The Agony of Christ, Part 2

That the soul of Christ in his agony in the garden had

That part which consisted in that sore Conflict that his soul then had with those terrible views that he then had.
The great and earnest strive the Labor and strife that his soul was then in with God in prayer.

And I would make improvement of Each Distinctly, and this is the method in which I would discourse on this subject.

I. First, I would propose the soul of Christ in his agony in the garden had a sore conflict with those terrible views and amazing apprehensions that he then had. In handling of this proposition I would do these four things.

I would show what were those amazing apprehensions that Christ had in his agony. ***this post takes us to the end of this point.***
I would show that the conflict that Christ’s soul was in was from these views.
That this conflict was very sore.
I would show what we may suppose to be the special End of God in Giving Christ these terrible views and causing him to be in that Conflict before he was crucified. Here the

First Thing Proposed is to show what were those terrible views and amazing Apprehensions that Christ had in his Agony. This I would show in showing two things viz. 1). What they were apprehensions of, and 2). after what manner apprehensions of these things were given at that time.

The first Enquiry may be what that was that Christ had such terrible and amazing apprehensions of at that time. Ans. That it was of that Bitter cup that he was soon after to Drink on the Cross. What Christ underwent in his Agony in the Garden was not his Greatest suffering, though it were so very Great, But those Last sufferings of his that were upon the Cross were his principal sufferings and therefore those sufferings are called that the cup that he had to Drink. And the the sufferings of the Cross are always Represented all over the Scriptures under which he was slain are always all over the Scriptures represented as the main sufferings of Christ, in which is was mainly that he made atonement, bore our sins in his own body and made atonement for sin. His Enduring the Cross is spoken of as the main thing wherein his sufferings appeared in the beginning of the 12^th Chap of Hebrews and in Innumerable other places.

And this is the thing that Christ had set before him in his agony. Tis manifest that Christ had this in view at this time by his prayers in the time of his Agony; as Matthew 26 in the 42^nd v. of the context. “Father if thou be willing remove this cup from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done.” We have in the account that Matthew gives us of this affair, there were three prayers that Christ made in the time of his Agony, and all were on this subject, viz. the bitter cup that he was to drink. The first we have account of in Matthew 26:39, “And he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed saying O my Father if it be possible Let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt.” The second prayer we have an account of in the 42^nd v. “He went away again the second time and prayed saying, ‘O my Father if this cup may not pass from me except I drink it thy will be done.'” We have an account of the third prayer in the 49^th v., “and he went away again and prayed the third time saying the same words.” Now by this it plainly appears what that was which Christ had such a terrible view and apprehension of at that time by his through what he most so insists on in his prayers from time before God, show what it was that his mind was Intent upon. It was his sufferings on the Cross that were to be the next day, and especially […the…] time that darkness that was over all the Earth began and continued till the ninth hour when Christ expired and his Last sufferings were finished, at the same time came that dismal darkness over the soul of Christ that made him to cry out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,” and it was especially what he had to suffer in his soul that he had now set in his view on the Cross that he had now set in his view. The,

Second Enquiry under this Head is after what manner this bitter cup was now set in Christ’s view. Ans. 1). He had a lively apprehension of it impressed at that time on his mind. He had an apprehension of it, the cup that he was to drink. It was his principal errand into the world to drink that cup and he therefore always was unthoughtful about it [and] always bore it on his mind, and used to be much in speaking of it. We have an account how he told his disciples of it Matthew 16:21, “From that time forth Jesus began to show his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the Elders and Chief Priests and be Killed.” He told ’em of it again in 20:17-19, “And Jesus going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said to them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be betrayed to the chief priests, and to the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, And will deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him.” The same thing was the subject of conversation in the mount with Moses and Elijah when he was transfigured. So he spoke of his bloody Baptism. Luke 12:50. “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” He speaks again of the same Baptism to Peter, Zebedee’s Child [in] Matthew 20:22. “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” He spoke of his being lifted up in John 8:28 and 12:34. So he often spoke of the destroying the temple of his body in John. 2:19; and he was very much in speaking of it before his agony in his dying counsels to his disciples in the 12^th and 13^th chapters of John. Thus this was not the first time that Christ had this bitter cup in his view. On the contrary, he seems rather always to have had it in view.

But it seems that at this time God gave him an extraordinary view of it a sense of that wrath that was to be poured out upon him, and those amazing sufferings that [he] was to undergo was strongly impressed on him mind by the immediate power of God, so that he had by far a more full and lively view of this cup and sense of its bitterness than ever he had before; and the view was so terrible that his human nature shrunk at the sight and was ready to sink.

Ans. 2).This cup was not represented as just at hand; he had not only a more clear and lively view of it than before, but now it was as it were, set before him that he might now without delay take it up and drink it; for then, within that same hour, the Judas was to come with his band of men, and he was to—unless he fled as he had opportunity, made his escape [and] refused to take the cup and drink it—then to deliver up himself into their hands to that end that he might drink this cup the next day, unless he refused to take it and so made his escape from that place where Judas would come, which he had opportunity enough to do if he had been so minded.