Page:Morning, or, Action.pdf/7

Rh the first disciples followed their Lord in a bath that was marked with blood; persons of all ranks, of all ages, and of both sexes, braved the rage of the enemy, the sword of the persectutor, the fire of the tormentor, became candidates for the crown of martyrdom, and with triumph embraced that very form of death at which our Lord, to appearance, now trembled and stood aghast.

This leads us to the second thing proposed, which was to account for these appearances,—to assign the causes of our Lord’s peculiar sufferings. In general, then, there were circumstances in the passion of our Lord, of a singular kind, fully adequate to produce the effects here mentioned What these were will appear when we consider that our Lord died in a state where he was abandoned by his friends, and by mankind; and he died in a state of ignomy and that he died in a state, where, after suffering an agony of spirit, he was at last forsaken by his Father in heaven. While the two former of these can hardly, be paralleled in all their circumstances, the last is entirely peculiar to our Lord, and constitutes the chief brunch of his sufferings.

First, He died in a state where he was abandaned by his friends and by mankind.— From the beginning he found the world against him. He came into his own, and his own received him not. He was to be