The Agony of Christ, Part 3

Having thus shown what those terrible views and apprehensions were that Christ had in his agony, I come to the,

1. Second thing; that the conflict that the soul of Christ was in in his agony was from these views. That sorrow and distress that his soul was in at that time was from those apprehensions, that lively and full view and near prospect that he had given him at that time of that cup, wherein God the Father did, as it were, set the cup down before him for him to take it and drink it. Some have enquired what was the occasion of that distress and agony, and many speculations there have been about it. But the account that the Scripture itself gives is sufficiently full in this matter, and don’t leave room for speculation or doubt.

   The thing that Christ’s head was so full of at that time was without doubt that same with that which his mouth was so full of: it was the dread [of that] cup, which was vastly more terrible than Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace. He had a view then of that furnace of wrath that he was to be cast into; he was brought as it were to the mouth of that furnace, that he might look into it and stand and view the raging flames of, and see the glowings of its heat, that he might know where he was going and what he was about to suffer. This was the thing that filled his soul with sorrow and darkness. This terrible sight as it were, overwhelmed what was that human nature of Christ, to such mighty wrath as this it was in itself without the divine supports of God, but a feeble worm of the dust, a thing that was crushed before the moth. None ever had such a cup set before [them]. None of God’s children ever had such a cup set before ’em as this first born of Every Creature had. But not to dwell any longer on this, I come to the hasten to the,

2. Third thing proposed under this proposition, viz. that there was in Christ’s soul conflict; that Christ in this view of his last sufferings was very sore; that it was dreadful beyond all expression or conception appears by three things.

   1). What Christ said of it in the time, what is said of the degree dreadfulness of it in the History. The Evangelist Matthew who was present and saw Christ at that time and saw t the manifestations of Grief and distress were in him. [Matthew] says in the 26^th chapter of his Gospel [in the] 37^th v. That he began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Mark says of him in Mark 14:33 that he began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy. These expressions hold forth a very extreme distress that his soul was in Christ. And the Evangelist Luke’s expression in the text of his being in an agony, according to the signification of that word in the original which has been taken notice of, don’t signify any light or common degree of sorrow, but such extreme sorrow that his nature had a distress, that his nature had a most violent conflict with it as a man that wrestles with all his might against, that endeavors to throw him, with a strong man that labors with all his might to gain a conquest over him.

   2). It appears to have been very sore from what he himself says of it, who was not wont to magnify things beyond the truth. He says “my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death” (Matthew 26:38). What expressions can be more strong to signify a most extreme degree of sorrow? His soul was not only sorrowful, but exceeding sorrowful, and not only so but because that did not fully express the degree of his sorrow, he adds that it was even unto death, which seems to intimate as though the very pains and sorrows of that of [the] spirit [of] death had got hold upon him. The Hebrews were wont to express the highest degree of sorrow that any creature could be [experiencing] by the shadows of death. Christ had now as it were the shadows of death brought over his soul by that view that he had of that bitter cup that was set before him.

   3). ‘Tis in it was manifest in the effect it had on his body, viz. in causing that bloody sweat that we read of in the text. In our translation it is said that his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. The word that is rendered great drops in the original is thromboi which properly signifies clotters. And for the blood that was pressed out through the pours of his skin through the violence of that inward struggle and conflict that there was as is the when it came to be exposed to the cool air of the night, congealed and stiffened as is the nature of blood, and so fell off from him not in drops but in clotters. If Christ had only been in a great sweat, it would have shown that he was in a great agony, it for it must be an extraordinary grief and exercises of mind that must cause the body to be all of a sweat in a cold night as that was as appears by abroad in the open air in a cold night. That was as is evident by John 18:18, “And the servants and officers stood there, who had made a fire of coals; for it was cold: and they warmed themselves. This is spoken of the same night in which Christ had his Agony in the Garden.

   But Christ’s inward distress and grief was such not only to cause him to be in a great sweat, but the distress of mind was so unspeakable, and [the] anguish of his mind was so unspeakably extreme, that it as to put the juices of his body into such a violent torment and his blood into such a vehement motion, that it was forced through the pores of his skin with his sweat. And then the greatness of his agony appears still further in that he not only sweat blood, but that so plentifully, that there was enough of it to gather into clotters or lumps and so to fall off from his body on to the ground, so that there was a man in such vehement and exceeding distress wrestling with grief and anguish all over clottered with his own blood! What an affecting sight was it to see!