(as the prophet David calls him,) did it make to crouch and languish, to roar and to despond, and at length to sink and die under the overpowering, confounding pressures of it.

And surely a greater argument of the force and fury of this sense of God's wrath for sin could not be, than that it should have such dismal effect upon one, who personally was no sinner; but only lay under a borrowed guilt; one who had all the advantages of strength, and the supports of innocence, to keep his mind firm, serene, and impenetrable. But all this availed him little, when the deadly infusion had once got into his soul, seized the main arsenal and strong hold of his humanity; and, in a word, cut the nerve of its great and last supporter, the spirit. And in this case, human nature, though advanced to a personal union and conjunction with the divine, yet was but human nature still; that is, a poor feeble thing, forced to confess its native weakness, and after a short conflict with the divine wrath, to break, and fall under its own ruins. So that it may justly put that high and doleful exclamation into the mouths of all who shall consider Christ upon the cross; Lord, who knoweth the power of thine anger? God only can know it; and he only, who was much more than man, could endure it.

2dly, The strength and greatness of this trouble of mind for sin appears from those most raised and passionate expressions, that have been uttered from time to time by persons eminent in the ways of God, while they were labouring under it. For a notable instance of which, instead of many, let us hear David, a person frequently in these deep plunges,

roaring out his spiritual grievances in most of his Psalms. And I single him out before all others, because he was certainly and signally a type of Christ, both in respect of many things belonging to his person, and many passages relating to his life; and particularly that dolorous part of it that contained his sufferings, and immediately before his death. Which sufferings we have him with great life and clearness representing, in several of his divine hymns; which, howsoever uttered by him, in the first person, as if he were still speaking of himself; yet, without all question, in the principal design and purport of them, pointed at the Messiah, as their most proper subject. The 22d Psalm is very full, as to his bodily sufferings; but in none of all the Psalms is the spiritual part of his passion set forth to that height that it is in the 77th Psalm, from the first verse to the 10th: in which it will be well worth our while distinctly to consider some of the most remarkable expressions.

As in the third verse, I complained, says he, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Which is the language of a sorrow much different from that of a common worldly grief; a grief that would have expressed itself far otherwise; as, I complained, I vented a few sighs and a few tears, and the cloud was presently over; when the shower was fallen, all was clear: sorrow perhaps lasted for a night, but it broke with the day, and the return of joy came quickly in the morning. But the spiritual sorrow here mentioned was still making a progress, still upon the advance, from the tongue to the spirit, from outward expressions to more inward apprehensions. Every sigh and groan rebounded back to the

heart, from whence it came. The penitent eye, like the widow's cruse, the more it pours forth, the fuller it is; finding a supply (as it were) in every effusion.

But this sorrow stops not here; it does not only alarm his complaints, but also break his natural rest. In the fourth verse, Thou holdest mine eyes waking. Just as in that black night before our Saviour's crucifixion; in which it is said of him, that he began to be sorrowful, and very heavy; nay, exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; we find that he continued watching, from the beginning to the end of it, without any sleep, when yet the disciples were not able to hold their eyes open. Now this is an undoubted argument of an overpowering grief: for when Darius was excessively troubled for Daniel, it is said of him, in Daniel vi. 18, that he passed the night fasting, and his sleep went from him. And then for Job, in Job vii. 13, 14, When I say, My bed shall comfort me, and my couch shall ease my complaint; then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me with visions. When a man's sleep is his torment, what can be his rest? The time of sleep is the only season in which an afflicted person does (as it were) seal some little reprieve from his cares, and for a while deceives his sorrows. But in this case, the workings of the soul become too potent for the inclinations of nature. For though sleep be designed by nature to repair and make up the expense of a man's spirits; and withal, nothing spends the spirits comparable to sorrow; yet here we see the anguish of this spiritual sorrow joins two contrary effects, and at the same time both exhausts the spirits and hinders all re

pose; forcibly holding up the eyelids, and by a continual flow of tears keeping them still open. A watchful eye and a mournful heart are usually companions.

But neither is this the utmost effect of this sorrow; it comes at length to swell to that excess, as to be even too big for utterance; as appears from the following words in the same verse; I am so troubled, that I cannot speak. Words, to none more applicable than to him, who, when he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, was, like a sheep also, dumb before his shearer, and opened not his mouth, Acts viii. 32. Which is yet an higher declaration of an overpressing grief, than the loudest outcries. For nature has not only given a man a voice, but also silence, whereby to manifest the inward passions and affections of his mind. And such a silence speaks the heart so full of sorrow, that, like a vessel, its very fulness sometimes hinders all vent. It is a known saying, that ordinary, slight griefs complain, but great sorrows strike the heart with an astonished silence. Thorns make a crackling blaze, and are quickly gone; but great wood lies a long time, and consumes with a silent fire. A still grief is a devouring grief; such an one as preys upon the vitals, sinks into the bones, and dries up the marrow. That wound is of all others the most deadly, that causes the heart to bleed inwardly.

Thus we have seen this sorrow, both in its greatness and variety; sometimes sallying forth in restless clamours and complaints, and sometimes again retreating into a silence, and (if you will admit the expression) even proclaiming itself in dumbness and

stupefaction: though, whether rising in one or falling in the other, like a man whether standing upright or lying down, it loses nothing of its proportion and greatness; as the sea when it ebbs, no less than when it flows, has still the fulness of an

ocean.

But neither does it continue long under this amazed silence; but we have it presently again rising up, and boiling over in complaints much more vehement and passionate than the former; as appears from the seventh to the tenth verses: Will the Lord cast off for ever, and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever; and doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious, and hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? And what was all this, but a prophetic paraphrase upon those words of our Saviour upon the cross; My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Certainly there is something in them more than ordinary. For could a common grief have indited such expressions? Every word is a strain above nature; every sentence is the copy of such a sorrow, as rather would express itself, than either does or can. And surely he that shall duly ponder the weight, relish the paths, and consider that spiritual vigour that sparkles in every period of them, will find them greater and higher than any expressions that the sense of an external calamity could suggest. They are the very breathings of despair, and the words of a soul scorched with the direful apprehensions of God's wrath, and a total eclipse of his favour. The truth is, they sound like words spoken at a rate or pitch above a