or do either Preach or live in such a manner as to give them reason to think so 2. From the other Reason to encourage them to patient suffering we may observe That the Example of Christ's Courage and Constancy should be very influential upon all his Followers and if duly considered is like to be so For he is our Captain and Forerunner we are to follow him and fill up that which remains of his Sufferings All that we can suffer is but the gleaning of the Vintage after he has trodden the Wine-Press alone God hath spoken it once yea twice have we heard it that is in the Old Testament and in the New That Sufferings are the way to Glory That many are the Afflictions of the Righteous That through many Tribulations we must enter into Heaven c. 3. The Circumstance of Time is next to be considered When our Lord passed over the Brook Cedron viz. After he had instituted the Sacrament of the supper After he had spoken those words of Consolation and Instruction to his Disciples and of Petition to his Father Then he walked over the Brook Cedron with his Disciples He went forth to meet with sufferings and his Disciples were with him How admirable is the Wisdom and Condescension of our merciful Saviour thus to antidote and sore-arm his poor Disciples thus to prepare and dispose his faint hearted Followers to be Witnesses of his sufferings and Partakers of them For after such a blessed Preparative what should be able to sink their Spirits After they had Joined in such an Ordinance as the Lords supper administred by Christ himself After they had received such excellent Instructions and heard such a sermon from his own Mouth After they had been present when he put up such a Prayer to God as that recorded in the 17. of John what could dishearten them or damp their Courage We may hence take notice That the participation of Solemn Ordinances and Communion with God therein is an excellent Preparative to more than ordinary Trialls What better preparation for patient and couragious suffering for Christ than the Lords Supper wherein we remember his dying Love that should engage us to it And so for other Afflictions even the Calamities common to men The Sacramental Bread may be our staff and strength to fortifie and confirm our Minds against all Difficulties The sacramental Wine may be a Cordial to our fainting Spirits to inbolden us against all Discouragments On this Account they that neglect this Ordinance are wanting to themselves as to preparedness for and support in a time of Affliction And for this Reason we may suppose the primitive Christians did communicate so often every Lords Day sometimes every Day whenever they met for publick Worship because they were in continual Jeopardy of their Lives And the multitude of Martyrs in those times and their invincible Patience and Perseverance was much owing to this and influenced by it 4. Let us consider the place he retired to when he went over the Brook Cedron viz The Garden of Gethsemane The word Gethsemane signifies an Oile-press It was a little village scituated at the foot of the Mount of Olives on which Mountain there were many Olive-trees and so many Oil-presses in that Village The Mount of Olives hath its name with relation to this and the Jewish writers call it sometimes the Mountain of Vnction sometimes the Mountain of Light sometimes the Mountain of Health because of the use of Oyl as to all these This Garden of Gethsemane as some think was first planted by David or Solomon and then enlarged and beautified by succeeding Princes for their Recreation and Delight If that be true where they took their pleasure the Messias the true Son of David began his Passion in memory whereof Hellen the Mother of Constantine the Great afterwards built a Chappel there which was visible in the days of Jerom and some affirm the Virgin Mary the Mother of our Lord was Buried in or near this place But to pass that as doubtful it is very probable that in or near this Village near Jerusalem many of the rich Citizens had their Gardens and Country-Houses and among them some of Christs Followers who gave him and his twelve Disciples Entertainment therefore it is said he often resorted thither with his Disciples But 5. Why he did so is more to our purpose to inquire Why our Lord chose this place to prepare himself for his suffering and to begin his Agony And this may be answered in three particulars 1. The first sin was committed in a Garden and therefore the beginning of our Lords Passion for the expiation of sion did very fitly begin in a Garden too It was in a Garden that man began to sin and in such a place the Son of God began his Sufferings The first Adam incurs the Wrath and Displeasure of God in a Garden The second Adam trembles and groans and sweats and prays for the turning away of that Wrath from us in a Garden too he there began his Passion for our Recovery Our first Parents lost the Image of God by their disobedience and heard the Sentence of Condemnation in a Garden our Lord comes to restore the Divine Image and reverse the Sentence of Condemnation by his bloody sufferings and Death which begin in this Garden of Gethsemane as the Promise of it was first made in the Garden of Eden that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents-head Compare Eden and Gethsemane We were first seduced by the old Serpent in the Garden of Eden and his Head was bruised by the Agony and Bloody Passion of Christ which began in this Garden of Gethsemane In the one Garden the Devil conquered the first Adam but is overcome by the second Adam in the other when he resolved to drink the cup saying Not my Will but thine be done In the first Garden that of Eden man surfeited on the forbidden Fruit and fell from God for which our blessed Redeemer had a bloody Sweat in the Second the Garden of Gethsemane We were turned out of the earthly Paradise by sinning in the first we have the Purchace of the heavenly Paradise by our Lord 's Suffering which began in the second The beginning of our Calamity and of all the miseries of Mankind had its rise in the Garden of Eden And the beginning of the Messias Passion for our recovery was in the Garden of Gethsemane There our Lord signed the Decree for his own Crucifixion by his bloody Sweat as the Pledge and earnest of his shedding his Blood the next day upon the Cross 2. Another and more evident Reason why our Lord chose this Garden was because it was a solitary place fit for Meditation and Prayer and the more solemn Preparation of himself for his Crucifixion which was now so near He was now in prospect of his approaching Death he knew that within a few Hours he should be Apprehended and Taken Judged and Condemned to a
Righteous Avenger However there is a great difference between what Christ suffered and what the Damned in Hell suffer For they hate God and Holiness and are hated of him and forsaken by his Holy Spirit and are under the power of sin and are tormented by the Conscience of their Personal Guilt But what Christ suffer'd was for us and he was still in the Love of God and continued to love him c. Let us consider him incompassed with Grief and seized by sorrow appaled with Fear lying prostrate on his Face on the ground deprecating that Cup of vengeance which the Justice of God had mingled saying Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me He Prays again a second time in the same place to the same purpose Abba Father if it be possible let this Cup pass He adores his Majesty he owns his Omnipotence he takes hold of his Power he pleads his filial Relation with all imaginable earnestness submission and importunity Father if it be possible and with thee all things are possible Abba Father Holy Father let this Cup pass from me And then he groans and sweats and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground He prays again the third time using in effect the same words as if nothing else would yet his Importunity might prevail for the removal of the Cup. And yet notwithstanding all this he was then Willing All the struglings of his Innocent Nature issued in this That the Will of God should be done and his Glory be accomplished Holy Father glorifie thy self Not my will but thine be done It was for this end I came into the World for this end I came unto this hour The desire of his Humane Soul submits and yields to the determination and Will of his Father And therefore those words if it be possible must be explained by those other If thou wilt if it be most for thy Glory of a possibility in respect of the Divine Will and Glory rather than of the Divine Power And having two Natures he must needs have two Wills he could not else be the true Son of God and true Man He desires to decline his Sufferings as a Man for so they were against Nature But as they were the means to reconcile us to God he is willing as Redeemer to undergo them We may abhor a Medicine as bitter and yet resolve to take it as wholsome So that after all the reluctance of his Humane Nature he was still willing and his entring into this Garden when he knew that Judas was acquainted with the place and would find him there and betray him is a proof of it 6. Our Saviour's Custom to retire to this Garden He was wont to resort thither with his Disciples This Garden of Gethsemane was on the side of the Mount of Olives and that we are told was at the distance of a Sabbath-days Journey from Jerusalem Act. 1.12 If we reckon from the foot of the Mountain or the 〈…〉 part of it unto the City it is thoâ—ght to be about five or six 〈…〉 thousand 〈…〉 â—ting by 〈…〉 measured And it is most probable that the People in the Wilderness were to keep from the Tabernacle at the distance of two thousand Cubits And on that account this distance is supposed the measure of a Sabbath-days Journey when they went to the Ark to Worship It is an ordinary Tradition among the Jews That it was not lawful on their Sabbaths to walk above two thousand cubits which seems to be founded on that Text Josh 3.4 where the People are commanded in their March after the Ark and on either side of it to keep at the distance of two thousand cubits and when they encamped did usually pitch their Tents at that distance from the Ark And so the Custom arose of travelling but 2000 cubits on their Sabbath-days which is reckon'd not above half a mile It may be for this reason the Holy Ghost measures the distance between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives by a Sabbath-days Journey and not by so many Furlongs Because in fair Weather many devout Jews were wont to retire thither for Meditation after the Publick Worship was over From hence let me make two Reflections for our own practice and so conclude 1. Since our Lord was wont to retire from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives for Meditation and Prayer Let me hence take occasion to press these Duties It is certainly one of the best Evidences of an Upright Christian to be serious in this secret work It is of mighty advantage to our growth in Grace to the Evidence and Comfort of it And he deserves not the Name of a Serious Christian who can pass whole days and weeks contentedly without Meditation and secret Prayer Our stedfastness in the ways of God and our daily walk in holy Security and Peace is manifestly assisted by it Such a course cannot consist with regarding and indulging deliberately any known sin This will be a good Argument of our Integrity before God this constant intercourse and Communion between God and us These frequent visits to Heaven will be so conversing with God and pouring out our hearts before him in Secret retiring as it were to the other World so as no temptation of Applause or Reputation from Men can be thought to byass or mislead us when no eye sees us but the great searcher of hearts when no ear hears us but that of our Invisible Judge when no hand can reward us but the Omnipresent Lord our Father and our Redeemer in Heaven who sees in secret and will reward us openly You have been often told That the Conscientious performance of Secret prayer will make you leave sinning or a Course of sin will make you desist daily serious praying 2. I infer from this example of our Lord That after the participation of solemn Odinances especially on the Lord's-day it is very fit and useful for Christians to retire by themselves to spend some time alone in Meditation and prayer To call your selves to an Account to reflect on your wayes and frame to make a trial of your State and Temper to observe your Spirits how they have been influenced or not by the Divine Spirit in the Solemn Duties of Worship to humble your selves before God for the sins you are convinced of such especially as other Men cannot charge you with but God and Conscience know you are guilty of To thank God for his numberless Mercies to beg the suitable supplies of his Grace and whatever Blessings you stand in need of for you and yours This is the right improvement of Sabbaths and Sacraments and such seasons of Mercy as God is pleased to continue to us in order to Eternal Life And without something of this kind tho you frequent the Publick Assemblies and sit before him as his People you do but mock God and trifle with Heaven while you pretend to Religion and assume the Name of Christians You act
ceasing of the Mosaick and the beginning of the Evangelical one In the like sense the same Word is used in other Places as Zach. 14 6 7. And that which answers to the Word New is that it is opposed to the old Dispensation that it serves to Divine Purposes by a new Institution and so is made New And it declares that the N w Gospel Dispensation to which it is appropriate is now beginning or to commence I 'll not drink of it till I drink it New with you in my Father's Kingdom or in the Kingdom of God i. e. In the Lord's Supper which is my Gospel Institution and the Beginning of the Peculiar Kingdom of God as dispens'd after my Actual Death and Sufferings No question but the Sense is very safe to consider it with Reference to the Heavenly Glory as it is usually understood when all the Blessings of this Passover shall be fully Accomplished in the Heavenly Canaan Neither is it strange or unusual for the same Ancient Type or Figure to respect to several Objects and so have several Degrees of Accomplishment * Les OEVRES Posthumes de Mr. Claude Tom. 2. l. 4. cap. 9. traité de J. Christ This of the Paschal Lamb might not only have Relation to the Angel's passing by the Houses of the Isrelites in Egypt and their passage out of Bondage into Liberty by the Deliverance that follow'd but unto the Absolution and Deliverance of Believers by the Blood of Chrsst and unto the Deliverance of Christ himself out of the Grace and from a state of Humiliation to that of Glory and to the passage of the Church Militant upon Earth to a state of Triumph in Heaven The Blessedness of Heaven is frequently set off by this Metaphor of Eating and Drinking And at the Lord's Table which was Instituted at the close of the Passover Feast the Thoughts of Heaven are proper We meet at this Table as those who hope to sit down with all the Children of the Kingdom at the last great Supper of the Lamb. This Ordinance is a lively Resemblance of the Heavenly Feast and should assist our Meditations on it Our Lord doth here speak to us such kind of Language Ere long we shall Feast together in Heaven What is now done in Emblem shall be then done in Reality You have here the Earnest Pledge and Assurance of it This Table is a Preparatory Entertainment for the Eternal Supper * Bishop Parick Mensa mystica chap. 18. It is some foretaste to stay our Longings and yet excite our Desires after the Heavenly Feast above Here we break our Fast as I may say but are made thereby very Hungry till that Great Supper come Here we have but a Praelibation a little short Antepast of some Rare things to come yet seeing it is an Earnest of those Things it creates in an holy Soul a wonderful Contentment both from its own Sweetness and the Hopes wherewith it feeds us It nourishes in us most Delicious Longings it makes the Soul even swell with Comfortable Expectations And we Receive it not only as a Remembrance of what was done but as a Pledge of what shall be We taste not only what he is to our Souls at present but what he shall be for ever If it be a Priviledge to be Admitted to sit at his Table and to have his Covenant sealed to me by the outward Ordinance and his special Love by his Spirit to my Heart All the Life and Comfort of these is That they Declare and Assure me of more and better Comforts hereafter Their Use is darkly to signifie and seal higher Mercies When I shall Drink with Christ of the Fruit of the Vine renewed How pleasant a Feast will that be O◠the Difference * Mr. Baxter as One hath well exprest it O the Difference between the last Supper of Christ on Earth and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb at the Great Day Here he is in an Vpper-Room accompanied with Twelve poor selected men feeding on no curious Dainties but a Paschal Lamb with sour Herbs and a Judas at his Table ready to betray him But then his Room will be the Glorious Heavens his Attendants all the Host of Angels and Saints no Judas nor unfurnished Guest comes there but the humble Believers must sit down by him and the Feast will be their mutual Loving and Rejoycing You know nevertheless that when the Israelites were got out of Egypt and delivered by the Blood of the Lamb and had a Promise of Canaan they had yet a Wilderness to pass through many Enemies to Encounter and Difficulties to overcome before they entred into Canaan though God protected and maintained and supplyed them in the Wilderness all that while So is it with us Christians though we recover our Spiritual Liberty by Faith in the Blood of Jesus and are made a peculiar People unto God a Nation of Kings and Priests unto the most High and are marching towards the Heavenly Canaan and have the Promise of it We have yet a Wilderness to pass through We have Adversaries on all sides to resist We need a Pillar of Cloud and of Fire to direct us and Manna from Heaven to supply us And this we shall have from time to time till we come to Canaan and then our Lord will eat and drink with us after a better manner we shall have New Wine in his Kingdom He is gone to prepare a Feast for us to make ready the great Supper of the Lamb for all the Children of the Kingdom After he was Sacrificed as the Lamb of God he tarried Fourty Days upon the Earth from his Resurrection till he Ascended into Heaven As the Jews after their Passover in Egypt wandred 40 years in the Wilderness before they entred into Canaan But all Believers after a few Years Difficulty and Tryals in this World with the Presence of God to Conduct and Guide them shall at last sit down for ever with Christ to Reap the full Harvest of his Sufferings to receive the compleat Deliverance which he hath procured to enjoy all the blessed Fruits of his Death all the Purchase of his Redeeming Blood This he will come again to bestow upon those who believe expect and prepare for it Some Inferences of Truth and Duty may be collected as the Application of what has been said 1. That Believers under the Old Testament and under the New have the same Object of Faith They did eat the same spiritual Meat and drink the same spiritual Drink Their Sacraments and ours have different Signs but in Substance were the same Theirs having Relation to Christ the Messiah as well as ours Accordingly we read of Circumcision and the Passover in a spiritual sense under the Gospel And that which answers to Baptism and the Lord's Supper with us Even they under the Old Testament had 1 Cor. 10.2 3. They were under the Covenant of Grace though not so clear a Dispensation of it as we They were