suffered both: the punishment of loss, for all comfort now fails Christ; angels appeared before strengthening him; but now not an angel dares peep out of heaven for his comfort; yea, now his God fails him, in respect of his comfortable presence: formerly his heart failed him, in some respects, but now his God; which makes him cry out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Never was there such a cry in heaven or earth, before or since; yea, now he suffered the punishment of sense also due to us; for now all the wrath of God was poured down immediately upon his soul: all the sluices of divine fury are opened, and all the waves and billows of his vengeance passed over him. "Darkness was over all the earth: all things hushed into silence, that Christ might, without interruption, grapple with his Father's wrath, until he cried, "It is finished, and gave up the ghost."-What think you of this dreadful sword that awaked against our surety, the man God's fellow, when he was to expiate our sins? 5. It is a bright sword, a clear, a glittering sword : there is no spot of rust or stain upon this sword; no; the sword is spotless. Justice, holy justice: there is no unrighteousness with God. As there is no drop of unrighteousness in the cup of the damned, who are all damned by an act of holy justice; so there was no drop of injustice in the cup of wrath, which Christ, as surety, drank up to the bottom. Christ had said of old, "Lo! I come:" I come to be cautioner, and enter myself in the room of poor sinners, to pay their debt: justice, indeed, could not have required our debt of him, if he had not undertaken it; but having entered himself cautioner for our debt, he became liable to the payment of it: hence, when Christ saw the sword, and was crying, "Father, save me from this hour," he immediately corrected himself with a BUT; "BUT for this cause came I unto this hour," John xii. 27. And in the beginning of the twenty-second Psalm, which you know is one of the most clear prophecies of Christ's sufferings, after he had cried out, ver. 1. "My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me ?" Which is not the expression of any quarrelling complaint or discouragement, but of sinless nature, when arraigned before the tribunal of God, affected with the horror of divine wrath, and not being able easily to endure that there should be a cloud between God and him; I say, after these words he adds ver. 3. "But thou art holy." He cannot complain of injustice: Thou are just and holy in exacting all the debt at my hand, which I became surety for; I have all the sins of the elect to answer for; and therefore I justify thee, O Father, in giving me this stroke of thy awakened sword: "Thou art holy Thou art clear when thou judgest.”—It is a clear, bright, spotless, and holy sword. spea 6. It is a Living sword: do you think that God is peaking to a piece of cold iron, when he says, "Awake, O sword?" Nay, this sword is God himself, the living God: God's justice is God himself, a just God. Of this living sword you read, Heb. x. 31. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." They that fall into hell, they fall into the hands of the living God; and there they are an everlasting sacrifice to this ever-living sword. Christ when he came to satisfy justice, he fell into the hands of this living God; and if he had not been God's equal, God's fellow, he could never have got out of his hands again. If this sword be a living sword, even the living God, O but it must be a great and strong sword, as the sword of God is called, Isa. xxvii. 1. It takes the strength of God to weild it; and so he does here, "Awake, O sword." It takes the strength of God to bear the blow of it, and so it is here; "Awake, against the man that is my fellow." One blow of it given to the angels and seraphims, would have brought them all down from the battlements of heaven to the bottom of hell. "Awake O sword;" God is here speaking to himself; as if he had said, Let me arise in my armour of vengeance and fury, and fall upon my shepherd, the man that is my fellow: it is a living sword that can awake itself. Thus you see what for a sword it is that awakes against Christ. O to see and believe this truth this day! III. The third thing was to shew, in what manner this sword did awake against Christ, and what is imported in the phrase, "Awake, O sword." How the sword did awake against Christ has been partly declared already in the account of the sword itself: however it may a little further appear, in the support of this wonderful call," Awake, O sword," &c. 1. It imports, as if the sword had been sleeping, and now must awake against him: Christ having no sin of his own to answer for, the sword of justice had nothing to lay to his charge; and so was sleeping, as it were, with respect to him, having nothing to say against him, being the infinitely holy God, in himself, until once he made the bargain with his Father, to become our surety and cautioner; and whenever he became sin for us, and took on him our debt, then justice had a right to pursue him; and therefore, "Awake, O sword." 2. "Awake, O sword," it imports, that not only while the counsel of peace was held between the Father and the Son, did justice delay the execution, though Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, in the decree and counsel of God, but that after this glorious transaction, the sword designed against the Son of God, had long slumbered; the sword had slumbered above four thousand years after Adam's fall; the Lamb was not slain all that time, but only in dark typical representations of his death; but now, he must be actually slain; therefore, "Awake, O sword." God was now speaking of the day of Christ, the gospel-day in the first verse of the chapter, where our text lies, saying, "In that day, there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin, and for uncleanness :" Now how shall this fountain be opened? Why, the sword of justice must pierce the side and the heart of the Son of God, and so open a fountain of cleansing blood; therefore, when the decree breaks forth, he says, "Awake, O sword." 3. "Awake, O sword;" it imports, that the sword of justice did not rashly smite the man that is God's fellow a man in his sleep, or half-sleeping, may give a rash unadvised stroke to his fellow; but before God gave the stroke to the man that is his fellow, he did awake his justice, as it were, out of sleep, and proceeded upon the maturest deliberation: "Awake, O sword." It was no unadvised stroke that Christ got by the sword of justice; it was the fruit of a glorious transaction : neither did the sword strike him without a warrant, byparticular orders from the judge of all: It was warranted to brandish itself against him; Awake, O sword." 4. It imports, that justice was lively and vigorous in executing the vengeance due upon our surety for our sin: Justice did not give him a sleepy, lazy, drowsy blow but a strong, lively, awakened blow: as it is said, in another case, Isa. lii. 9. "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord;" so, Awake, O sword, put on strength. Well, justice arises, as it were, like one out of sleep, puts on its clothes of vengeance, and armour of power, rallies its forces, goes forth with warlike robes, and attacks the man that is God's fellow with all its force; and acts, like itself, with impartial equity, without sparing our surety, because of his quality, Rom. viii. 32. "God spared not his own Son: Awake, O sword." 5. “ Awake, O sword," it imports the great concern and earnestness that was in God's heart to have his justice satisfied: O sword; "Awake, O sword." God speaks here with affectionate concern: O sword! O justice! thou must be honoured, glorified, and satisfied, one way or other; and seeing I have proposed to my eternal Son to bear the stroke of vengeance in the room of elect sinners; and seeing he has undertaken it, my very heart is set upon the accomplishment of this glorious work; my justice is one of the pearls of my crown; I will not shew mercy to the detriment of my justice. A sacrifice I must have, a sacrifice I will have; therefore, "Awake, O sword." 6. I think it imports, not only God's concern to have his justice satisfied this way, but his great delight in the satisfaction; "Awake, O sword, against the man that is my fellow." With what infinite pleasure and satisfac |