know so little in regard to the whole realm of unseen spiritual agencies, especially on the side of what is evil, that it becomes us to approach the subject with diffidence. So far as relates to the passage before us, there is no expression used by Jesus which implies the presence of any such influence. What we have said of his sensibility to suffering, through the exquisite texture of his physical and emotional organization, and his unbounded love and sympathy for man, may be sufficient to account for all his sufferings there and on the cross. Still there may have been these other agencies. His words immediately after, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness,” (Luke xxii. 53,) will bear, and naturally suggest, such a construction. "His struggle," says Olshausen, "was an invisible agony of the soul;

a con

test against the power of darkness; for as in the beginning of his ministry the Saviour was tempted by the enemy through the medium of desire, so now at its end was he assailed through the medium of fear." This is the view taken by Mr. Parsons in his fine essay on "The Ministry of Sorrow." "All the hells," he says, were admitted to assault, to tempt, that humanity. . . . . . All evil influences attacked him. There were no tendencies to sin in human nature which they who had lived in the indulgence of those sins, and had so gone down into darkness, and then and there become the embodiment of those sins, did not find in the humanity he assumed, and endeavor to rouse into activity. They were all resisted, all conquered. . . . . . No spot or stain from hell could cleave to him. And all the enemies of good yielded to his perfect goodness, and found themselves, all and forever, defeated and subdued...... He reduced them to order, and subjected them forever to the force of those laws which permit them to excite in man so much only of their own evils as shall leave man in full and perfect ability to resist them and reject what they would give to him." This, we suppose, is Swedenborg's view of the subject, and it is substantially the same as that taken by

Trench in his Notes on the Demoniacs in the country of the Gadarenes. “That whole period," he says, hour and power of darkness.

66 was the We cannot doubt that the might of hell has been greatly broken by the coming of the Son of God in the flesh; and with this the grosser manifestations of his power."

We leave this whole branch of the subject, in connection with what we have already said of evil spirits, as lying in a region which can be only darkly and imperfectly explained or explored by us.

There is another view of the cause of our Saviour's sufferings which has entered deeply into the theology of Christendom. It is expressed by Olshausen in its mildest form, when he says that Jesus in Gethsemane, "as representative of mankind, sustains the wrath of God." We cannot accept this view of the subject, 1. Because it is inconsistent with all the moral instructions of Jesus, and gives a shock to all the moral sensibilities and convictions which he came into the world to revive and sustain. We must throw aside the Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and everything else in the Gospels which relates to our duties and the character of God, before we can accept such a doctrine. 2. We cannot accept it, because we find nothing in the Scriptures to countenance it. In the different accounts of the agony of Gethsemane there is no indication of such a relation between God and his Son. Nor is the doctrine to be found in the Old Testament. Allowing the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah to refer, as we think it does, at least in its secondary sense, to the Messiah, the interpretation that we have given above seems to us much more in accordance with its language and its spirit than the horrible idea that the sinless One was under the wrath and

curse of God. "We must not for a moment," says Alford, "think of the Father's wrath abiding on him as the cause of his sufferings. Here is no fear of wrath, but, in the depth of his human anguish, the very tenderness of filial love.”

For a fuller view of this subject, see Introduction to “Theological Essays," edited by Dr. Noyes, and the Notes at the close of that volume.

47 – 56. — THE APPREHENSION OF JEsus.

The different narratives of this event are marked by the differences which we should expect from independent witnesses of actions which most of them took place in the night, which must have been hurried and confused, and which could not have been seen entire in all their relations by any one of those who were present. We must call to mind the disciples just waking out of their sleep at Gethsemane, the overshadowing trees, the glimmering of the moonlight through them, the crowd with weapons and staves or clubs, with lanterns and torches, hastening eagerly towards them, hardly knowing what to expect, and without the thorough understanding and concert among themselves that would be found if they had been only a military detachment or band. The great multitude which Matthew speaks of were, 1st, a detachment of Roman soldiers (ʼn σñeîpa, a band, the word used to express a cohort, John xviii. 3, 12); 2d, the officers or captains of the temple, who were Jews (Luke xxii. 52); 3d, servants and others deputed by the priests; and, 4th, some of the high-priests and elders (Luke xxii. 52). Among these was Judas. He had given some of them a sign by which they might know Jesus. Confused and disconcerted, we may suppose, by the consciousness of his treacherous purpose, he rushed forward and kissed his Master, who may still have been among the trees, and in such a position that the preconcerted signal would hardly be seen by the associates whom the traitor had left behind. The mild rebuke of our Saviour would increase the agitation and mental embarrassment of Judas, so that he may have fallen back, hardly knowing what he did, and therefore leaving his companions still in

doubt as to which person was Jesus. The subsequent cónduct of Judas, as inferred from his repentance and death, shows how keen his sensibilities were, and that he might now have been wholly confused and disconcerted. At this moment Jesus came forward, as represented by John (xviii. 4-9), and, giving himself up, by the extraordinary impression which his calm and majestic presence produced, gained for his disciples an opportunity of going away. But at that time another party of his assailants, perhaps, coming up and laying hands upon him, one of his followers asked, “Lord, shall we smite with the sword (μaxaipa)?” (Luke xxii. 49); and Peter, without waiting for a reply (John xviii. 10), drew his weapon (see note to verse 51) and cut off the right ear of one of the high-priest's servants. This would, of course, cause some commotion and delay. Jesus immediately commanded Peter to sheathe the weapon, and then healing the wound he thus allayed the anger of his enemies, which otherwise might have been dangerous to Peter. At the same time he rebuked the rashness of his disciple, by reminding him of the fatal consequences of such conduct, and, 53, the needlessness of any human interference; since even then he had only to ask for deliverance from his enemies, and it would be granted. It was still in his own power to live or die, as he had said (John x. 18), “No man taketh it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." But how then could the purposes of Divine mercy, as revealed in the Scriptures, be fulfilled? In this same calm and self-collected spirit he appealed to the multitudes, the high-priests, the officers of the temple, and the elders (Luke xxii. 52), - asking why they had come against him as against a robber, with weapons. But this also, he added, 56, was a part of the same divine plan as declared in the Scriptures. "All this was done in such a manner that the Scriptures of the prophets were fulfilled." Mark (xiv. 27), at an earlier period of the narrative, had

quoted the passage (Zech. xiii. 7), "I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." Matthew, after the general reference to the prophets, adds, as Mark also does (xiv. 50), "Then all the disciples forsook him and fled." But Mark goes on to say, "And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked." All the Evangelists write that Peter followed Jesus afar off, and John adds (xviii. 15), undoubtedly speaking of himself, "and so did another disciple: that disciple was known unto the high-priest, and went in with Jesus into the hall [not the palace] of the high-priest."

57–68. — JESUS TAKEN BEFORE THE HIGH-PRIEST.

The distance from Gethsemane to the nearest gate of the city is less than a thousand feet. The house, or rather palace, of the high-priest was probably on the northeastern slope of Mount Zion, very near the temple, and perhaps a third of a mile from the fortress of Antonia, where the Roman Procurator or governor had his quarters. Jesus was taken first to Annas, who had been high-priest, and was father-in-law to Caiaphas (John xviii. 13). Annas, who may have been in the same palace with his son-in-law, sent Jesus bound to Caiaphas (John xviii. 24). His being sent to Annas is omitted by the first three Evangelists as a circumstance of little importance. This examination before Caiaphas was only an informal preliminary investigation; "for it was not lawful to try causes of a capital nature in the night." (Jahn's Bib. Arch. 246.) The object of the examination was, not to discover what crimes the prisoner had committed, but what charges could be brought against him with the best prospect of causing him to be put to death. As a trial, the whole proceedings were irregular and illegal. He was taken to the high-priest, with whom (Mark xiv.