from the deep of the earth again. Thou hast brought me to great honour, and comforted me on every side" (Ps. lxxi. 17-19).

Not that even in this state of exaltation the Subject is wholly released from his vicarious sufferings, though at present unlike those which he endured so plentifully on earth. This suffering in the flesh was soon at an end; but the suffering of a benignant spirit sympathizing in the fate of faithful followers, and even in that of enemies may still continue: for SYMPATHIZING IS HEAVENLY SUFFERING in some cases (Luke xv. 7. pr. &s.), and no new thing to the Redeemer of Israel: "in all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them : in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old" (Isai. lxiii. 9). Such sweet suffering as this should therefore be taken out of the account, and not considered as a part of the grief but of the reward of his painful atonement. For, as to this; there could not perhaps be a more striking example of painful suffering and complete destitution in every respect; in respect of honour, comfort, and the commonest refreshment. Thus

8, Poverty was his birthright; and that to such a degree, as to preclude the earliest and most natural refreshment that a man can possibly receive, a place to lay his head on; which he found neither on entering the world, nor during his continuance therein. And though it be said, "The earth is the Lord's and all that therein is " (Ps.xxiv. 1); yet did it not seem to be prepared for his own occupation in this instance, any more than a bird-cage is designed for the occupation of its owner. "The foxes have holes, (said he) and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man (HEAVEN-BORN, he might have said) hath not where to lay his head" (Matt. viii. 20). The crafty manage somehow, to have their snug habitations; the aspiring, to have castles and palaces; but the humble Christian is often houseless. For it is not necessary that "the disciple.

should be above his master, or the servant above his lord: it is enough, for the disciple to be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?" (Ib. x. 24, 25). Of opprobrious epithets he was not likely to know the want wherever he went; while a greater depth of poverty and destitution could hardly be experienced in a country where men's wants and necessities were not so pressing as in more inhospitable climates.

man

This state of poverty we may infer not only from the Subject's forecited declaration, but from other circumstances that have transpired concerning him; as for example where his evangelist informs us, that on so particular an occasion as that of eating the last Passover that he was ever to celebrate on earth with his disciples, the "Son of " had not even an hired room for the purpose, but must order one miraculously, to eat the Passover in with his disciples (Luke xxii. 10, &c.); as he had before supplied the table of his entertainer with wine on one occasion (John ii. 7, &c.), being rather beyond that of mere conviviality, also entertained thousands of hearers with material as well as spiritual food again repeatedly (Matt. xiv. 15; xv. 32) and once at least paid tribute for God to man (Ib. xvii. 25, &c.): when he might have said with his successor, St. Peter, what could not be said by some of St. Peter's successors," Silver and gold have I none" (Acts iii. 6). But perhaps these would be apt to say, or some of them, that they had not the treasury of omnipotence at command like their Master, nor were allowed to draw on it for his use, like St. Peter: this they might be apt enough to say, not remembering their Master's invisible fund of devotion to God (John iv. 34), and his contented humility; which were a fortune for them, as for him, if they could enjoy it.

Indeed his having, or fortune, was altogether of the invisible kind, whether it were good or evil: and never any man partook so eminently in the extreme of either. Pro

perty he had indeed, and very ample too, but not of the description commonly called Riches. For all his good property consisted in rich opportunities, and in the highest offices in the Kingdom which he secured for himself by a faithful discharge of them, the said offices.

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9, The most painful part of our Saviour's destitution therefore must have consisted not in the want of common necessaries, though that be not so light an affliction either as it may be thought by many who have hardly ever known what it was to want a good meal, so much as in the occasional privation of that which constituted his only wealth, in that occasional withdrawing of the divine Presence or its enjoyment-a privation that seems to have been necessary to his probation; nor yet so much indeed, as only in the desertion of his followers, with the reproaches and persecutions of his enemies. All these trials of the Subject appear to have been anticipated by the Word and deprecated too more or less piteously according to their weight as well before as after his incarnation: for example, " Cast me not away from thy presence (O God) and take not thy Holy Spirit from me" (Ps. li. 11). "My God, my God; why hast thou forsaken me?" (Ib. xxii. 1; Mat. xxvii. 46). "I became a reproof among all mine enemies; and they of mine acquaintance were afraid of me; and they that did see me without conveyed themselves from me" (Ps. xxxi.13). And so when upon his signifying publicly, that some of his followers were not sincere, nor could be without supernatural assistance, but that one of them, whom he knew, should betray him, from that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him: then said Jesus unto the twelve, "Will ye also go away?" (John vi. 67. &c.) foreseeing most likely, how it would happen. But we do not read of any lamentations or regrets from him on account of his poverty or destitution in other respects: his ruling principle, so far as he had or could have one-as being rather the thing itself, which was the love of God above all, and next of mankind-precluding so low a concern.

To give a sample of the Subject's Denial and Rejection beginning with his nearest deniers: it seems remarkable, that his own brothers, who could not possibly dislike him being of so pure a stock, should yet be ignorant of his supernatural excellence, and disown it as we read: "For neither did his brethren believe in him" (John vii. 5). But this difficulty is reconciled by what we experience every day in our ignorance of each other, of our own dear selves, and, what is worst, of an higher Being, of whom we ought to know a little, but cannot on account of the infinite distance between Him and us. Just so was it with the brethren of Jesus: to whom his person being on earth and not out of the house, might have been known well enough: while his spirit, that is himself, being in Heaven, or as it is otherwise said, " in the bosom of the Father” (Ib. i. 18; iii. 13) could scarcely be known at all. Before he had left his earthly father's roof to go on the heavenly mission to which he was ordained, these brothers, with two or three cousins perhaps, including John the Baptist, were nearly all the companions that he had upon earth: they could not therefore think the worse of him for the company that he kept, unless they considered it a disparagement for him to be related to themselves, being poor people and little known. But was not this scanty birth with its consequent misesteem foretold of God's Christ or Messiah long before? or else, what means this? "Who hath believed our report, or to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground" (Isai. liii. 1, 2), or this, "The heathen shall fear thy name O Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy majesty, when the Lord shall build up Sion and when his glory shall appear; when he turneth him unto the prayer of the poor Destitute" (Ps. cii. 15, 16, 17)? So Zechariah prophesied "Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH: and he shall grow up out of his place" (Zech. vi. 12) or flourish from an obscure beginning. So Moses, "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of

thee, of thy brethren, like unto me" (Deut. xviii. 15). And as easy circumstances are not prophetic, we know that Moses was not born in easy circumstances: unless one should account it ease for an infant to be hidden as soon as he is born in an ark of bulrushes and exposed only three months after to the monsters of the Nile with Pharaoh at their head, as the Subject was exposed in a manger to horned cattle, and to Herod and his myrmidons.

A great cause of the Subject's rejection and disrepute was one that should have operated in quite another way, namely his condescension towards sinners (Luke xv. 2). And in general, it may be allowable to judge partly of a man by his friendships: but this was an evident exception, of which those who had grown up with the Subject from his infancy could not be ignorant. So they gave him not his due at any time, neither after he went from home nor before; or rather they gave him more as well as less; less credit and more disesteem than he ever deserved.

And whereas it happens sometimes in favour of men of merit to find a better reception among strangers abroad than among their own countrymen and kindred at home according to the Subject's own observation "A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and in his own house" (Matt. xiii. 57),—he did not seem to find this favour either always, being rejected not only at Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, and perhaps other indifferent places of Galilee as well as at Nazareth, the town where he was brought up (Luke iv. 14, &c.), but in more distant parts likewise, as in Samaria, in the country more towards Jerusalem, in the country of the Gergasens, or rather of the Gadarens, and finally at Jerusalem itself, where he ended his days as a matter of course; because, as he said, It could not be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem (Ib. xiii. 33). One should have enough to do, if one should go to specify every instance of denial and rejection, and every species of persecution, mortification and insult to which the adorable Saviour was subjected through his zeal to