And thus are reproaches mentioned amongst the sufferings of Christ in the Gospel, and not as the least; the railings and mockings that were darted at him, and fixed to the Cross, are mentioned more than the very nails that fixed him.  And (’Heb’. xii. 2,) the ‘shame’ of the Cross, though he was above it, and despised it, yet that shame added much to the burden of it.

I understand Leighton thus:  that though our Lord felt it not as ‘shame’, nor was wounded by the revilings of the people in the way of any correspondent resentment or sting, which yet we may be without blame, yet he suffered from the same as sin, and as an addition to the guilt of his persecutors, which could not but aggravate the burden which he had taken on himself, as being sin in its most devilish form.

Ib. p. 293.

This therefore is mainly to be studied, that the seat of humility be the heart.  Although it will be seen in the carriage yet as little as it can * * *.  And this I would recommend as a safe way:  ever let thy thoughts concerning thyself be below what thou utterest; and what thou seest needful or fitting to say to thy own abasement, be not only content (which most are not) to be taken at thy word, and believed to be such by them that hear thee, but be desirous of it; and let that be the end of thy speech, to persuade them, and gain it of them, that they really take thee for as worthless a man as thou dost express thyself.

Alas! this is a most delicate and difficult subject:  and the safest way, and the only safe general rule is the silence that accompanies the inward act of looking at the contrast in all that is of our own doing and impulse!  So may praises be made their own antidote.

Vol.  III. p. 20.  Serm.  I.

  ‘They shall see God’.  What this is we cannot tell you, nor can you
  conceive it:  but walk heavenwards in purity, and long to be there,
  where you shall know what it means:  ‘for you shall know him as he is’.

We say; “Now I see the full meaning, force and beauty of a passage,—­we see them through the words.”  Is not Christ the Word—­the substantial, consubstantial Word, [Greek:  ho on eis ton kolpon tou patros],—­not as our words, arbitrary; nor even as the words of Nature phenomenal merely?  If even through the words a powerful and perspicuous author—­(as in the next to inspired Commentary of Archbishop Leighton,—­for whom God be praised!)—­I identify myself with the excellent writer, and his thoughts become my thoughts:  what must not the blessing be to be thus identified first with the Filial Word, and then with the Father in and through Him?

Ib. p. 63.  Serm.  V.