Page:A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace (John Ball).djvu/294

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suffered grievous things from all the things in heaven, earth and hell. He suffered at the hands of God his Father, and of men; of Jewes, of Gentiles, of enemies insulting, of friends forsaking, of the Prince of darknesse, and all his cruell and mercilesse instruments. But whereas of the punishments of sinne, some be sinnes and punishments both, others punishments only: and some common to the nature of man, others personall growing out of some imperfection and defect in the vertue and faculty forming the body, disorder in diet, or some violence offered: and some for sinne inherent, others for sinne imputed: Our Saviour Christ suffered the punishments that are only punishments, and not sinne, common to the whole nature of man, not personall to this or that man; the punishments of the sinnes of other men, not his own, and that of them that should breake off their sins by repentance, not of them that would sin for ever, if they might live for ever. The whole life of our Saviour was a life of suffering, but his speciall sufferings were those he endured in the Garden, or upon the crosse. In the Garden he was in an agony: upon the crosse he was pressed with the weight of grievous and unsupportable evils. His agony was that sorrow, wherein his soule was beset round with heavinesse and feare even unto death. Thus the Evangelists describe it,Matt. 26.37,
38. He began to be sorrowfull, and very heavy. Then saith he to them, scil. Peter, James and John,Mar. 14.33,34. My soul is exceeding sorrowfull, even unto death. He began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy, And saith unto them, My soule is exceeding sorrowfull unto death. Now is my soul troubled.Joh. 12.27. His soul was smitten with horrour, that all powers and faculties for a time left their proper functions, and did concurre to relieve nature in that extremity; as when a man hath received some gashly wound, the bloud doth at first retire to comfort the heart. But this stay came not from any internall defect, which had been sinfull, but from an externall cause, to wit, the horrour which fell upon him, as the wheeles of a Watch may cease from motion without any fault in them, when they are stayed by the hand of the Artificer. He feared also the stroke of the justice of God his Father, sitting on the Tribunall or Judgement seat, to punish the sins of men, for whom he stood forth to answer; this he feared, as a thing impossible to be escaped, in respect of the resolution and purpose of God his Father, that by his satisfactory death, and no other way, man should bedelivered.