Now what do the Apostles, and what does Christ Himself, in that passage that I have quoted, mean, by such solemn words as these?  Some people shrink from them, and say that it is trenching upon the central doctrine of the Gospel, when we speak about drinking of the cup which Christ drank of.  They ask, Can it be?  Yes, it can be, if you will think thus:—­If a Christian has the Spirit and life of Christ in him, his career will be moulded, imperfectly but really, by the same Spirit that dwelt in his Lord; and similar causes will produce corresponding effects.  The life of Christ which—­divine, pure, incapable of copy and repetition—­in one aspect has ended for ever for men, remains to be lived, in another view of it, by every Christian, who in like manner has to fight with the world; who in like manner has to resist temptation; who in like manner has to stand, by God’s help, pure and sinless, in so far as the new nature of him is concerned, in the midst of a world that is full of evil.  For were the sufferings of the Lord only the sufferings that were wrought upon Calvary?  Were the sufferings of the Lord only the sufferings which came from the contradiction of sinners against Himself?  Were the sufferings of the Lord only the sufferings which were connected with His bodily afflictions and pain, precious and priceless as they were, and operative causes of our redemption as they were?  Oh no.  Conceive of that perfect, sinless, really human life, in the midst of a system of things that is all full of corruption and of sin; coming ever and anon against misery, and wrong-doing, and rebellion; and ask yourselves whether part of His sufferings did not spring from the contact of the sinless Son of man with a sinful world, and the apparently vain attempt to influence and leaven that sinful world with care for itself and love for the Father.  If there had been nothing more than that, yet Christ’s sufferings as the Son of God in the midst of sinful men would have been deep and real.  ’O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?’ was wrung from Him by the painful sense of want of sympathy between His aims and theirs.  ’Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then I would fly away and be at rest,’ must often be the language of those who are like Him in spirit, and in consequent sufferings.

And then again, another branch of the ‘sufferings of Christ’ is to be found in that deep and mysterious fact on which I durst not venture to speak beyond what the actual words of Scripture put into my lips—­the fact that Christ wrought out His perfect obedience as a man, through temptation and by suffering.  There was no sin within Him, no tendency to sin, no yielding to the evil that assailed.  ’The Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me.’  But yet, when that dark Power stood by His side, and said, ’If thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down,’ it was a real temptation and not a sham one.  There was no wish to do it, no faltering