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THE NEW AND COMPLETE

LIFE OF OUR BLESSED LORD AND SAVIOUR

JESUS CHRIST:

CONTAINING

The most authentic and full account of all the wonderful

TRANSACTIONS, SUFFERINGS, AND DEATH

OF OUR

GLORIOUS REDEEMER,

WITH

THE LIVES, ACTS, AND SUFFERINGS, OF HIS HOLY, APOSTLES, EVANGELISTS, DISCIPLES, &C. INCLUDING THE LIVES OF JOHN THE BAPTIST, THE VIRGIN MARY, AND MANY OTHER EMINENT PERSONS AND PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS, NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OTHER WORK OF THIS KIND.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CHRIST'S Agony and Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane: Judas betrayeth JESUS with a Kiss: The Officers and Soldiers, at CHRIST'S Word, fall to the Ground: CHRIST healeth a Servant of the HighPriest, whose Ear was cut off by Peter: His Disciples flee: He is led bound to Annas and Caiphas.

THE prayer of our great Intercessor being ended, he, with his disciples, came down from the Mount of Olives into the field below, called Gethsemene, through which the brook Cedron ran, and in it, on the other side of the brook, was a garden, called the garden of VOL. ii

B

Gethsemene. Here he desired his disciples to sit down, perhaps at the garden-door within, till he should retire to pray, taking with him, Peter, James, and John, those three select disciples whom he had before chosen to be witnesses of his transfiguration, and now to be eyewitnesses of his passion, leaving the other disciples at the garden-door, to watch the approach of Judas and his band. The sufferings he was on the point of undergoing were so great, that the very prospect of them terrified him, and made him express himself in this doleful exclamation, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. On this great occasion he sustained those grievous sorrows in his soul, by which, as well as by dying on the cross, he became a sin-offering, and accomplished the redemption of mankind. He now withdrew from them about a stone's cast, and his human nature being now overburdened beyond measure he found it necessary to retire and pray, that if it was possible, or consistent with the salvation of the world, he might be delivered from the sufferings which were then lying on him it was not the fear of dying on the cross which made him speak or pray in such a manner: to suppose this, would infinitely degrade his character, make his sufferings as terrible as possible, and clothe them with all the aggravating circumstances of distress: yet the blessed JESUS, whose human nature was strengthened by being connected with the divine, could not shrink at the prospect of his sufferings, or betray a weakness which many of his followers, who, though mere men, were strangers to; having encountered more terrible 'deaths without the least emotions. He addresses his Divine Father with a sigh of fervent wishes, that the cup might if possible, be removed from him: in the Greek, it is, O that thou wouldst remove this cup from me.' And having first kneeled and prayed, he fell prostrate on his face, accompanying his address with due expressions of resignation, adding immediately, Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. Having prayed, he returned to his disciples, and finding

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