Four books on the eleventh of Matthew

you, when you have any glory put upon you, and God hath lifted you up more then your brethren, you talk of that, and live upon that, but Christ when he had been transfigured, he talked of his sufferings, and if we did but know what Christ is, and his sufferings, that such a one being so high, yet was brought so low, it would make us to be humble; But now compare this with that you have in Mark, 14. And there you shall find, that when Christ was in an Agony, and when he was in trouble of Spirit, then in his Agony in the Garden when the hand of his Father was upon his spirit who did Christ take with him into the Garden? Only these ⟨p. 621⟩three, Peter, James, and John, at verse, 33. And he taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy, and saith unto them, my Soul is exceeding sorrowful unto Death. Now the thing I would note from hence is this, the Reason why Christ would take only those three that had seen him in his glory to see him in his Agony it was, because they were the fittest of all those that saw Christ in his Glory to see him in his Agony, they would make the best use of this more then any. If the other disciples had seen him only in his Agony, and not in his Glory, they might have been offended, to have seen their master so when he came to die to be so amazed, they might say, Lord, is this he we have trusted so long unto, that now when he comes to die he sweats blood, I but these that saw him in his Glory, they would rather think, Oh, How willing should we be to suffer for Jesus Christ, that he that is so glorious as we saw him but the other day, now we see him in such a case; if God should alter our condition, and bring us never so low, we have cause to humble our selves because he was so Low: And that he might prepare their hearts also to suffer, for James was the first of the Apostles that suffered for him, Steven indeed suffered before, but of the Apostles James was the first, and Peter, you know what he was to suffer, and John he was the beloved disciple, and one of an humble Spirit, and of a loving spirit, therefore he was taken in, now the sight of these two together was a special means to help the humility of the spirits of these three Disciples that they saw him in his glory and Agony: