hy are you not shocked at the other?

Or take another instance, not so shocking in its circumstances, yet
introducing us to another distinction, in which Christ's passion
exceeds that of any innocent sufferers, such as I have supposed. When
Joseph was sent by his father to his brethren on a message of love,
they, when they saw him, said, "Behold, this dreamer cometh; come now,
therefore, and let us slay him[5]." They did not kill him, however,
but they put him in a pit in spite of the anguish of his soul, and sold
him as a slave to the Ishmaelites, and he was taken down into a foreign
country, where he had no friends. Now this was most cruel and most
cowardly in the sons of Jacob; and what is so especially shocking in it
is, that Joseph was not only innocent and defenceless, their younger
brother whom they ought to have protected, but besides that, he was so
confiding and loving, that he need not have come to them, that he would
not at all have been in their power, _except_ for his desire to do them
service. Now, whom does this history remind us of but of Him
concerning whom the Master of the vineyard said, on sending Him to the
husbandmen, "They will reverence My Son[6]?" "But when the husbandmen
saw the Son, they said among themselves, This is the Heir, come, let us
kill Him, and let us seize on His inheritance. And they caught Him,
and cast Him out of the vineyard, and slew Him." Here, then, is an
additional circumstance of cruelty to affect us in Christ's history,
such as is suggested in Joseph's, but which no instance of a brute
animal's or of a child's sufferings can have; our Lord was not only
guiltless and defenceless, but He had come among His persecutors in
love.

3. And now, instead of taking the case of the young, innocent, and
confiding, let us take another instance which will present to us our
Lord's passion under another aspect. Let us suppose that some aged and
venerable person whom we have known as long as we could recollect any
thing, and loved and reverenced, suppose such a one, who had often done
us kindnesses, who had taught us, who had given us good advice, who had
encouraged us, smiled on us, comforted us in trouble, whom we knew to
be very good and religious, very holy, full of wisdom, full of heaven,
with grey hairs and awful countenance, waiting for Almighty God's
summons to leave this world for a better place; suppose, I say, such a
one whom we have ourselves known, and whose memory i