4. Christ humbled himself, in being subject to those sinless infirmities, which were either common to the human nature, or particularly accompanying that low condition in which he was. Some of those afflictions, which he endured, took their rise from the sin or misery of others: thus he is said to have been afflicted in all the afflictions of his people, Isa. lxiii. 9. which is an instance of that great sympathy and compassion which he bare towards them. Sometimes he was grieved for the degeneracy and apostacy of the Jewish nation, the contempt they cast on the gospel, whereby his ministry, though discharged with the greatest faithfulness, was, through the unbelief of those among whom he exercised it, without its desired success: thus he is represented by the prophet, as complaining, I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nought and in vain, chap. xlix. 4. and, when he had almost finished his ministry among them, and looked upon Jerusalem as a self-ruined people, He beheld the city and wept over it, Luke xix. 41. And, besides this, he was sometimes grieved for the remainders of corruption, and the breakings forth thereof in those whom he loved, in a distinguishing manner; thus he was sometimes afflicted in his own spirit, by reason of the hardness of the heart of his disciples, and the various instances of their unbelief.

These afflictions, more especially, might be called relative, as the occasion thereof was seated in others: but there were many afflictions which he endured that were more especially personal; such as hunger, thirst, fatigue, weariness in travelling to and fro in the discharge of his public ministry; and that poverty and want of the common necessaries of life, which he submitted to, whose divine bounty supplies the wants of all creatures. These, and many other sufferings, he endured in life, which were agreeable to that state of humiliation, in which he was, during the whole course thereof. And this leads us,

Secondly, To consider his humiliation immediately before, as well as in and after his death.

Quest. XLIX., L.

Quest. XLIX. How did Christ humble himself in his death?

Answ. Christ humbled himself in his death, in that having been betrayed by Judas, forsaken by his disciples, scorned and rejected by the world, condemned by Pilate, and tormented by his persecutors, having also conflicted with the terrors of death, and the powers of darkness, felt and borne the weight of God’s wrath, he laid down his life an offering for sin, enduring the painful, shameful, and cursed death of the cross.

Quest. L. Wherein consisted Christ’s humiliation after his death?

Answ. Christ’s humiliation after his death, consisted in his being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death, till the third day, which hath been otherwise expressed in these words, He descended into hell.

In considering the subject matter of these answers, we are led to take a view of our Saviour, in the last stage of life, exposed to those sufferings which went more immediately before, or attended his death. And,

I. Let us consider him in his sufferings in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; and he desired his disciples, not only as an instance of their sympathy with, and regard to him in his agony, that they would tarry at a small distance from him, while he went a little farther, and prayed, as one that tasted more of the bitterness of that cup, which he was to drink, than he had done before; but pressed this upon them, as what was necessary to their own advantage, when he says, Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation, Matt, xxvii. 38, 39. 41. But they seemed very little concerned, either for his distress, or their own impending danger; for, when he returned, he found them asleep, and upbraids them for it, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? ver. 40. and afterwards, though he had given them this first kind and gentle reproof, for their unaccountable stupidity, and repeated his charge, that they should watch and pray; yet, when he came a second time, he found them asleep again, ver. 43. This was, doubtless, an addition to his afflictions, that they, who were under the highest obligation to him, should be so little concerned for him.