Absalom, and of the traitor Ahithophel. We may, perhaps, recognise a type of Jesus Christ in David, of Judas in Ahithophel, and of the ungrateful Jewish nation, rebelling against their father and their king, in Absalom. But, David fled; and Jesus Christ was repairing to a place well known to his enemies. David hastened to pass over Jordan; and Jesus Christ arrests his footsteps on the banks of Cedron. David made use of force to repel force; and Jesus Christ submits himself to endure the whole weight of our innumerable transgressions, and, by his sufferings, atone for them. Thus the difference is great; but it disappears, in some sort, when we consider the event. Absalom and the rebels perish; Jesus Christ dies, and at his death his kingdom is established; while the Jews, who continued in their revolt, were given up-left to themselves.

The garden into which Jesus Christ entered was at the foot of the Mount of Olives, and to the east of Jerusalem. This circumstance will bring to our recollection what is written in Genesis, that "the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man

whom he had formed;" and in comparing the Second Adam with the first, we shall recognise, with holy admiration, that Jesus Christ begins the expiation of our sins in a similar place to where man's first sin was committed.

Let us, then, with the eye of faith, follow Christ, and see this Second Adam entering a like spot to that from whence the first Adam had been driven out, to make there a full and perfect satisfaction to Divine justice, which no sacrifice before could, of itself, effect; to reconcile the wretched descendants of the first offender to their God; to obtain from his mercy, not a return to the beautiful garden of Eden, but to our real and glorious country; and to prevent the flaming sword of the cherubim from barring the entrance to heaven to those who, on account of their sins, were exiles from their magnificent inheritance.

II.

JESUS DESIRING HIS DISCIPLES TO PRAY FOR HIM.

Those who

THE hour of trial was at hand. were the enemies of the Shepherd, were likewise the foes of the sheep. When the Shepherd was preparing himself for the approaching conflict by prayer, what ought not the weak, and, of themselves, defenceless, sheep to have done?

The apostles might think that their love for their Master was too powerful a link for any temptation to sever. But Jesus wished to teach them that this love was not in them, but a pure gift of his grace—that humility and prayer could alone preserve and increase it that carelessness would weaken it-that presumption would render them unworthy of it; and that temptation, when sudden and unforeseen, could extinguish it in a

moment. Therefore Jesus said to them, "Pray, that ye enter not into temptation," Luke xxii. 40.

"Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John," Mark xiv. 33. The same apostles who had been the witnesses of the transfiguration of our Lord were also chosen to be the witnesses of his sufferings. It was necessary that mysteries so closely connected should have the testimony of the same witnesses. It was fit that the spectators of the glory of the Son of God should likewise behold him in his humiliation; that after having declared to us, how that "Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh," 1 Pet. iv. 1, they might add, with the same authority, “We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount," 2 Pet. i. 16-18. Who could so well know and testify to us, that the sufferings

of our Saviour were all voluntary, as those who had received so full a revelation of the glory which belonged to him?

We must own, however, that if these three apostles who were chosen by Christ to be the witnesses of his glory, and of his humiliation, had not received new light and new courage from the Holy Spirit, they would have understood but little of the depth of the mysteries which they had beheld, and would not have been fitted to declare them to others. For they themselves have told us, that our blessed Lord had prepared himself for these two very different states by prayer; yet were they so far from following his example, that on both occasions they slept; nor were they awakened at his transfiguration, till the splendour of that clear and dazzling light astonished and bewildered them. In the garden also their sleep was so profound, that though Jesus Christ came to them and aroused them three several times, yet not one of them attended to, or profited by the reproaches which he repeatedly addressed to them.

This is indeed a proof not only of our own extreme weakness, but also of the certainty which