tempteth no man in this life unto sin, either with the fear or sufferings of any evil or vexations, whereof our mortality can have no experience. He labours to withdraw no man from God's service, by giving them any taste or touch of the pains prepared for the damned in the life to come. Such as are in the deepest bonds of thraldom to him, would quickly abandon his service if he should tender them such a true symbol or earnest of their everlasting wages, or such a momentary taste of hell-pains, as the Spirit of God in this life exhibiteth to some of his children of their everlasting joys. And it is questionable whether our nature, whilst mortal, be capable of such pains, or whether the first touch or real impression of them would not dissolve the link or bond between man's mortal body and his immortal soul in a moment. For as flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but this mortal must put on immortality ere we can be partakers of celestial joys; so it is probable that our corruptible bodies must be made in another kind incorruptible, before they can be the proper subjects or receptacles of hell-pains. But though no man in this life be tempted to ill, or withdrawn from the service of God by sufferance of such pains, yet inasmuch as many are ofttimes tempted to despair of God's mercies by the unknown terrors of hell, or representations of infernal forces, there is no question but the Son of God, not in his divine wisdom only, by which he knoweth all things, but even as man, had a more distinct view of all the forces and terrors of hell, more full experience of their active force and attempts, than any man in this life can have, to the end that he might be a faithful Comforter 834 of all such unto the world's end as shall be affrighted or attempted with them. If we consider then only the attempt, assault, or active force, by which Satan seeketh to withdraw us from God unto his service, not the issue or impression which his attempts make upon us sinful men, there was no kind of temptation whereto the Son of God was not subject, whereto he did not submit himself for our sakes, that he might have full experience or perfect notice as man, of all the dangers whereunto we are obnoxious. By that which was done against the green tree, he knoweth what will become of the dry, if it be exposed to the like fiery trial. It was requisite that this great Captain of God's warfare with Satan, and of our salvation, should have a perfect view of all the forces which fight against us, that he might be a faithful Solicitor to his Almighty Father for aid and succour unto all that are beset with them, unto all that offer up strong cries unto him, as he in the days of his flesh did unto his Father, and was saved from that which he feared. 2. The greatest comfort which any poor distressed mortal man can expect, or which our nature is capable of, in oppression and distress, must issue from this main fountain of our Saviour's agony and bloody sweat, of his cross and passion; for whatsoever he suffered in those two bitter days, he suffered, if not for this end alone, yet for this especially, that he might be an all-sufficient Comforter unto all such as mourn, as having sometimes had more than a fellow-feeling of all our infirmities and vexations, as one who had tasted deeper of the cup of sorrow and death itself, than any man before him had done, or to the world's end shall do. It would be a great comfort to such as have suffered shipwreck to have an admiral a dispenser of alms unto seafaring men who had sometimes suffered shipwreck, or after shipwreck had been wronged by his neighbours or natives. And so it would be to a man eaten out of his estate by usury or vexations in Ll JACKSON, VOL. VII. law, to have a judge or chancellor who had been both ways more grievously wronged; a just or upright man, whose heart would melt with the fellow-feeling of his calamities. Experience of bodily pains or grievous diseases inclineth the chirurgeon or physician to be more compassionate to their patients, and more tender of their welfare than otherwise they would be. And for these reasons, ever since I took them into consideration, and as often as I resume the meditations of our Saviour's death, I have ever wondered and still do wonder at the peevishness, or rather pathetical profaneness of men, who scoff at those sacred passages in our liturgy," By thine agony and bloody sweat; by thy cross and passion; &c., Good Lord deliver us;" as if they had more alliance with spells, or forms of conjuring, than with the spirit of prayer or true devotion. Certainly they could never have fallen into such irreverent and uncharitable quarrels with the church our mother, unless they had first fallen out, and that foully, with Pater noster, with the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. For I dare undertake to make good, that there is not either branch or fruit, blossom or leaf, in that sacred garden of devotions, which.doth not naturally spring and draw its life and nourishment from one or other of the three former roots, to wit, from the Lord's Prayer, or from the Creed, set prayer-wise, or from the Ten Commandments. And he that is disposed to read that most divine part of our liturgy with a sober mind and dutiful respect, shall find, not only more pure devotion, but more profound orthodoxal divinity, both for matter 835 and form, than can be found in all the English writers which have either carped or nibbled at it. Not one ejaculation is there in it which hath the least relish of that leaven wherewith their prolix extemporary devo tions who distaste it are for the most part deeply soured. But here I had ended my treatise of the qualification and undertakings of the Son of God for dissolving the works of Satan, had not a new query presented itself to my meditations in the latter end of these disquisitions; and the query is this: 3. Why our Saviour in his agony, or his other sufferings upon the cross, should not tender his petitions unto God in the same form or tenor wherein the psalmists or other holy men, which were types or figures of him in his sufferings, had done theirs in their anguish or distress; or in the same form which he once, and no oftener than once, did use upon the cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The ancient style of prayer used by God's servants, or ambassadors, as well in their humble supplications as in their gratulatory hymns, but especially in their fervent and pathetical ejaculations for deliverance from יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי or יְהוָה אֲדֹנָי present dread or danger, was my God and my Lord, or, my Lord and my God. Besides the observations before made to this purpose out of Masius, or rather out of the liturgy of the ancient Jews avouched by him, and of the primitive church (well observed by Faber), many passages in the Psalms, which did respectively both forepicture and foretell his agony and sufferings upon the cross, are most pregnant. Of the ingratitude of his people toward him, of the indignities and cruelties done unto him by the Jews, no psalmist (the author of the 22nd only excepted) hath a more lively punctual representation, than that which is in psalms xxxv, xxxviii, and xl. David, in the very akun or paroxysm of the grievances which g The seventh book of these Commentaries upon the Creed, chap. 36. par. 3, 4, &c. he suffered from such of Saul's followers as he had 4. But when the hour was come wherein all these prophetical ejaculations of the psalmists were to be exactly fulfilled in our Saviour Christ, and by him, he prefers his supplications stylo novo, in a form or style unusual before, but familiar and usual to him when his passion and death drew nigh, as John xii, Father, (not Lord God,) what shall I say? save me from this hour, &c.; and John xvii, Father, glorify me, &c. He used the same form in his agony thrice, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. And in the last words which he uttered in the form of a servant, he said not, My God, my God, or My Lord God, but, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. This variation between this most faithful servant of God, and other holy men, God's faithful servants, in the form of their supplications or gratulatory ejaculations, conceived and uttered upon the like occasions, suggests thus much unto us, (if I mistake not,) That of all God's servants, or holy men, the man CHRIST JESUS only was his true Son, not by adoption as others were, and we now are, but his Son by right of inheritance; and yet, being such a Son, was for a time as truly his servant as his Son. He' 836 who always had been, or God the Lord, he whose title it was to hear his people's prayers, and unto whom all flesh shall come, psalm lxv. 2, doth |