_3. Death of the Christ Voluntary:_ Unbelievers delight to represent God, the great Law Giver, as unspeakably cruel in demanding such an atonement as Christ made for the salvation of the children of men. But let it be born in mind that he who made the atonement did so voluntarily. Testifying to his disciples respecting the matter, he says: "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." When his enemies gathered about him,--a former friend betraying him with a kiss,--and Peter prepared to defend him with the sword, he chided him for his rashness, commanding him to put up his sword, and added: "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" Thus down to the very last moment, it appears that Jesus could have been delivered from the sacrifice had he so willed it. But the principle which was the guiding star of his life--"Father, not my will, but thy will be done"--influenced him in this instance, and he drank of the cup given him of his Father, and wrung out the dregs in agony; but he did it voluntarily, and that, too, out of his great love for mankind. (Outlines, Eccl. Hist. Roberts, pp. 93-4.) "It is manifest, from the history of the death of Christ, that he spake most truly when he said, No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. John x. 18. For how easy would it have been for him, even without a miracle, to have avoided falling into the hands of his enemies? The insidious designs of the Jewish pontiff and chief priests were well known to him; and it is plain that he was no stranger to the treacherous intentions of his perfidious disciple Judas, since he expressly alludes to them on more than one occasion. On the other hand, it appears that he had several great and powerful friends, on whom he could have depended for support. Would he but have quitted Jerusalem, and returned into Galilee, every scheme that had been formed against him must have fallen to the ground. Indeed, even this was not requisite: for his safety would have been completely secured had he merely changed the place of his nightly resort, and, lest Judas should have discovered it, dismissed that wicked and deceitful man from his society. Besides these obvious means, there were others to which he might have had recourse, and which would have proved equally efficient in defeating and bringing to naught the evil councils and designs of the Jewish priests and elders. But it should seem that he disdained, or at least voluntarily neglected to avail himself of any of those precautions, which a very moderate share of human prudence would have suggested to any man under similar circumstances.