Exposition of the Apostles Creed

2. The examination of our Savior before Caiaphas and the Council, and thereupon the Indictment drawn.

Their proceeding was judicial by a Legal form; a form I say, for there was much packing in it, as there is too often in trials of this nature; where the person to be araign'd is condemned before he is heard. But you will say, what suspicion could there be of any unjust practice, where the High Priest, and the Lord chief Justice had the hearing of the matter? For he was examined and tried in both Courts, Ecclesiastical and Temporal, before Caiaphas the high Priest in the great Consistory at Jerusalem, and before Pilate the civil Judge in Praetorio or the Hall of judgment. But both Courts condemn him too too often; Pilate the President with the Assembly of the Elders, join together to condemn the Innocent King of the Jews.

He is first brought to the house of Annas, that forsooth they might honor the Father in law of the high Priest, with the first sight of so notorious (as they thought and called him) a Malefactor; but from him he is amanded to the man of Authority, the Superintendent Caiaphas, who was High Priest that year: There he is examined of his Disciples of his Doctrine: Of his Disciples he answered nothing. He could truly and passionately exclaim, that one of them sold, betrayed him, and the rest fled and left him. But he accuses not so much as the Traitor Judas; patiently he went to his death, without any invective against friend or foe. For his Doctrine he refers the High Priest to his Auditors; He taught in the Synag • gues, and in the Temple, nothing in secret: And therefore he might call witnesses enough, if he preached any Seditious and Erroneous Doctrine. Upon which modest and reasonable answer, one of the pickthank Officers more forward than the rest, as if Christ had forgot good manners, strikes him on the face, saying, What, answerest thou the High Priest so? This was the first blow our Savior received, and he puts it up without either show of dislike, or ill word, replying calmly, that if he had spoken evil, he might bear witness of the evil; if not, it was an injury to be so light finger'd. O admirable pattern of patience! he meant to teach us in God's cause being stricken, to turn the other cheek.

By this time the Court was full; for the chief Priests, and Elders, and Scribes were all assembled; not to see as men in place and authority ought, that there should be a fair and a just proceeding against the Prisoner; but with a malicious thirst for his blood. Be his cause never so just, himself never so innocent, concluded it was that die he must. They were able to return Caiaphas words (for to him now he was brought) upon himself, that he knew or understood nothing at all; To go secundum allegata & probata, by indictment and proof, would be a long and an uncertain way; they knew a quicker and surer course: Two perjured villains would do the deed, and an oath by them made an end to a • l the strife. A course too well known, and too wickedly practiced in the world at this day, when many an innocent is outed of his life, honor, land, possession, by suborn'd and forsworn witnesses. But it was in the night when this deed of darkness was done, and none follow it but the servant of the Prince of darkness.

Their own consciences could not choose but tell them, that to plot thus for the blood of a man, had he been a malefactor, was an unjust course. However this way is approved: where the wood is sere and dry, what a small spark kindles it? False witnesses were sought for; were these Judges or Wolves think you, who did not deliver as they ought, but thirsted, as they ought not, after the blood of an innocent Lamb? what needed all this ado? die he must, that was decreed: A sentence from the High Priests mouth would have done the deed without anymore trouble. Ay but a legal trial would have a fairer color of a just proceeding, the packing discerned by few; or if that, who durst open his mouth against this high Court of Justice? Hypocrites so they can avoid the sword of man, little regard the all-seeing eye of heaven.

Long it was ere they could find these, for they sought, but found none to their mind, for their witness agreed not together. I fear me, had they lived in our times, they might have met with them sooner, and Jurists more cunning. At last appear two grave Knights of the Post, and they depose, that they heard him say, I will destroy this Temple made with hands, and raise it up in three days; and was not this true? were they not his own words? No such thing, either for matter or manner. Nor for manner, for he said not, I will destoy, but bade them do it: Do you destroy; not for matter, for he said, this Temple, meaning his Body; they added, made with hands, which his was not, being framed by the Holy Ghost. Thus they changed both words and meaning, an usual property of false witnesses.

To this scandalous accusation Christ answers nothing. A fool is not always to answer according to his folly. Besides, at this time he was to suffer, not to contest, and to contend; Like as a Lamb brought to the slaughter, to die, not to cry, and therefore he opened not his mouth. Such also hath been the patience of the Saints, who being reviled, reviled not again; suffering, they threatened not, but committed their cause to him who judgeth righteously, following his steps who left the example.

His silence and patience the Chief Priest admires, and therefore the better to pick out matter of accusation, adjures him by the living God, that he tell them whether he were the Christ, the Son of God: Jesus though silent before, yet in reverence to God's Majesty, returns a plain answer, Thou sayest it, or thou hast said the truth, for I am he. O thou hard-hearted Jew, look no more for another, never stand gaping for a Messias longer; for another thou shalt never see, till thou see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Behold, he hath told thee.

Truth to some ears is the most unwelcome errand: So it was to these Jews; to them a true assertion was blasphemy, and upon the hearing of it, they fall to tearing of their clothes, whereas they should have torn and rent their obdurate and malicious hearts in which there was so much envy, hatred, and injustice concieved against the person of our Savior. Now saith Caiaphas, What further need have we of more witnesses? the blasphemy was apparent to them, so that the whole Assembly, as if they had but one tongue, join in his condemnation. He is guilty of death; so went the general vote, and therefore let justice be done upon him: Guilty of death? how was that possible? could that innocent, who never did anything amiss deserve to die? could the Lord and giver of life become worthy of dearh? could the breath of our nostrils, deserve himself not to breath? He was worthy ten thousand of us, nay all of us, and was he now not held worthy to live? He was the Repairer of the breaches, the Redeemer of the guilty, the Enlarger of the Prisoners; and must he be now broken and found guilty, and come into bonds himself? Yes, yes, so it must be; thus it behooved Christ to suffer. Guilty of death he is, and worthy to die; but not for himself, not for any evil he hath done. One man must die for the people; better one than all the Nation perish, saith Caiaphas, ignorantly indeed, though maliciously. Our person he sustained, and our person brought the guilt upon him: 'Twas not his own, but the sin of the Nation that brought him to his end. The guilt of death was our portion, our desert: His, because he would be made sin for us: The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

But suppose he were worthy to die, was it not fit he should die quietly? what Malefactor being to be condemned is taunted, and scoffed, and mocked, and abused at his Arrainment and Trial? This Anointed was; for no sooner the vote was passed; but they began to spit in his face, to buffet him, to smite him, to jeer him, and to say unto him in a scorn, Prophesy; nay the abjects did smite him with the palms of their hands, Certant illudere capto. Not these undeserved blows could light upon his cheeks without a Prophesy; nor those filthy excrements upon his face without a Prophesy: I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off my hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting, saith the Prophet in his person. The beauty of that face which glads the Angels, is deformed with their filthy spittle; those eyes which see all things, they Hypocrites as they are, hope to cover and put out with a poor veil: He that knows all things past, present, and to come, and revealed them to his Prophets, is here derided as if he were some blind Wizard, or ignorant Fortuneteller: Thou the Christ, thou the Messiah! when he comes he shall tell us all things; if then thou be he, riddle who it is that smote thee. In this sort did these scorning mates insult over the Lord's Anointed in his misery: He had from them bitter words, and harder blows, and yet both these were but the beginning of sorrows.

Here I may not forget, that in the midd'st of these indignities he received one blow that went nearer his heart, than any he received from their hands: It was a blow from Peters tongue: One blow did I say? nay three, one after another, and everyone greater than other. The first at the fire, when he simply denied him; the second in the porch, when he denied him with an oath: Neither of these blows could be easily borne; but the last was intolerable, when he began to curse and swear that he knew not the man. At this blow, as I may so say, our Savior did startle, he looked back, and he looked upon Peter, pitying the weakness of man in his fearful servant; upon which he went out, and wept bitterly; he bath'd the greenness of his wound with a river of brinish tears, and that no question gave his Lord and Master some ease: more bitter this blow had been, had it not been for his speedy repentance. If it be our infirmity to smite with Peter, let us be sure to repent with Peter: If any of us willfully or weakly have denied and forsworn our Lord and Master, let us with Peter weep bitterly, bitterly I say, for such salt-water may alleviate the sin.

All this was done in the night, a fit hour for such deeds of darkness. Well, the morning was no sooner come but the house fills. The former examination was in the High Priests house, but this latter in the Council-Chamber: Caiaphas and the chief Priests were assembled before, but now the Elders of the people were added to them: A goodly Council no question, where the Devil was the President, Wolves in sheep's clothing in the Commission, cruelty, ambition, covetousness the Counselors, and malice the Prosequutour.

This grave 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for so it is in the Original, this Presbytery of Jews or eldership being set down, the first question that is asked him was, whether he were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Christ, that is, the Anointed. He had said it before, and they no doubt had heard so much, but now they would hear it themselves from his own mouth, that they also might be witnesses against him before Pilate. This King of the Jews answers, that he had told them so much over and over, which if he should tell them again, 'twere to no purpose, they would not believe, or if he shall ask, they would not answer, nor let him go. But whether they believed or believed it not, he assured them, as he had done before, that they should see him, the Son of man, whom they now contemned and derided, sit on the right hand of the power of God.

At this without any regard of modesty, law, equity, or justice, in a tumultuous and insulting manner they all vociferate, Art thou the Son of God? Thou? as if they had said, what, Thou the Carpenters Son? Thou the friend of Publicans and sinners? Thou the Samaritan, art mad, and hast a Devil? What art thou now become the Son of God? shalt thou sit at the right hand of his power? shalt thou come in the clouds of heaven? the Cross is a fitter place, and Thieves on each hand fitter companions for thee: And with that in all haste the whole Council brake up, bound him again, led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate.

3. The Accusation, Examination of our Savior before Pilate, and his abuse by Herod, &c.

Thus have we presented you with the third Act of this Tragedy, in which Annas, Caiaphas, the chief Priests, Elders and Scribes were the main Actors. I come now to the fourth, where I shall present you with new faces, an unjust and timorous President, a mocking King, and profane soldiers, but all conspiring the death of the King of the Jews. For that was the first question that Pilate proposed to him.

For the better understanding of this whole Act, consider you must what the state of the Jews was at this day. A little before the birth of Christ, the Jews were subdued by the Romans, who taking the government into their own hands, appointed them Governors of their own. At this time Herod held the jurisdiction of the Northern part, the hilly country toward Galilee; and Pilate was the Deputy in the rest of Jewry. And thus much the Jews confess, when they say, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death, that is, in such a case as this, which is plain sedition and treason, especially at this time being the preparation of the Sabbath; and therefore they brought our Savior to Pilate, that he being the President, might judicially proceed against him, examine, arraign, and give sentence upon him, for that he said he was a King; for you shall find that when all failed, this was the point they pressed home to Pilate.

Behold here the brethren of Joseph rising against their own natural brother, and putting him into the hands of the Ishmaelites; the Jews of whose seed our Savior came according to the flesh, put the seed of Abraham into the power of the Gentiles; the cause was the very same, envy and malice. This is a raging and heady passion, that most commonly feeds upon blood, oftentimes in act, always in desire. If there be envy in the heart, there will be an evil eye, an evil and bloody hand if possible, and an evil tongue.

This caused them to frame an indictment of several Articles. 1. Of Sedition, 2. Gaulonitism. 3. Treason. A seditious person they charge him to be, stirring up the people, beginning from Galilee to this place; disobedient, forbidding Tribute to be paid to Caesar; and a Traitor, saying, that he was Christ a King; when indeed he was nor this, not that. But this is an old devise of Machevillians, that bring such in danger of the State, they labor to ruin. Naboth blasphemed God and the King; Tertullus flaunts it out in his Rhetoric, We have found this man a pestilent fellow.

If to stand in the gap, if to maintain the Truth, if to defend the Law, if to preach the Gospel to the poor,, if to heal the broken-hearted, if to preach deliverance to the captives, if to set at liberty those who were bruised, if to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and to proclaim all these, be to be a seditious person, then the allegation cannot be denied; for such a seducer he was, and other end in seducing he had not. But if they intend, as they did, one who drew a multitude after him to disturb the peace and quiet of the Nation, there was nothing more untrue. The first part then of the charge was a manifest aspersion; and the second a flat lie, no better then a stark lie; for how did he forbid the payment of Tribute, who commanded it? confessed it a debt and paid it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; Return, saith he, to Caesar the things which are Caesar's. A debt then it is, not a gift, and debts must be paid, Ow nothing to any man. Now that his practice might be conformable to his doctrine, he sent Peter to the sea to fetch so much money out of the mouth of a fish, as should pay for them both. He was then no Gaulonite in the disuasion of Tribute: Neither ever had he any thought of an earthly crown or scepter; when the people sought for him to make him a King, he conveyed himself away and hid himself; nay he would not be so much as a subordinate judge, to divide the land betwixt the two dissenting brerhren; but there is nothing so false, nothing so untrue which a scandalous tongue will not fasten on the Innocent, or the Wolf lay to the charge of the Lamb; he must be devoured, and to that's enough, Pater, mater, omne tuum invisum genus sedulo mihi adversatur; Tu ergo dabis hodie poenas.

Howsoever this last charge because it reflected on the person of Caesar, Pilate takes special notice of it; for the bed and the crown are tender things, they may be no more touched then the eye. Upon this point therefore he examines him, Art th • u the King of the Jews? To which our Savior returns a good confession, Thou sayest it; as if he should have said, O Pilate, although thou see me sold as a slave, apprehended as a thief, bound like a fool, humbled like a servant, accused like a malefactor, and defamed for raising tumults; yet know, that I am a King; a King I am, but not in your sense; and a kingdom I am over, but not such as Tiberius your master governs; it is not of this world; You rule over the bodies of men, I over their hearts and consciences; you govern by your laws, I by my truth and Gospel; your subjects obey for fear, mine for love; they hear your Edicts, these my voice; yours is an outward and temporal, mine a spiritual and everlasting kingdom. With which answer Pilate rested so fully satisfied, that he went out, and said to the Jews, That he could find no fault in him at all.

But by the way I pray observe, that Pilate went out to them; what needed that? youl say; were not his accusers in the same place face to face? No, they were not: Saint John plainly saith, They themselves went not into the judgment hall, least that they should be defiled; but that they might eat the Passover. What name to call this sin by I cannot well tell, whether superstition or hypocrisy; both indeed it was, and of both in them we have a notable example. They never stick to seek the life of a just innocent man, and yet are very strict and curious about a ceremony. To hire false witnesses to condemn Christ, a trivial matter; marry to enter into Pilate's hall would defile them. And doth not Rome afford such superstitious hypocrites at this day? to eat an egg in Lent, a bit of flesh on Friday, is a mortal sin; but to excommunicate and interdict, to embrue their hands in the blood of the Lord's Anointed, is a meritorious Act. Thus Hypocrites too often Tithe mint and cummin, and omit the great and weighty matters of the Law. But I must return to Pilate:

Who, when upon the evidence of his conscience he found him Innocent (for he professed I find no fault in him) begins to think of some way to save his life; and three evasions he thinks of; if any of rhem took, he gained his purpose. First he sends him to Herod; then he caused him to be scourged▪ Lastly he puts it to their choice whether they would acquit him or Barabbas. He that wants an example of a wicked Judge may remember Pilate. For if Christ were by the testimony of his own conscience blameless, why doth he post him over to another Judge? why whip him, why scourge him, why bring him into the scale with Barabbas? Here he should have interposed his power, and not have delivered him to the will of them he knew to be his enemies. For a Magistrate is a Protector, and bears a sword to keep off a blow from the Innocent, as well as a sword to fasten a blow upon the neck of a notable malefactor. Had Christ appealed to Herod, Pilate might well have replied, Unto Herod shalt thou go. But when he stood to his judgment, he was bound, being an Innocent, or one who had done nothing amiss, to acquit him.

The Jews no doubt were very well pleased with Pilate's order. For they little doubted that at Herod's hands he should fare no better then John the Baptist, who was Vox clamantis, The voice of one crying; and he that had cut out Christ's tongue, was not in their opinion like to spare the head. Thither then they carry him, and present him to the cruel bloody King; in whose dealing observe,

1. That he was wonderfully glad of his coming, for he was desirous of a long season to see him. Desirous to see Jesus? why, who would not? Abraham, the Angels, the whole world desired to see him. Not a house into which he enters, if they bid him welcome, but he brings salvation with him. But this was not it that made Herod glad; he regarded neither his name nor his help. It was merely to satisfy his curiosity.

2. For he hoped to have seen some miracle to have been done by him. He thought no better of him, then of some Magician or Mountebank, that being brought into the presence of a King begins straightway to show his impostures. The very account that Christ finds with great ones at this day, when a buffone with his sophisms and delusions is of great account, but a true servant of his is made a spectacle to men and Angels. O strange folly, to expect a wonder, and not to regard his words! God grant many Christians be not guilty of it, who are perfect in the story of the Bible; but for any sound sentence, or forcible argument to direct or reform their lives, they regard not. And this in all likelihood was the reason, that though be asked many things, yet our Savior gave him no answer, made no Sermon, wrought no miracle before him, as knowing his intention to be vain if not malicious, no way to be bettered or to profit by him.

3. For all this the chief Priests and Scribes desisted not, they pressed the accusation, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , they amplified, exaggerated, stretched every circumstance to the height; in all likelihood the very self same matter, which they urged before Pilate, viz. how he moved and stirred up the people, beginning at Galilee, a circumstance which they knew would most nettle Herod, because Galilee belonged to his jurisdiction; malice knows not where to end, being quick to invent, much less forgetful to omit an opportunity that may help on her intended mischief.

4. Now Herod seeing our Savior stand before him, as he was indeed, a Lamb, a Sheep, took him for a simple man, a man that had tongue enough before an unlettered multitude, but no audacity to speak before him, and therefore 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he set him at naught, he plaid upon him, as if he had been some worthless fellow; and as followers usually follow the example of their King, his men of war did the like. They with him scorned, scoffed, derided him, made a may-game of him, and when they had jeered their fill, they claded him in a gorgeous coat, such as Kings wear, because he said he was a King; and thus clad in scorn sent him back again to the President Pilate. The conclusion was that Herod and Pilate were friends that day; both though before enemies, yet agree well enough to put the Lord's anointed to death. Men of dissenting judgments yet solder and unite, when any mischief is to be done to Christ, or to such whom they are commanded not to harm, no not to touch.

There is, there is such a thing as conscience, that awakes in the heart of the drowsiest sinner. As this carries a whip to punish after the fact, so also it hath a bridle to curb and restrain before the deed be done. Judas he felt the lash, and complained of it after his treason, I have sinned in betraying the innocent blood; and it lashed him so, that it lashed him to the gallows; a just reward for a Traitor. They bite upon the bridle, that say before the fact, What do I? where about go I? how can I do this great wickedness? Pilate at this time champed upon the bit; his very conscience reined him in, and told him, 'twas no good matter he was about; not lawful that a just man should be condemned, and therefore he puts on foot another project to save his life.

A custom the Jews had, that at Easter the Deputy should release unto them one prisoner whom they would; a custom pteserved perchance in memory that they themselves had been prisoners in Egypt, and that at this time they were delivered from thence. Well, Pilate takes from hence an occasion to present unto them Jesus and Barabbas; gold and dirt, a diamond and glass, the Sun and darkness, heaven and hell are not more unlike then Jesus and Barabbas. For Jesus was a just person, one that had done nothing amiss, and of this then witnesses enough, and all his enemies; but this Barabbas a notable thief, one who for murder and insurrection was cast into prison; Pilate therefore imagined that the Jews could not be so notoriously wicked, as to prefer a murderer before Christ, a malefactor that was not worthy to live upon the face of the earth, before a just man; that then he might this way acquit him, he presented them both together; but behold here the disposition of a multitude animated by those in power; for the people are as water, the breath of a great man the wind that insensibly moves it. This people moved by their superiors streightway clamor, Not this man, but Barabbas; Vivat Barabbas, pereat Christus; let Barabbas live and let Christ die; away with him, the cross is fit for him, Crucify him, crucify him. Could there be a rejection in a fouler degree? Non hunc, not He, Away with such a fellow from the earth, 'tis not fit he should live, had been a soul indignity; but to bring him into the scale with Barabbas, and to make Barabbas outweigh him; to prefer a murderer, a disturber of the peace before him, was an intolerable injury. If it were our case, heaven and earth should ring of it. What compate me to such a Varlet? what prefer him before me? Yet thus it went now, Barabbas is loosed, and Jesus refused.

Still Pilate's conscience fretted and chaffed, and murmured within him; it told him, that this was no good dealing thus to condemn an innocent; and to quicken it the more, his wife sends to him, that he should have nothing to do with the blood of that just man; Therefore he casts about, and at last betakes him to a more desperate shift then all the rest. Emendatum dimitteret, he would mend him forsooth (a likely project to mend him, who in his own judgment wanted no mending) and so let him go. No question he thought, that if they had any bowels of men in them, when they should behold him so mended, as he thought to mend him with a whip, they would take some compassion on him, and call no more for a Crucifige.

View a little the particulars of this Politique, I cannot say just Judge; he firsts whips him; the ancient Fathers report that it was ad columnam, tied to a pillar; sure I am it was with a scourge, called in Scripture a Scorpion. For Saint Matthew hath it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , He scourged Jesus, in all likelihood 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , flagro taxillato, in which they tied certain huckle bones, or plummets of lead with sharp thorns to the end of the thongs, to augment the pains. O foul disgrace and scandal, besides the pain to offer him the shame of this servile and base punishment, not to be inflicted on any but slaves and bondmen, Loris? liber sum, saith he in the Comedy in a great disdain, as if being free-born, he held it a foul indignity to have the whip once named to him. What scourge a Roman and uncondemned? saith Saint Paul. But this Pilate's hall is made the Theater for the whole world; here is such a spectacle as was never seen before. The God of heaven assuming flesh is tied and bound to a pillar, the Lord of all scourged and whipt like the basest servant. Oh how glorious was the King of Israel today, who was uncovered in the eyes of the hand-maids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself! saith Michal of David in the way of scorn. But here was no jesting, it was thus with the son of David in good earnest; for the true King of Israel hath his garments torn off him, and as if he were unus de scurris, one of the vain fellows, hath his very flesh torn off with Scorpions. And was not this think you a glorious sight?

If you be not moved to compassion with this, go on, and you shall behold the King of Israel in his royalty and glory indeed; in a crown, with a Scepter, in a purple robe, men enough about him, bowing the knee and crying, Hail thou King of the Jews; of the Jews indeed, for none but Jews would ever so have used their King.

A crown, and a scepter, and a purple robe! who can do less then take him for a King? Mark their knees and tongues, and you have less cause to doubt. But go on to the end of the verse, and you shall see to what purpose all this was done; not to his honor, but his dishonor; not to please, but to grieve him. For that tongue which cried, Ave Rex Judaeorum, spet and spewed in his face; and that hand which put on his Crown, knocked it with a Cane fast to his head.

Besides, his Crown was of Thorns. Thorns in their Crowns, that is, sharp-pointed miseries and afflictions Kings too often bear; you know who grasp'd it as sharp as it was. But no King ever wore a Crown made of Thorns besides this one, When they clothed him with purple, that went no farther than a jest, but in this Coronation there was pain and torment; for look how many Thorns did enter through his skin, so many sluices there were for his blood to issue. The blood gusht out, where the Thorns went in; and now stream'd as fast down his face in the Palace, as it did down his back and shoulders at the Pillar.

I should have acquainted you, how before they Crown'd him with this prickly Coronet; they put off his Coat, that garish Coat, in which Herod array'd him, and put him on a purple Robe. O the wonderful patience of the Son of God to be thus clothed and unclothed; unclothed and clothed by these miscreants! Surely their hatred was so great to him, that by their good wills they would have changed him to another: And thereupon it was that they changed his skin, when they scourged him; they changed his estate, when they arraigned him; they changed his dignity, when they scoffed him; they changed his family, when the Officers waited upon him; they changed his Name, when they mis-called him Seducer, &c. They changed his Apparel, when in Herod's Livery, and in Pilate's purple they abused him. And was not the King of Israel very glorious, this day? this day, when he was thus derided?

Thus derided: But there is a third scoff no less grievous than the other two; yea, as some think, beyond them; Those touched his body, this more directly wounded his honor, which every noble spirit prizeth beyond his life. Kill me, saith Saul, lest the uncircumcised come upon me, and mock me. Now in his Honor, by the reed put into his hand, he suffers: For the reed is an empty, hollow thing, naturally without pith in it, by which they would intimate, that the brain and head of Christ was as empty of wit, having no more worth or substance in it, than that hollow Cane; that He was a great mocker, and his Kingdom no other than a great mockery.

And to testify so much, they bowed their knees, and whet their tongues. The tongue and the knee are the two chief instruments in our outward worship. God calls for them, he will be adored by them. He swears it in Isaiah, Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess the Lord. As if he had said, I have sworn, That none shall be so bold to open his mouth, but only to praise me; none shall be so irreligious as to bow his knee, if it be not to worship me. But see here the quite contrary; These miscreants bend their knees, but it is to scoff him; they make use of their tongues, but it is to revile him. On their knees they would prove him to be a fool, and with their tongues they would profane that very Word by which they should honor. Av • , 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Hail, King of the Jews.

And with that they spit in his face, beat the Thorny Crown close to his head. An injury yet offered to Christ by notorious sinners. Give over thy lend life, O thou careless wretch! O thou profane Christian, and they will give over to beat thy Savior! For know, that so many blasphemies, so much spettle thou casts in his face, so many reigning sins, so many reeds thou break'st on his head.

By this time, out of question, Pilate had well mended him, that is, scourged him. Evident it is, that no base Abject was ever worse scourged, so Crown'd, more scorned, more fouled with filthy excrements, And in this lamentable condition Pilate brings him forth to the people; and to move some pity, he cries aloud, Ecce homo, See good people, behold the man. A man he is; and can men do less than pity so rueful a Spectacle? A stranger he is to me, not so to you: One he is of your own flesh and blood, an Israelite, and will you not then have some compassion on your kinsman? Do not your bowels melt to see him thus torn! thus mangled! Have you no regard? no remorse? are you not men? Behold the man. The man you have presented to me, scourged like a slave, drenchit in his own gore, crowned with Thorns, scorned, spet on. Never fear he will affect anymore Crowns, that hath felt this of Thorns; The purple and reed will sufficiently teach him, that his person was not made to wear a Diadem; nor his hands bound with Thongs, ordained to wield a Scepter. Had he before any ambitious thoughts, by this time they are taken down from affecting Kingdoms.

All this is in Ecce homo. But nor this piteous sight, nor Pilate's Ecce, could any whit allay their malice. Dye he must, and nothing could satisfy them, till they saw him breath his last. Therefore in a tumultuous manner they cry again, Crucify him, Crucify him; whether he had done evil or not, was not the matter. A seditious person he was; and he that went about to save him, was no friend to Caesar. With this last speech Pilate was conquered; though he labored before for him, yet now he y • elds; at the name of Caesar he shrinks; rather condemn and crucify a thousand Christ's, than be none of Caesar's friend. The course of the world right; do any mischief, rather than displease a man in power. Oh such a man's frown or check is a material point; no wise man wi • l hazard it.

This consideration workit upon Pilate so deeply, that it made him do the foulest Act that ever Judge did. Not the water in the Bason, nor all the water in the Sea, can ever wash clean his hypocritical hands. It made him condemn the Son of God; one, whom himself, and Herod, as he said, and his own wife adjudged to be innocent, and in a shameful manner to deliver him to their will. O unheard of sentence from the mouth of a Judge! that a man's enemies should have power in their hands to revenge themselves on a Prisoner, according to their own will and pleasure.

Of the Passion of Christ.

5. Of our Savior's Passion.

OUR Savior going up to Jerusalem, acquaints his Disciples that he should be betrayed to the chief Priests and Scribes, that he should be condemned by them, and delivered to the Gentiles, be mocked, spitefully entreated, and spet on, that they should scourge him, and put him to death. And to that I am now come, which is the last Act of this Tragedy, the saddest that ever was presented. The Sun became pitch, the earth quaked, the Temple split, the graves gaped, the dead awaked upon the sense of it; and therefore I hope you will not hear it with a cold heart, with dry eyes. I confess I could willingly wrap up my face in a Mantle, as confessing that I am not able to represent a grief of this depth.

But having presented you with the four other Acts, I must not like a sluggish Poet, deficere in extremo. My task tyes me to it, and I must present this also, and not faint in the last, and set before your eyes Christ crucified, Christ going to, and suffering upon the Cross. A sad and heavy spectacle in itself, but to us matter of joy. So great joy, that the Apostle in comparison of it, rejects all other, God forbid, that I should rejoice in anything, but in the Cross of Christ: and God forbid, say I, that we should rejoice in anything, but in the Cross of Christ. For howsoever the Jew looking for wonders, and the Graecian looking after wisdom, do and did both condemn the Cross; the one of weakness, the other of folly; Of folly, that the Son of God should leave his Throne for a Cross of pain and shame; that he should there hang, bleed, expire, and die: Yet we, who by this Cross are become heirs of the promise, must make it the object of our joy, the only object of our joy. For Christ crucified, is the power and wisdom of God to save all them that believe; and this Cross is the foundation of our Faith, Hope, and Joy. For from his pains it is that we are eased, by his stripes that we are healed; his weakness is our strength, his shame our glory, his death our life. Oh how truly the Prophet said, Domini fecisti causam meam! My cause, O Lord, thou hast pleaded, and made good. Mine, not thy own, considering that he had no business to solicit for himself, no cause to go up to that accursed Tree, except it were to die for our sins, and to pay for our transgressions, for the chastisement of our peace was upon him. Since then the cause was ours, and his the payment and pain, great reason we have to sit down, and sadly to cast up an accompt of what he paid and suffered for us.

The last day you beheld our Savior betrayed by Judas, abjured by Peter, forsaken by his followers, apprehended like a Thief, pinioned like a Malefactor, falsely accused, unjustly condemned, buffeted, spet on, reviled, whipt. Now I, nay his enemies bring him to the Cross, where you shall behold his eyes dejected for shame, his ears glowing with taunts, his mouth soured with Vinacre, his hands and feeet wounded with Iron Spikes, his bones unjoynted, his sinews pricked and strained, his whole body hanging by the strength of his hands and feet, and his heart pierced through with a Spear and sorrow.

But before he comes to Calvary, let it be considered what he suffered by the way. First they disrobe him. The purple Garment put upon him in scorn, was thought too good for him; that then they took off, and put upon him his own. Next they load him with a Cross, as was the custom of Malefactors. Malefici cum ad supplicium educuntur, quis{que} suam effert Crucem. In this Isaac was a type of Christ; Isaac carries the wood on which he was to be Sacrificed; and Christ a wooden Cross on which he was to suffer. Grande spectaculum, a strange sight; si spectet impietas, grande ludibrium; si spectet pietas, grande Mysterium. Let a wicked man behold it, he will scoff the King that should carry such a piece of wood for his Scepter: Let a pious soul look upon it, and he will honor that piece of Wood he carried, which he was to fasten in the foreheads of Kings, and the hearts of Saints.

This Cross was so great (for it is supposed, whereas other Malefactors carried but a part, they laid upon him the whole) that he fainted under it. He had lost so much blood before by the Whips and Thorns, that he might well faint now. Not to ease him then, but forced by necessity, when Christ had carried it more than half of this Dolorus way, they met with one Simon a Cyrenian, a stranger, and him they compel'd to carry his Cross. Behold for your comfort, the Gentile bears that which the Jew rejected. The Cross of Christ laid upon our shoulders, to protect, to save us, which was cast off, and scorned by the hard-hearted Jews. You then who are Christians, take it up, bear it patiently, bear it willingly, if God so will lay it upon your shoulders; and joy in this, that your Master hath borne it half the way before you.

In this long and sorrowful procession, I find not any compassion that any one man had on him. Hard hearts, whom such a rueful spectacle could not move. I hope ours are of a softer temper, that they melt, that they telent upon the rehearsal of this heavy story. Some good Women yet there were, who met him on the way, and with blubbered eyes, and with bedewed cheeks pitied his case. Christ takes notice of their sadness, and thus bespeaks them, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, &c. Their tears he dislikes not, but he would not have them wasted; not so much out of a sudden passion, as out of compassion, and that of their own souls: For if this were done in the green tree, what should be done in the dry? Is there any word in Scripture that comes warmer to the heart, or any sentence that may sooner startle a secure sinner than this? Si hoc in lign • viridi? If this be the lot of a green Tree? if that be brought to the fire, scorched, burnt, how quickly will the dry be in a light flame? Lie down with this meditation, sleep with it, wake with it, rise with it, walk with it in your mouths. Saint Peter hath thus paraphrased on it, The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin there, what shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel? If the righteous shall be scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? If the Son of God be thus handled, what stripes shall be given to a bold Servant and a stubborn slave? If the green Tree unapt for the fire was thus hack'd and hew'd, and at last cut down; what shall become of those who are but Sere and dry Trees, that bear no fruit, except it be that which is stark naught, that serve for no use, except it be to trouble the ground? The Baptist hath made the Conclusion for me, Cut it up, and cast it into the fire; Cut up, is no great matter; what should be done with a dry Tree else? but cast into the fire, is part of that judgment which may bring tears from our eyes, and astonishment and amazement from our hearts. Thither the dry Tree, the unfruitful, the impenitent sinner must; and therefore while you have Time, weep for yourselves, and with Buckets of penitent water labor to extinguish those flames.

The interval of this meditation hath brought me to Golgotha, an unpleasant, an unsavory place; unpleasant to the eye; for skulls and bones of dead men, though an useful, yet are but an ungrateful object; and unsavory to the nostrils, for that heads and putrefied limbs of Malefactors rotting in that place, sent forth a most noisome savor.

Here the common Executioner unloads Simon, rears up the Cross, and prepares our Savior for his death. And now you shall behold the saddest spectacle that ever the Sun before or since beheld, The Son of God hanging upon the Cross, and crucified betwixt two Thieves. That you take the better view of what Christ there suffered, I will reduce all to four Heads answerable to the four ends or quarters of the Cross. Sanguis Crucis, the blood of the Cross shall be the Latitude. Dolores Crucis, the sorrows of this death shall be the Longitude. Scandalum Cru • is, the Scandal of the Cross shall be the Depth. Maledictum Crucis, the Curse of the Cross shall be the Height of what he suffered. For the death of the Cross is a bloody, painful, scandalous, accursed death. And I am not ashamed to tell you from whom I have borrowed my Method, holding it an honor to me to sit at the feet of so great a Gamaliel, that Learned, Pious, Reverend Bishop of Winchester, who hath so fully gathered the Harvest of every field he entered, that those that come after him, can pick up only here and there a few scattered ears.

1. Sanguis Crucis.

The first thing that men desire, since they know they must die, is, that they may die Sicca morte, part with the world as men lie down to sleep, not by a violent, and untimely death, in garments rolled in blood. When David would lay a burden upon Joab, his charge to Solomon was, His hoary head bring thou down to the grave with blood. A punishment then it is to die weltering in a man's own gore; and where there is the greater effusion of blood, the punishment is the greater. In Christ there was no spare made; poured out it was at every part that could bleed. Well I might say, that the blood of the Cross admitted a longitude, for it carried a length according to the proportion of his whole body, and whole life.

Bernard likens him to a Rose, blood red in the morning of his life when he began to disclose, but more red in the evening of it, when he was cropped off. The blood which he shed at his Circumcision, was Sanguis Crucis, The blood of his Cross, because his whole life was Crux & Martyrium, a kind of Cross and Martyrdom. The Church may well take up Zipporahs words, Truly thou art a husband of blood to me, because of the Circumcision; a drop or two then shed as an engagement for the rest.

And the rest he began to shed in Gethsemani, where he shed drops of blood trickling down to the ground. Enquire and consider whether ever you heard or read the like. The weather was cold, the place open; nor time nor place could occasion sweat. No man by to hurt him, no weapon to wound him; whence then should flow this stream of blood? It should seem by this sweat of his, he was near some furnace, some fire was sent into his bones. And so it was, the wrath of God for our sin which he took, was upon him, and this cast him into an Agony, and the Agony caused him to bleed through flesh and skin; not some faint dew, but clots of blood, so many, so thickened, that they string'd down to the earth. Certainly this blood of Gethsemani was another manner of blood than that of Gabbatha or Golgotha either. In the two last no blood issued, but where passages were made for it to run; This streines out through such small pores, as never blood went. That in some places, this in all. That never caused him to shrink and complain: But this to send forth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a strong cry; and the matter of the cry was, Father, let this Cup pass from me. In the hand of the Lord there was a Cup; the Wine was red, and full mixed; all the ungodly of the earth must drink of it. About it went, and at last it came to Christ. Why, you'le say, was he one of the company? No, but he was so reputed. He would have had it pass, Praetereat dalix. But it might not be. He knew if we drunk it, it would be our bane. Therefore he took it, and off it went even dregs and all. Now this was it which cast him into this unnatural sweat. He prays, and sweats, and bleeds in a Garden, for that sin (and wh • t followed) first committed in a Garden.

But this was not all the blood he shed, though the most painful and strange of all the rest. Go along with him from Gethsemani to Gabbatha, and you shall see him bleed afresh. Bleed, and bleed again. Bleed, when Pilate scourged him at the Pillar: bleed when the Soldiers put the platted Crown of thorns on his head, bleed when his back was straked and whal'd with lashes, bleed when his face was disfigur'd with blood. In his whole body no other color then that of the red grape, when it is strained and trode in the press. By this time a man would imagine, that our Savior had lost so much blood, that he had no more to lose; but more there is yet, and more he must lose; for all this would do us no good; it must be the blood of the Cross that must pacify all things; blood joined with death that must be the price and ransom of the world.

You may then track him all the way by the blood which he shed, bleeding all along to Golgotha, where he bled his last. Here they find instruments to phlebotomize him, nails to dig into his hands, spikes to nail down his feet, and a soldiers spear to pierce his side, if not his heart. The total is Sanguis Crucis, shed in four several places; in the stable at Bethlehem, again in the Garden, twice in Gabbatha, twice in and about Golgotha; six several times he shed his blood for us; he made no spare, that we might have plentiful Redemption.

And when I named that word Redemption, I also named the cause why he would shed his blood, it was merely that we might be Redeemed. In the old Law, No Redemption without shedding of blood; either the sinner must die, or else the beast for him; and this was the reason that under Moses no sacrifice could be propitiatory, except it were bloody. The blood of the beast must be shed before the sinner, who was to die, could be set free, and restored to the favor of God. Christ was the substance of all these sacrifices; their blood the Type of his, and his the power and virtue of theirs; we were the offenders that must have died; be or we, that's certain; our blood or his must satisfy; ours could not, because but finite, the blood only of a creature; his could because of an infinite worth, being by the Mystical union the blood of God, and this he would shed rather then we should die.

And so you have at once a full accompt of the blood our Savior shed for us, and the true cause of this effusion.

2. Dolores Crucis.

But if Bloody, must it be painful too? Yes, it must be so, and that for our good, viz. to free us from pain; and painful it was, if ever any. Can it be thought other where there was so much blood shed? Painful it must needs be to as many parts as the blood came through. Of all that is penal the common division is sensus & damni; we suffer pain either for that we feel, or for that we lose and are deprived of. Our Savior suffered both ways, in that he felt, in that of which he was be reft, and therefore his Cross must needs be the more painful.

1. Which of his senses was not as I may so say, a window ro let in sorrow! His eyes saw the tears of his mother and friends; and that which the eye sees, the heart must needs grieve at; his ears filled with the blasphemy of the multitude, wagging their heads, and crying, Ah thou wretch, ah thou that destroyest the Temple, &c. His tongue relished the Gall or Myrrh; his nose filled with the noisome savor of skulls in this place of a skull. As for his raiment, his skin I mean, it was of Needlework thrust through and through with nails, thorns, with whips, with a spear.

And yet the stripes in his back, and thorns in his crown, are now scarce worth naming; they were light pains to his nailing to the cross. They were indeed painful, but these 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , properly streining pains, or pains of Torture; they put him upon the rack, and stretched him as a skin on the head of a Drum, or as the string of an instrument; Hith paredu, separaverunt ossa, they pulled him joint from joint, and limb from limb; Usraemeu; or if you will, they strained his body, as a Fuller stretcheth his cloth upon the Tenter, for so the word will bear it; and did I not well then to call this Latitudo Crucis, the breadth or Latitude of the Cross? And when they had wound him up to the highest pin, they then begin to nail down his hands and his feet. I said too little, it was not bare nailing, it was digging; foderunt manus, they made wide holes, as if they had been digging in some ditch. Now sure this was it which made his pains beyond measure painful; for the Center of the hands and the feet must needs be more sensible then other parts of the body, because in them is a general concourse of the sinews, so that the streining and tearing of these must be an extreme torture.

Add to this, that his pains in every sense must far exceed what another man could suffer, because the very constitution of Christ's body did far exceed any man's, was more delicate then any man's. In Christi corpore spiritus sancti opere fabricato maxim viguit sensus tactus; The sense of touching in Christ's body framed by the work of the Holy Ghost was most exquisite; neither did he interpose his Divinity by which he would lessen or keep off any pain; nor harden or benum any part, that it should be less sensible of grief; for unicuique virium permisit agere, quod est sibi proprium; He would have every sense, every part grieved to the full. Three whole hours he hung there in perfect sense; for whereas the torments of others when they are most violent, do either hasten their death, or overwhelm the sense, and so the pain when it is most violent is least perceived: In Christ it was not so; for he died not by degrees as we do; no pangs of death seized upon him before he would; the Centurion wondered that he should cry with a loud voice and give up the Ghost. Quis tam facile, quando vult, moritur? Who dies so easily when he lists? for in perfect patience he voluntarily resigned up his soul into his fathers hands; Till then 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , i. e. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . He did tarry, stay, abide under it.

2. And yet all this was but the half of his sufferings, and the lesser part by half; for indeed the pain of the Body is but the body of pain; the very soul of pain, is the pain of the soul, which doth so far exceed the other, as the soul doth the body; any heaviness to the heaviness of the heart; none like that, and in that he most suffered; it is evident by all four Evangelists. Wise and resolute men do not complain of a little; Holy Martyrs were racked and would not be loosed; they suffered, endured and complained not. To what pitch then this sorrow came (for I must carry you back again to the garden) when the soul of the Son of God was sad to death; when he began 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to be troubled and perplexed, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to be astonished, to be in an agony, to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , besieged, beset with sorro • , when 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , he was troubled in Spirit; sorrow and a siege of sorrow, fear and an astonishing fear; an agony and a bloody agony; trouble, and troubles of the soul are avouched by them, confessed by himself! Four swords at once, sorrow, fear, a conflict, and trouble pierced his soul; that hour what his sorrows were, it it dangerous to define. To very good purpose it was that the ancient fathers of the Greek Church shut up their Litany in this pathetical form, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , By thy unknown sorrows and tortures, felt by thee, but unknown to us, have pity on us and save us. Great they were that caused this unheard of sweat. Trouble, sorrow, grief, anguish, perplexity is always suitable to the apprehension; and never any man was able so truly to apprehend the causes of these passions as himself, and therefore never any so much affected with them.

He saw the majesty of God armed with fierce wrath against all the sinners of the world, for whom he had undertaken to answer; this made him fear. He saw the heinousness of man's sin, with which God was displeased; this made him grieve: He saw the Judge on the throne ready to take revenge; this made him to pray, Prae • ereat calix iste. He saw Satan accusing his Elect, this perplexed him. In a word, he saw the necessity of man's damnation if he suffered not; of his redemption if he did suffer; and this made him take the cup, and drink it down. And whilst he was in this conflict of fear, and grief, and prayer, and love, declining and choosing, he sweats and bleeds.

'It is no wonder if the glory of God's judgments and the power of his wrath; if the number of our sins, and neglect of our own estate; if the malice of Satan, and the danger of our condition caused Christ, who had taken upon him to be our Surety, out of fear of the great Majesty of the Judge; out of sorrow for the crimes and contempts of the prisoners; out of zeal against the impugner of man's deliverance, thus to Agonize himself into a bloody sweat.

3. And now behold this Hour is over, this hour of pain, of heaviness, of anguish, of sweat, of blood; For an Angel appears 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to strengthen, to comfort him; his burden was lessened, or rather his strength to bear it increased; but within a while there succeeds another, when not an Angel dare look from above to relieve him, not a man on earth stands by him to comfort him.

In this distress then, whence can he expect ease? what from his own thoughts? No not thence, for the influence of the superior faculty of the soul was restrained from the aid of the inferior; not one drop of comfort thence. Will his father do i • ? Yea there was his hope, but that hope fails. He, even He, his Father delivers him into the hands of his enemies, then turns his back upon him as a stranger; the Lord would break him.

This was right Poena damni, all losses light to this; we hear him not complain till now; give ear to his cry, the like was never heard, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! What a word was this to fall from the mouth of the Son of God? My disciples are men, weak and fearful; no marvel if they leave me and fly. The Jews are Jews, cruel, and obstinate; I complain not of, I pray for them; but that thou, O my Father, thou that hast witnessed by a voice from heaven, This is my beloved Son; Thou of whom I have testified, It is my Father that glorifies me, that thou shouldst now forsake me! bring me to this shame and pain, and here leave me! afford me no comfort, no assistance at all! This is a pain beyond all pain; the torments of the body are nothing to this; for to be forsaken of God, is a misery, that the body cannot feel, or tell what it means. This a complaint proper to the soul, and how great the pain is, Jonah in the belly of the Whale, and Job from the dunghill, and David when he cried de profundis out of the deep, were best able to inform you; should you fall ever into it, which God forbid, you would confess there were no sorrow like to this sorrow.

Yet to this pass Christ came, he was forsaken, as the Godly complain sometime when they be void of comfort, or destitute of help, left wholly to the will of the oppressor. Leo first said it, and all antiquity hath subscribed to it, Non solvit unionem, sed subtraxit visionem. The union of the two Natures was not dissolved, but the beams and comfortable influence of the Diety was restrained; there was a traverse, as it were, drawn betwixt heaven and him, so that his soul was left as a dry-scorched heath ground, upon which there fell nor dew nor rain.

3. Scandalum Crucis.

I have I fear been too long upon this Point, the pains of the Cross, which he suffered in body and soul, and under which he was left. But not too long, if I could raise in you a correspondent sorrow for your sins that caused these pains. For it was for your iniquities that Christ underwent these pains. Now if all these might have been endured Salv • honor, with his honor, it had been so much the less. But to fill up those sorrows, and to embitter these pains, there is yet Scandalum Crucis, a scandal necessarily consequent to this death to be thought on, which caused a wise man to say, Plus est etiam quam mors, est etiam mors ignominiosa, It is more than death, for it is an ignommious death.

Dyed Abner as a fool? saith David, in great regret for a valiant man. Evident it is that our Savior died so; as a fool, and as a Malefactor to boot; whence the wise being put in mind of Christ crucified, were wont to style it The foolishness of the Cross. His hands were bound, and his feet put into fetters; and as a man falls before wicked men, so fell he. Nay, he fell in the midst of wicked men, as if he had been the most wicked. For they were not content to put him to the death of Malefactors, but to place a Thief on each side; one on the left hand, and another on the right, and Jesus in the midst, as if he had been the Prince of Thieves. The middle place with the Ancients was most Honorable; and therefore the middle place among Thieves must needs be most dishonorable. And yet thus our Abner died.

Disgraceful that, but more disgraceful this; for shameful it is for any man to end his life upon a Tree; which if it so fall out, yet let him end his days quietly, not be scorned, and scoffed, and disgraced then; this will add a cross to the Cross. We often prosecute even wicked men to such places with tears, with pity. Our Savior found none at that hour, not one to say, Ah Lord, or Ah his glory, but even then insultation, irrision, taunts, and scorns to break his heart. They stood gaping and staring upon him, wagging their heads, writhing their mouths, railing on him, reviling him. Hay, thou that destroyest the Temple, saith one, Come down, and we will believe; Ho, thou that savest others, saith another, now save thyself, and us, quoth the Thief. Yea, in the very instant of his prayer, when he cried with a loud voice and a bitter, Eli, Eli, they interrupted him with a scornful Sarcasme and a bitter, Stay, let him alone, let us see if Elijah will come and take him down. And thus our Abner died even like a fool. And this I call the depth of Christ's Cross, because there is no misery will pierce a heart more deeply than reproach and shame; and always the more noble the heart is, the deeper the wound. For two things are most precious; our life, and our reputation; they go both arm in arm. The Cross took away both life and honor; and for both, brought forth another couple, Death and Disgrace upon Him.

4. Maledictum Crucis.

Is there any worse yet behind? There is. For all this was but a scandal; and a scandal may be cast upon him that deserves it not. Maledictum Crucis, The curse of the Cross is a death of another pitch, and yet this also he underwent for us. So that the Death he died, was not only a bloody, a painful, a scandalous, reproachful, but it was an execrable and an accursed death also.

Higher we cannot go, and therefore I called this the height of Christ's Cross; hither he would be, as he called it, lifted, that he might be made a curse for us. A curse for us, as the Sacrifice in the old Law is called a sin. That was a sin, because on it was laid the Sin of the transgressors; and Christ made a curse, because upon him was laid that kind of accursed death. Saint Paul makes mention of two kinds of curses; one for doing evil; another in suffering as an evil doer; one to him that was hanged upon the Tree; another to the transgressor of the Law. All the world was subject to this latter, because transgressors. But Christ exchange'd this curse for another. He hung on the Tree, underwent that death, which was accursed in the Law, that so by the one, he might lose the other; by the accursed death of the Cross, dissolve that curse which was due to man's sin.

And thus it is finished; all things contained in the word Crucified or Suffered, have an end; his sorrow, his pains, his shame, his curse. And thus far we have warrant to extend his sufferings,

5. That Christ suffered not hell torments.

But there be that stretch it farther; yea, so far, that they trench very near upon blasphemy. They who take upon them to be Champions of the Holy Cause, as they call it, have out of their Pulpits, and in their Catechisms, taught their Proselytes, that Nihil actum corporeâ morte Christi, that for Christ to die in body, was not a sufficient price for man's Redemption, except he die in soul also, and suffer infernales poenas in anima. Suffer he must the very same pains of the damned in Hell, horresco referens, before we could be ransomed from the wrath of God.

Did the Patriots of this opinion (I name none for the honor I bear them, though now in the dust) mean by infernales poenas in animâ, nothing else but great and extreme tortures, I should not gain-say them. But when they heighten these torments to despair, terror, and anxiety of conscience, cruciatibus damnati & perditi hominis, to the pains of a damned and lost miscreant, to all those punishments which miserable souls are to suffer, excepting only the perpetuity and continuance; I cannot, neither I believe will any Orthodox Christian agree with them; and that for these reasons.

1. Adoro plenitudinem Scripturarum; To go farther than the Scripture leads in the work of man's Redemption, is presumption, that I say no worse. And what one syllable is there to be found in God's book to countenance infernal pains in Christ's soul? To death he was obedient, even to the death of the Cross, so far Saint Paul goes; He poured forth his soul to death, so far the Prophet. He made peace by his blood, he Redeemed us by his blood, he bought us with his blood, purchas • d us with his blood: His blood cleanseth us from all sin, this we read frequently. Nothing beyond it. And therefore no question his blood accompanied with the death of the Cross, was a sufficient ransom for the sin of the whole world. And what need then these new invented torments? This Hell in his Soul? what this new price of our Redemption? this new way of Reconciliation?

2. Poenae infernales in animâ, Infernal pains in the soul are the second Death; and dare any man say, that Christ suffered this? Two deaths there are; the one is the separation of the soul from the body; the other is the separation of the soul from grace, from glory, from God: And is he think you in his right wits, who dares affirm this of Christ's soul? His soul was always quickened by the Spirit, actuated by faith, informed by love; and was it then possible, that in such abundance of Spirit, evidence of faith, assurance of hope, and perfection of charity, Christ's soul should do other than live to God? Life and Death are privatives; they cannot be found in one and the same Subject, in one and the same time. Christ's soul then that was always spiritually alive, cannot be spiritually dead; and if not dead, it could not suffer Hell torments.

3. That this truth may yet more appear, see I pray' to what impiety they must needs be brought, that maintain this new and hellish device. Confess they must, that he who once comes within the pains of the damned, must be subject to the sentence of the damned contained in these words, Ite Maledicti, &c. Be Rejected, Accursed, Condemned to fire, to everlasting fire. And all these without blasphemy, cannot be ascribed to Christ.

First, Can we say, that he was rejected from the favor or good-will of God, who in his greatest anguish prayed and prevailed! prevailed for himself; He was heard, saith the Apostle, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in that he feared; or for his piety; that is, he was delivered from that he feared, though with a pious fear: prevailed for his persecutors; who gave at that instant Paradise to the Thief; yea, and in those very words they allege for his despair, yet professed God to be his God, and his Father; My God, my God, why hast, &c. Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit. Are these the words of one that conceives himself cast aside, think ye? Rejected indeed of men he might be, and was; but rejected of God he could never be, nor conceive himself to be. For this would bring him under Poenam damni, under the punishment of the loss of the Beatifical Vision, which is a punishment beyond all that is feared, or to be suffered in Hell. The truth is, that in the midst of his Agony God was in love with his person, which he witnessed by the measure of his chastisement, and the reward of his humility; and therefore in that very day of the fierceness of God's wrath, he was not rejected, or in disfavour.

2. Can we say, that he was properly accursed, who procured a blessing for us? Yea, but the Apostle in express words saith so much, He was made a Curse for us. But out of this place they might learn to distinguish of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Curse. For there is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the curse emphatically expressed by the Article, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Curse set without an Article. Betwixt these two there is a vast difference. For the Curse includes in it Detestation, the worm that never dies; Obligation to eternal punishment, with all the Concomitants. A Curse includes no more than hanging on the Tree, to which by the Law Malefactors were adjudged; and in that sense accursed, because they shamefully ended their days. The first was properly the curse of the Law, which includes God's detestation of sin, his commination against sin, his indignation in proportioning punishment for sin, and his justice in executing it upon sinners. The second proceeds from the Law, and includes no more than the penalty due by the Letter of the Law, and in this life to be executed upon a Malefactour, according to those words of Moses, Cursed is everyone that hangs upon a Tree; should we extend them farther, damn we must the good Thief upon the Cross, and all other who die that ignominious death.

To apply this to our purpose in the Apostles words, Christ redeemed us, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , purchased us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us. Not the curse, but a Curse. As if he had said, Because Christ could not be subject to that curse to which the people were for transgression, he admitted the other Curse, viz. to hang on the Cross instead of that; that so he might loose the people from the Curse. This caused Cyril to say, Christ was not made a curse in truth; And Epiphanius, Christ was made a curse to the curse; that is, a dissolver of the curse. But most clearly Ambrose and Jerome, Christ was made a curse as he was made sin; that is, a Sacrifice to extinguish the curse of sin; a curse and sin, that he might abolish our curse and sin. Christ was made a curse, as he was made sin and foolishness; but sin and foolishness he never was made truly and properly; and therefore he never was a true and proper curse for sin. Away then with this ill-sounding word Accursed; or if it must be kept, let us never stretch it farther than will stand with the Apostles intention, the Fathers Exposition, and our Savior's Honor.

3. And as for the Fire which they cast into Christ's soul, who taught them, that in this world any man could in soul suffer the pains of Hell? Hell fire is no Allegory, but a true and real flame; whether material or immaterial, I dispute not; but prepared to torment first the Devil and his Angels, after the bodies and souls of men; and the late fiction of Familists, and Quakers, that Hell was only the sting of a guilty conscience, was long since condemned in Origen by the Church of Christ. Besides, were this opinion true, how is it possible, that he should be subject to the sting of sin, which was never subject to sin? that is the sting of death, saith the Apostle; and he means it of inherent corruption. And how was it then conceivable, that the stinging pains of the second death shall fasten upon that person in whom there was nor seed, nor root, nor branch, nor fruit of sin.

4. As for the perpetual pains of this fire, they who cast him into it, free him from it. Flame it did, say they, during the Agony in the Garden, his last cry and complaint on the Cross; but upon his death they put it out.

But I pray, upon what ground? Sure I am, they may not, if they will stick to their own principles. For do they not tell us, that the whole wrath of God, and the full Uials of his wrath must be poured upon his Son? that he must suffer in kind all that we were to suffer? what? are his Vials of wrath now by them shortened that administer them? and his whole wrath not whole? Methinks they who are so kind to dispence with one degree, might dispence with another, and yet another, and so with all, since if all were necessary, not one might be dispenc'd with.

2. The Truth Cleared.

The truth is, that their position is false, viz. That the pains of Hell in Christ's soul, was necessarily required to the full satisfaction of all our sins. That extreme pains were requisite, will be easily granted, but not infernal. Every sin doth defile the whole man; and therefore the suffering for sin in the person of the Mediator, must be also common to the whole manhood. As our souls are in sin the principal Agent, so in suffering for sin, in him the soul must be the principal Patient. God tells us, that his sacrifice for sin, is a troubled spirit; this then might not want in Christ's Sacrifice; and this brought him 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to that astonishment. Those that approach the Majesty of Heaven, must make their approach with reverence. This put him to pray 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , with devotion. Such as stand in the place of sinners, have reason to tremble and quake at God's wrath and justice. This might put him into his Agony. That God's holiness was so much wronged and polluted by wicked men, might put him to so much sorrow. That in his soul he suffered all these, we do allow. And these Sacrifices, fear and sorrow offered with reverence, obedience, and patience, for us and our sins in the Person of the Son of God, were no less acceptable to God, than the suffering of pain. Let then this be first observed, that I deny not but Christ suffered in Soul as well as in Body.

2. Next I affirm, that it is not required by the Rules of equity, as they suppose, that satisfaction for wrongs should always be made in kind, or in Identity; a man breaks his Neighbors arm, or burns his House, here the Law permits not to proceed Lege Tal • onis, by blows, or fire, to require recompense, but finds out a more equal way to give contentment; such as might satisfy the wronged party, far better than in kind to do it: Now equity is the life of the Law; whose chief maxim is, Ne quid detrimenti, That the wronged person be at no loss; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that he have not less than his due; whether in Identity or no, is not so requisite.

God was offended and wronged by all mankind in Adam, and requisite it was that his justice be satisfied to the highest degree. Man, had he been condemned to pain forever, could not have done it. His own Son therefore undertook to become our Surety; and all that God could require of his Son, was to make full satisfaction according to the Rule of justice; which, as I have shown, is not always the self-same, but somewhat that may be equivalent to it. Thus much we know might be accomplished by our Savior after a more excellent manner, than by suffering Satan to exercise his malice upon him, and to torment his soul.

Pain, it is confessed, he suffered for our pain, paid for our disobedience by his obedience, for our impatience by his patience, for our want of contrition by his sorrow, for our obstinacy by his fear, for our irreligion by his reverence. There is not a sin for which he hath not made full satisfaction.

Be it that sin be infinite: So was the satisfaction infinite also; and far more truly infinite than sin. Non quia passus est infinita, sed quia qui passus est erat infinitus; Not because he suffered infinite pains, but because he that suffered them is infinite. And Bellarmine is right in this, That the true and full satisfaction for our sins must not be derived from the infinity and singularity of Christ's sufferings (for the Devils and damned spirits have suffered these infernal pains long, and longer must, yet satisfy not) sed ex dignitate personae, qui passus; & ex charitate, qua passus, but from the Dignity of the Person who suffered, and from the love out of which he suffered. That the Son of God who made us; that he, I say, should humble himself to death, even to the death of the Cross for us; that he should make his soul a sacrifice for sin, this was it that was so pleasing to God. In him it was an infinite obedience, an infinite submission, an infinite love, an infinite patience, and therefore an infinite satisfaction for the wrong. The Apostles authority, or rather reason will put the point out of question, where he compares the blood of Bulls and Goats with the blood of Christ, and the Priest and Christ who offered them, and then thus infers, That if the blood of bulls and goats, &c. could Sanctify to the purifying of the flesh; how much more the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself, &c. Observe I pray, that the ground of the Apostles inference doth not simply consist in the super-excellency of the High Priest of our souls, or the Sacrifice which he offered, but in the admirable union of our High Priest and his Sacrifice. That which gave efficacy to it, was, that he offered himself without spot to God, to purge our consciences from dead works, to serve the living God. Vide Thom. Aquin. part 3. Q. 48. Art. 2.

Let men talk then no longer, Christum nihil egisse morte corporali, Christ's bodily death was of no value; that except he died in soul, our soul must die; that the pains of his body will make him only Corporum Redemptorem, a Redeemer of the body. For the matter is far otherwise; both because Christ suffered in body and in soul, and because the punishment of this person was of an infinite price. What it wanted in extension of time and identity, is made up by the intension of his sufferings, and dignity of the person. Temporal death so condition'd, must needs be a sufficient price for an eternal death, for so much as God's holiness is highly pleased with the obedience, God's glory greatly advanced by the Humility, and God's justice fully satisfied with the submission and patience of his Son upon the Cross.

Into gross error men often run through incogitancy; they compare Christ's body without ours, his person with a common man; and therefore equal him in the passion, and in the payment; because the pains of our bodies can make no satisfaction for the soul, they conceive this of his also. But it would be considered, That the measure, nature, and quality of pains must be taken not so much from the force and violence of the Agent, as from the condition and temper of the Patient. Actus agentium sunt in patiente rite disposito, The Actions of the Agent have their effect according to the disposition of the Patient; for the Patient doth not necessarily suffer, what the Agent intends. The Sun hath not the same effect upon clay and wax; nor the fire the same power upon green wood, as upon dry. Nor the wrath of God, and vengeance due to sin, which would have affrighted any other man into despair, could have the same power upon Christ: It was not able to conquer his Faith, Hope, Love, Patience; which it must needs do, should he have suffered the Hellish pains in his Soul. He confesseth that he was forsaken, and wanted comfort in his troubles; and asks only, Quare, Why it should be so, and says no more.

[Use 1] Use 1. The Use that we may put this discourse to, is, First, That we be not overhasty to believe our new Masters in their new fancies about Christ's sufferings, but keep ourselves to our Articles, which our fathers have been taught out of the Prophets, Evangelists, Apostles. In them farther we are not taught to extend his Sufferings, than his blood and his death on the Cross, and therefore let us there rest.

[Use 2] Use 2. And rest we may well upon it; since the greatest comfort that any mortal man can expect, must issue from this one Fountain of our Savior's Agony and Bloody sweat, from his Cross and Passion. For whatsoever he suffered in those two last bitter days, he suffered, if not for this alone, yet for this especially, that he might be an All-sufficient Comforter to all such as mourn that they ever pierced him. We have not an High Priest, saith the Apostle, which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who was like to us in reproaches, in necessities, in fear, in sorrow, and beyond us in affliction. And it is the greatest comfort to come to him for help, who by experience of what he hath suffered, hath learned to be compassionate.

Men that have been wronged with vexatious suits in Law, persuade themselves better of a Judge, who hath been wronged and vexed himself in the same kind, than of one who always hath been at rest. The Physician, 'tis likely, will be most affected toward his Patient Rack'd with the Gout or Stone, if he himself hath languished, and been formerly, tortured with the same disease: And a Sea-faring man who hath suffered a Wrack, is alw • yes most confident of pity, help, relief, when he meets with one that hath been at Sea, and suffered shipwreck by the fury of the waves and winds. It may then raise our spirits, that the Son of God hath in his Body borne our infirmities, hath in his Soul suffered our sorrows, been bruised, afflicted, perplexed, grieved, forsaken as we may be, encountered the wrath of God more than we can. For as in these he did suffer for us, so also hath he learned by these to be compassionate and suffer with us.

Let then those giddy and blasphemous Novelists, those sons of Ishmael scoff at those sad passages of our Liturgy, By thine Agony and bloody sweat, by thy Cross and Passion, &c. good Lord deliver us; as if they had more alliance with Oaths, Spells, Exorcismes, or forms of Conjuration, than with the Spirit of prayer and devotion; and upon a superstitious fear, as Ducklings scared with the shadow of a Kite in the water, run with might and main out of the Temple. For my part, I shall be ready, and I profess it, in such forms to conjure my Lord, as conceiving, that then he is most like to hear the agonies of my soul, who in his agony desired to be heard himself; most like to pity, who complained that he felt no pity. Two things (saith a great and learned Divine, and one beyond most of the other side of the sea, Judicious and Moderate) have always pleased me in the Roman Church. Unum, quod omnes ad Patrem preces clauduntur Per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum. Alterum, quod cum invocant Christum, addunt Per Crucem & passionem tuam & aliquid simile, quo Officium Mediatoris exprimitur. The first, that all prayers sent up to the Father are concluded in this form, By Jesus Christ our Lord. The other, that when they call upon Christ, they add, By thy Cross and Passion, or some such thing, by which the Office of the Mediator is expressed. This compendious and useful recapitulation of the brief of the Gospel, that acknowledgement of the chief means of our Salvation, well pleased this great Divine, with which our New men are so much offended. If anything do offend, it should be their own dullness and coldness, when these or the like words are rehearsed, that they are not affected, fired, and heated to devotion with them.

For were it but possible to sweat blood at prayer, possible to tender our Petitions with strong cries and tears as he did, we should be heard; for his bowels would yearn upon us, when he saw us in his own case. Thither we do not, we cannot come, however fervent and zealous we may be. And in our heat let us put him in mind of his Agony and bloody sweat, of his Cross and Passion; a more powerful ejaculation there cannot be; 'tis but in effect as if we said to him, that be would remember our case, and make it his own; which is a more powerful piece of Rhetoric, than all the Prolix Non-sense, and extemporary frothy stuff of those who distaste it. And I would fain be taught, if it be lawful in prayer to plead the merits of Christ in general, why it is not as lawful to use any of those particular Acts, Uiz. Circumcision, Baptism, Incarnation, &c. from whence those merits do arise.

Use 3. To draw to an end, Behold yet more comfort, you disconsolate [Use 3] souls, that make these sad conclusions against yourselves, saying with Jonah, I am cast out of the sight of thine eyes; with David, I am cast off: For your comfort, you may belong to God though you feel it not. See what a convulsion the Son of God was in, when he cried with a loud voice, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! The cry was not so lamentable to him, as comfortable to you; for vocem emisit vestram, non suam, he cried then with your tongue, rather than his own; intimating, that to those gulfs, those plunges, that woe, that misery, the dearest of God's Servants may come; that in a holy despair (for such there is) they may cry, My God, my God, &c. Mihi compatitur, mihi tristis est, mihi dolet, He suffers for me, he is sad for me, he grieves for me. In him as a second first fruit of our stock we were struggling; in him those words were of faith, not of sense; and so let them be in us, if at any time we come to that pass, that we feel the heavy wrath of God upon us.

You poor sinners with Doves eyes, that eat up your own heart wi • h sorrows, are these doublings felt by you? is this want of comfort lamented? would you not despair? then wipe away those tears; what you feel, and abhor, will not hurt. For even then when you find your sin a burden, and desire to cast it off on Christ, you have faith; He cannot be cast away by despair, that affectionately, earnestly, continually desires to cry, My God, my God. That the Head was in this case, is the comfort of the members, because he came into this case for the love and good of His Members.

Damn not then yourselves for those sins which the Son of God hath borne. Shall the blood of that Innocent Lamb be shed to cleanse you from guilt, and will you in a moody melancholy, pour it upon the ground? shall he open heaven, and will you shut it? shall he nail the writing to the Cross that was against you, and will you yet take it down and read it, and keep it in force against your own life? Is this the thanks, this the fruit you return him for bearing the burden and the heat of the day in your persons? Will you now for the Cup of Salvation which he hath offered you, take the Cup of despair and death? blaspheme his Name? evacuate his Cross? tread the blood of his Testament underfoot, and die past hope?

God forbid, and the earnest prayers and sobs of your own souls forbid it also. Hope even against hope, above hope. The baseness of thy condition, and weight of thy sin, cannot exceed the Blood and Merit of thy Savior, nor Satan's malice his love. The rigor of the Law is satisfied, the justice of the most upright Judge fully contented; and who, or what then can condemn any one that is in Christ Jesus? Rely upon his Name, for it is a Tower of defense; Trust to his promises, for they are sweet; Remember his Covenant, for it is sure; and then doubt not but he will remember thee, and bring thee to his Kingdom. His Name, his Promises, his Covenant will be our comfort while we live here, and they will not forsake us, and leave us, till they have conducted our souls to heaven, where with him we shall be happy forever. Amen.

1. Voluit Jehovah, Chaphets, Deliciatus est. Jun. & Tremel. It pleased the Lord.

In the Scripture we meet with divers Names of God, some personal as Elohim, some Relative as El strong, Schaddai omnipotent, all-sufficient, &c. But Essential this of Jehovah, which in Exodus is Ehije, I am. A name which teacheth us three points; First that God is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , of himself a being. Secondly, that he is the fountain of all being; And thirdly, he is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 always the same in his promises. Now this word Jehovah, the Holy Ghost hath made choice of here; promised he had that the seed of the woman should break the Serpents head; and what he promised, he here performed. It pleased Jehovah to bruise him. Jehovah brought his people out of Egypt, not known by that name till then. Sin was our spiritual Egypt, the Devil Pharaoh that oppressed us, Christ our deliverer; Jehovah brought us out by brusing him. God that would be known to his people, by his Name of Jehovah at their deliverance from Egypt, will also be known to his Church by the same Name at our delivery from this bondage of sin. That he did it de facto, is the perpetual language of the Scripture; God gave his Son, God spared not his Son, God sent his Son, God made his Son who knew no sin to be made sin for us. It is then beyond all controversy, that in this great work of man's Redemption, the great God of heaven was the first wheel or principal Agent.

2. Chaphets, Voluit, Deliciatus est.

Now if you shall be inquisitive to ask the cause, our Prophet shall return you an answer; He would do it, he took delight to do it, it pleased him. Other reason there is none to be given; and this is the free Grace so much contended for, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 freely, freely he did it. This is sometimes called love, sometimes zeal, as the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this; sometimes 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , his affection he bore to mankind, or his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , his good pleasure; sometimes mercy, or the riches of his mercy. Call it by what name you will, it is but one and the same fountain whence our salvation flows; for except it had been for his loving zeal, and zealous affection; his affectionate pity, and his piti • ul good pleasure; his mere mercy, and his abundant goodwill; it cannot be conceived what it was that should move him to bruise his Son.

And two circumstances there are in this verse, which do wonderfully amplify and magnify this his goodwill and mercy.

1. The first is in eum the pronoun, that he should bruise him, that he should put him to grief, make his soul the sacrifice. First, For this person was no less then God; the greater the person, the greater the mercy; for Jehovah then to lay upon him that was God of God, light of light, our iniquity, to cause him who was to receive sacrifices to become a sacrifice, must needs be a strong argument of love. Secondly, Again, this Eum here was his Son; had he been ours, the wind might not blow on him. We reckon of a son as David did of his Absalom, O Absalom my son, my son, would God I had died for thee! What riches then of mercy was this unto mankind, that he would not spare his own son, but take delight to bruise him! In the creation of the world, Dilexit he loved; but it was not sic dilexit, so he loved, till it came to man's redemption. In the preservation of all things ostendit charitatem, he shows his love; but till it came to this point, it was not Ecce quantam charitatem! Behold how great love he shown! not how great love with an Ecce before, Come and behold it; enough I confess it had been, considering our estate, to have been relieved by any, and men in misery care not by whom it be done so they be relieved. Here then is goodwill indeed, and it makes the measure of his goodwill full, that for man's salvation he would bruise no less person then his Son. Thirdly, And yet there is one thing behind that makes it fuller; Had this Son been a disobedient child, then good reason to bruise him; or had God had more sons, this matter had not been so much to sacrifice him. Here there is zeal and love, and goodwill, that he would make this his only Son bear the burden, that he would make that Son in whom he was well pleased, the sacrifice; God himself extols this love in Abraham, that he would not withhold his son, his only son, his Isaac that he loved, the son of h • s age, the son of his desires, the heir of his love. How then shall we stand amazed at the goodwill of this Jehovah, that not only gave, but took delight to give his only Son, the Son of his love, who had never displeased him, to death for our sin!

2. And that's the other circumstance that heightens, this love, because it was for sin; to it vengeance is due, and not love. What then did God love our sin? No, he hated that, but he loved the sinner; his intention was that sin should die, but the sinner live, though an enemy, a weak enemy, an ungodly enemy. In this then he commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. But of this more by and by.

The question is moved by Thom. Aquin. Whether it was Necessary for Christ to suffer for the Redemption of mankind? A curious question, and not easy to resolve; for peremptorily to avouch, that God could not have remitted the sins of the world without a full satisfaction, is a bold and saucy doctrine; yet on the other side, to say that sins could have been forgiven without an amends made, would be a rash and unsound assertion. The best way then to resolve this doubt, will be to remember, that some things are done upon Necessity, other upon convenience: And this Necessity is again twofold.

1. The first is absolute, without which it is impossible the thing can be brought to pass. Now to tie God out of an absolute Necessity to do as he did, and not to leave him at liberty to do all things according to his own will and wisdom, were to revive the old error of the Manichees; and in this case not absolutely requisite, whether you respect God, who was to redeem, or man to be redeemed. For out of question he could, if he had pleased by his sole word, will, nod, have redeemed man; or else he might have empowered some Angel, or other creature to have done it, and a creature so empowered might have trod Satan under his feet.

2. But out of his mere love he Decreed to have it done by his Son; and this Decree being presupposed, then we say, Oportet it behooved Christ to suffer; his Son must die and so die. And this is the sense of all those texts, that seem to impose a Necessity of his death; as, The Son of man must be betrayed, must be delivered to the hand of sinners; must give his soul a sacrifice for sin, &c. of which decree if you yet inquire the reason, the Prophet shall give the answer, Jehovah voluit, It pleased the Lord.

2. But if you shall again cast an eye upon the congruity and convenience of this way, in that sense, none so necessary, none better to show his love and goodwill, as I shown but now; none like this to demonstrare his Wisdom, Power, Goodness, Justice.

1. The Wisest way (if wisdom can contrive it) to cure a man stunge by a Viper, is to do it by the blood of the Viper; that what brought the mischief might because of the remedy. Hence it is, that wise Artists have found out the oil of Scorpions, to cure the bitings of Scorpions, and Mithridate made of Serpents, to prevent the poison of Serpents.

2. The most powerful way (if power can effect it) is to make strength to appear in weakness, and by infirm and unlikely means, to bring to pass the greatest things.

3. The next way (if goodness will admit it) to engage man, is to lay the Bond upon his own Nature, and not to engage him to man or Angel for his delivery.

4. And now let Justice take her weights, and weigh all in her scale, and found it will be that there can be no juster way found out, then that that self same nature which hath offended, do also make recompense. Now in this work of man's Redemption, there was the concurrence of all these, Wisdom, Power, Goodness, Justice.

1. The flesh, the Venemous flesh of our Viperous Nature was by the wisdom of God taken, and first purified and cleansed from the poison of sin; then bruised and punned, that the blood of it might be as a Balsom or Treacle to heal the biting and venomous sting of the old Serpent; I mean Satan. Behold Wisdom!

2. Man, the Nature of man, a weak creature God knows, and so much the weaker now, because it was in the form of a servant, yet enabled to break and bruise the serpents head. Behold power!

3. For this, God would not have us beholding to any of the Angels, to any of the creatures, but merely to himself. Behold goodness!

4. Lastly, since as the Lawyers tell us, that those are always the fairest and justest satisfactions and commutations, when the wronged party is fully in identity recompensed; for as they say, proxima sunt idem & tantundem. Therefore this way must needs be most convenient, where Death was to be suffered for Death, pain for pain, man for man, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that the honor and penalty of the law might be preserved. Behold Justice!

How justly now doth the Apostle teach us, that we were redeemed 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in all wisdom and prudence, since when there could be no Necessity to force God to make choice of this way, yet ex congruo, it pleased him to take such a course, by which his Wisdom, his Power, his Goodness, and his Justice should be most made known to men.

3. Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, or When his soul shall make an offering for sin. Cum exposuerit in sacrificium. Piscator. Si posuerit in sacrificium animam suam, e. i. Seipsum. Rivet. Quandoquidem exponebat seipse sacrificium pro reatu. Jun. Tremell. Heb. Se reatum anima ipsius. Cum posuerit seipsam sacrificium pro delicto anima. Scult.

But what Justice was this to bruise his Son? To cause a man, a just man, so great a person, his dear Son to be put to this pain? None indeed, had he been against it; but since he was willing with it, it must be justly done, which our Prophet hath not here forgotten neither; for he goes on, and tells us thus much in the judgment of most Divines, as you may see by their version of these words, His soul shall make an offering for sin; or He shall expo • e himself a sacrifice for the Guilt of sin; consonant to what the Prophet saith, verse. 12. He poured out his soul. And this the Scripture everywhere puts us in mind of. He emptied himself, He humbled himself, He gave himself; None took his life from him, but he laid it down himself.

And the Fathers of the Catholic Church have been very careful to continue this Truth in Christ's Church, and to deliver it with one voice to posterity, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Nulla necessitate, sed plena voluntate; that not upon compulsion, but upon mere good will, that not out of any Necessity, but freely, Christ of God became a servant, of rich became poor, of high low, of strong weak; was voluntarily Incarnate, voluntarily bruised, voluntarily crucified for our sake. The Psalmist had said it in his person long before, In burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin thou hadst no pleasure; then said I, Lo I come, of my own accord, willingly, cheerfully, without any co-action, to do thy will, O my God.

And of this truth we have this evidence; There was no moment in which his death, and the kind of his death, together with the very hour, and all the indignities and pains of it, was not represented to his mind; yet the will of God was so powerful, and his love for man's salvation so fervent in him, that the remembrance of it was full of joy and content to him; of which joy and pleasure we have a sufficient argument from his own mouth, I have a Baptism to be baptized with (it was Baptismus sanguinis, his baptism of blood at his Passion) and how am I straitened, how pinched till I am at it! as if he were in pain, till in pain to deliver us. This could not be till he came to Jerusalem; thither he ascended, and told his Disciples to what purpose; and yet he went before them with such alacrity, that they wondered at it. Into the City he rode in Triumph, with palms, with acclamations, with so much solemnity, as he never admitted all his life before.

Farther yet, at his last Supper he gave a full signification of this his will, when he said to his Disciples, This, this is the Passoever, which Desidererio desideravi, I have so longed for, as embracing and welcoming his death. No marvel therefore if the Spouse in the Canticles, called the day in which his mother the Synagogue crowned him with thorns, the day of the gladness of his heart. In his heart this joy and gladness arose out of a thought that he was to save man, and for this joy set before him, he endured the Cross, and despised the shame; this was to be most painful and most shameful; none but Malefactors, none but slaves of a base condition were liable to it; and not one of these did suffer it willingly, or out of obedience; but for want of power to eschew it. Had it been in the power of the most abject slave that ever suffered to have called so many Roman soldiers to his rescue, as Christ Jesus could have commanded Legions of Angels, he would have sold his life at a dear rate.

But the man Christ Jesus was brought to the cross as a Lamb; he opened not his mouth, gave not one high word; even Lambs die not willingly, but with some struggling and reluctance. Whereas this Lamb of God to show himself the mirror of patience, and voluntary obedience; after the pangs of death more then natural had seized upon him; after he had been apprehended and bound as a thief; after he had been buffeted, spit on, scourged, crowned with thorns, reviled; after he had endured the lingering and cruel torments of the cross; after all the indignities and jeers of his malicious persecutors, that poured Vinegar into his wounds instead of Oil, yet gave not the least signification of discontent.

As there never was any sorrow like his sorrow, so never was there obedience like his obedience; never any so voluntary, never any so free; He gave his soul a sacrifice, se ipse, He, himself. He humbled, saith the Apostle; He the Son of God, what person greater? He, himself, of a willing mind, not upon force and constraint; for he had no superior. And so great was this humility, so strange this obedience, that the Apostle uses Hyperboles to set it forth, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , sometimes riches, sometimes the riches of his Grace, the riches of his glory; and that this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , abounded.

1. Now this willing offer of Christ, as it sets forth the riches of God's goodwill to man; so it was also the very life and soul of that admirable obedience of his Human will, to do and suffer whatsoever he did or suffered in his flesh; that which gave the infinite value and everlasting efficacy to his everlasting sacrifice, which was offered once for all.

No service that we do to God, is welcome except it proceed from a glad heart, and a cheerful spirit. God loves a cheerful giver, and so he loves a cheerful supplicant, and a cheerful servant; to be drawn along with b • t and bridle, is for a horse and mule, whereas his servants enter his house with gladness, as water confluunt they flow, they flow together to his service; and this willing mind is it that makes all their devotions acceptable to their God. How much more then must this readiness, this alacrity, this cheerfulness of his Son, that He exposed, He poured out, He emptied himself, He freely gave his blood, make all the Acts of Christ meritorious for the world.

2. Again this willingness of his is that which justifies God in his proceeding against him; For God forbid, that as Ananias the High Priest, God should cause him to be smitten without a cause; God forbid, that as Abraham said in the case of Sodom, the Judge of the world should do wrong to any; to any, much less to his Son, the Son of his love, to him a righteous person, in whom there was found no guile. How then came it to pass, that so righteous a person was thus bruised, thus sacrificed? Whence? Meerly from himself, he may thank nobody but himself, Ipse voluit, He would have it so; 'tis all I can say to it, and more need not be said.

Volenti non fit injuria; You cannot call that an injury which a man calls for on himelf; pity it is to see a man pay that he never took, great pity; but if that man willingly will become a Surety, and make himself a debtor, what remedy? satisfy the debt he must: Pity it is to see a poor Lamb lie bleeding under the knife, but if the Lamb be chosen for a sacrifice, such is the Nature of a sacrifice, so it must be. And great pity it was to see a just man to pay, to bleed, to be bruised, to be sacrificed, to die: But since this just man would take upon him to be our Surety, our sacrifice, of his own accord to offer himself for us, justice might take its course and proceed against him.

Yea, but hath not justice itself said it, The soul that sins shall die? True, and it is as True here; for in a safe sense Christ may be called the Grand-sinner; for so saith the Prophet, He bare our sins; and for the sins he bare, his Soul became a sacrifice for sin; and so unawares I am fallen upon the outward Impulsive cause of our Savior's sufferings, sin.

4. For Sin.

Sin was the cause of his and our sorrows also; for had man stood in his integrity, he had needed no Savior; but falling from that perfection in which God had created him, instead of love, he procured God's anger; instead of an immortal life, he brought upon himself eternal death. God who was his Creator, became now his Judge; of his Father, a severe revenger. God and man then standing upon these terms of variance, his Son steps in, and is content to make up the peace; to free us, and translate the sin upon himself: Or, to be made sin for us.

Now that you may understand this point aright, know you must that sin is either committed, as by Adam, and the Angels; or inherited, as by Adams posterity; or else assumed, as by Christ, and this way only he was made sin for us, Not so sin as if he committed any, for no Lamb so innocent; not so as if he inherited or contracted any, for he was undefiled; but as the sacrifice in the Law was called sin that was the creature on which the delinquent laid his sin, and for this sin put to death; which being done, the anger of God was appeased, and the sinner received to favor. It was so here, Christ was made sin, that is a sacrifice for sin; and upon his death, God's anger was pacified, and man the sinner received to mercy.

Man having offended, just it was with God to receive satisfaction from the delinquent. Now a man becomes Reus, i. e. Guilty, two ways, either by himself, for his own offense, and so Christ was not guilty, nor could be punished; or else by affinity, connection, conjunction, nearness, alliance, or Relation, which ariseth out of a threefold bond.

The first is of Nature; such is betwixt man and man, Father and Son.

The second is of Union; such a relation there is betwixt a King and his people.

The third is of the Will; and such is the obligation of the debtor and the Surety. And as men have and do stand in these relations one to another, they have been and are justly punished one for another; as Achan's children for the fathers theft; seventy thousand poor sheep of Israel for David's sin, and the Surety every day pays for the creditor.

Now everyone of these ways Christ was joined to us. By nature, for he was bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, but this only made him capable of punishment. By relation, for he became our King, we his people; he our head, we his members. By his own free-will, for he became our Surety, and therefore taking our flesh to that purpose, and our debt upon him freely and voluntarily, God might justly lay upon him our sins, that is the punishment of our sins, as I said before.

And lest you should forget this, the Prophet tells us it seven times over, He took upon him our griefs, our sorrows; he was wounded for our iniquities, and broken for our transgressions; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, with his stripes we are healed; The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all; all, all, everyone of us. We were the men, who for our many sins should have been so despised, so rejected, suffered such sorrows in body in soul, that should have been thus smitten of God, wounded, bruised.

Let us return a true verdict, and it will appear, that we were men that thus used the Son of God, we and our fathers together; we and our friends and children together; we who gave him those wounds, those stripes, we that so chastised him, so bruised him; we were the principals in the murder; Judas, Caiaphas, the Jews and Pilate the instruments only to execute what by our sins we had effected, Peccatum solum homicida est, Sin alone was the murderer, that, of which we are guilty.

There is not one of us here who had not a hand in his death, except he that dare say his heart is clean; however we desire to post it off to others, yet we had a hand in it as well as they. Why stand you gazing one upon another? like Josephs brethren, wondering that you should be charged with so heinous a fact, as if everyone of you were ready to ask me in the disciples language, Master, is it I? and another, Is it I? Yes, as Nathan told David, so I tell you, Tu es homo, Thou art the man; 'tis thou, and thou, and thou, and I, and everyone of us, that put to death the Son of God; thou and I as well as others were the transgressors for whose sins God hath smitten, wounded and bruised him. There's not an oath we vainly or falsely take, but was a thorn in his crown; not a lewd action we commit but was a stripe on his back; no mischief we plot; but was the spear that runs him to the heart. Fools make a make a mock of sin; but see here what comes of their fooling and mocking; the Son of God to redeem them, is fain to make his soul a sacrifice.

5. An offering or sacrifice.

You have seen what inwardly moved God, what moved his Son to undertake this work, viz. his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , It pleased him, voluit Jehovah, and He would do it: Again, considered we have what outwardly drew him to it; our misery, our sin; and that which in this must give us comfort is the end; This done, that his soul might be a sacrifice, a Propitiation for the sins of the whole world.

In the Law there were two kind of sacrifices; the one 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; The other 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , propitiatory, which served to satisfy for sin, and this was a Holocaust, a whole burnt-offering, for it was consumed wholly upon the Altar; and such was the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, an offering in Body and Soul, the sacrifice of a sweet smelling savor to God; Totus Christus pro toto mundo; whole Christ offered for the whole world.

All the world lay under the curse; it began with the Serpent for tempting, Cursed art thou; and it proceeded to the earth in bearing, Cursed is it; and it ended in Adam and Eve, Cursed are they, and as many as came from them; if they continued not in the words of God's book to fulfill it. All the Goods in the world were not able to free one soul from this curse; gold would not do it, nor silver ne • there, no nor yet man the Lord of this gold and silver: For man may not redeem his brother; no nor yet anything else that man could give; not the blood of beasts, nor ten thousand rivers of oil; It must be the Son of God that must be the sacrifice, or else no satisfaction; his blood the price, or else nothing bought; his life the ransom, or nothing redeemed. But this Sacrifice being offered, his blood being paid, his life laid down, then there was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Ransom; then there was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a sufficient commutation; then there was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a pacification made for the sin of Man.

His person was the only Sacrifice that God would accept; his blood the only price which God would esteem; his death the sole Ransom that God would receive for the Transgressors. So that by the Sacrifice of his Body, the price of his blood, and the Ransom by his death, Remission of sin can only be obtained; In his flesh then sin was condemned, which Saint Paul calls 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Saint John 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the taking away, destroying, and losing sin by the Sacrifice of himself. And it contains the remove of the guilt; the blood of Christ purgeth. Then the weakening of the power, that it reign not. Farther, the pulling out the sting that it condemn not. And lastly, a liberty to enter heaven. By the blood of Jesus we may be bold to enter the holy place by a new and living way, which is his flesh. The partition wall is broken down, and he hath, as I may so say, trailed the way with his own blood. To Summ up all;

If we look for Redemption, 'tis to be had in his Passion; if for absolution, in his condemnation; if a discharge from the curse, 'tis to be found in his death; if for satisfaction, look to his Sacrifice; if for a purgation, expect it from his blood; if reconciliation, in the pouring out his soul; if mortification, seek it in his death; if newness of life, in his Resurrection. In a word, if glory and immortality, and an inheritance in heaven, it must flow from his ascent and exaltation. In him all the Treasures of God are operti, hid; and by him they must be aperti, opened and bestowed upon us.

Many and admirable are those good things which Christ hath bestowed upon us; but the means by which it was brought about, surpasseth all admiration; and so you will say, when I shall acquaint you with an Elegant Prosopopeia out of St. Bernard; of which I shall make use to declare it, and indeed to illustrate all that I have set down touching the Causes of Christ's Passion. The matter is his, the manner of Delivery mine only.

Obscurely the whole frame of it is hinted to us in the 85. Psalm in these words, Mercy and truth shall meet together, Righteousness and Peace did kiss each other. How came these graces asunder, that it should be such a marvel to see them meet and kiss? You shall see now both when and how.

At the Creation of man they all meet, and are join'd in him. Mercy was his Guardian to protect him, his servant to attend him in all his ways. Truth his Tutor to teach him, and bring him up in all goodness. Righteousness his Rule to proceed by in all his Actions. Peace to be his faithful friend to delight him, to secure him, that nor fears within, nor troubles without, should molest him. At Adams fall they left their charge; and forsaking their dwelling below, returned back to him that sent them, making report of what was fallen out in the earth, and earnestly soliciting the Almighty concerning this his wretched and forlorn creature Man; yet in a very different sort and manner.

Of these Mercy seems to favor man, and peace also; these wish all well in heaven and earth: But of righteousness and truth I dare not say it. For truth proclaims, All men are liars, all vain in their imaginations. And righteousness bears a Sword, and it is not in vain. Two then are for us, and two against us.

First, Mercy taking into consideration the depth of man's misery, begun and spake first; And well might; for if you consider it, you shall in no text read of man's Redemption, but still mercy leads the way. Sometimes it is the Bounty of our Lord and Savior, sometimes the love, sometimes the grace of God appeared, sometimes the riches of his mercies, sometimes his bowels of mercy. This most useful Attribute is never omitted, nay is the forwardest for our Salvation. Never, never (which is the comfort of a miserable sinner) looking to the party what he is, or what he hath deserved, but what he suffers, and in how wretched a case he is.

Mercy then ever lying in the bowels of a merciful God, thus whispers unto him, Numquid in vanum? What hast thou made all men for naught? All, all to destruction? That were over-severe, and their case worse than the lapsed Angels. They fell, and I ask no mercy for them: For when some fell, yet others stood, and so they did not all perish. They fell again, being not tempted by any other to it; it was out of their own pride and malicious wickedness: whereas man's fall was out of credulity and weakness; he was drawn by the subtlety and temptation of the Serpent unto his sin and Apostasy; & levius est alienâ mente quam propriâ peccasse; it is a less offense to sin upon another's persuasion, than by his own inclination. Besides, the fall of man is universal; with one all men sinned; and if thy justice proceed, all men must die, all men must perish; and wilt thou then create so many millions of men for fuel in Hell? What profit is there in man's blood, if he descend into the pit? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? will he shut up his loving-kindness in displeasure? Thy mercy is over all thy works, and therefore infinitely beyond man's Sin. Let not then Sin bring to destruction the creature framed after thy own Image. Let it suffice, O Lord, let it suffice for demonstration of thy justice and indignation, that thou hast thrust the proud Angels out of heaven, and reserved them in chains of darkness. For them I plead not: 'It is for poor man, made out of the dust of the earth, and seduced by malice, lapsed by ignorance, not contempt; Restore him again to thy love. And as thou hast made the ambitious Angels examples of thy justice, so make poor man a monument of thy mercy; Destroy not thou the work of thine own hands.

These were the pij susurri, the pious and powerful whispers of mercy, with which she entered, or rather lay in the bowels and bosom of her Father, and made them yearn and melt upon his Son; and no doubt she had prevailed, had not Truth and Righteousness much to plead against her. I am a debtor, saith God, to thy two Sisters, Truth and Justice; they must be heard too; let them then be called, and hear I will, what they can plead why thy request may not be granted.

Secondly, Truth then first appearing, puts in her plea to this effect, Lord, thou that canst not lie, said'st first to Adam, Morte morieris, In the day thou eatest the forbidden fruit, thou shalt die the death; After to his posterity, The soul that sins shall die. And shall God be like man, to falsify his word? or as the son of man, that he should repent? Nay, nay, what he hath said may never be reversed. The sentence is past. What's God but his Word? Mercy itself, if respect be had of my honor, cannot grant an indulgence: And therefore Totus moriatur Adam. Let the sentence for truths sake be executed upon Adam, and all his rebellious offspring. As the whole earth hath corrupted its way before thee, so let the whole earth perish. Let God be true, and all men liars.

Thirdly, And immediately Justice steps up, and seconds her Sister Truth; and it is no hard matter to judge what she had to say, viz. That as God is true of his word, so is he righteous in his ways, and shall not the Judge of all the World do right? Art thou a God that will justify the wicked, or respect persons in judgment? Thou hast decreed, that no sin shall go unpunished; call then all the sinners of the earth before thee, and let them render an account for their rebellions. Pereat mundus, & fiat justitia; As man hath plowed iniquity, so let him reap the same; by the blast of thy mouth let him be Consumed, and by the Breath of thy Nostrils let him perish.

Fourthly, A severe and harsh Conclusion, which made Peace, that stood by and heard what was said by Truth and Justice, weep bitterly, and all the Angels of peace wept with her. Oh saith Peace, forbear, forbear, I beseech you my two dear Sisters, these harsh words. This contention becomes not the Ladies of virtue. Mercy and Truth should meet together, Righteousness and I should kiss each other.

But they as stir'd, the more went on, and made it their own cases; What shall become of us, said Justice and Truth, if Mercy be heard? Perijmus, nisi homo moriatur, We die, if man die not; No justice in God, no truth in his Word, if man be suffered to live.

And what use of me, replied Mercy, if Justice and Truth prevail? Truth herself knows, that if man die, I must die too; And if I die, then the Father of mercies must die with me.

Hard hold there was; and all this while, man's salvation lay a bleeding; like a poor Prisoner at the Bar, it was not known, what would become of him. Who would not say, that it had been good, man had ner'e been born • , about whom there was so much ado, so much contention?

At last, the Almighty having heard the pleas of all parties, refers the final judgment to his Son. What, saith he, is Justice and Truth so earnest? will they die, if Adam die not? and is Mercy again so pitiful, that she will die, if he do die? I will find a way to content all parties; and with that he steps down, and writes upon the earth, Fiat mors bona, Let death be made good; and so all parties may have what may give them content. Truth and Justice would have man die, and he shall die. Mercy would have him live, and he shall live. Take away the curse, the sting of death, and both parties may receive full satisfaction.

Truth upon this Verdict began a little to yield, and Justice was also contented, so she might have satisfaction: That she stood upon, and for that she called still; and till that was given, resolved she was, that Mercy should not save man; but the way to obtain this, yet she saw not. Answer was made, that this might be done, if one could be found, who out of mere love and good-will would be content to die for the world. One yet so innocent, and free from sin, that he never had deserved to die.

With this answer Justice and Mercy departed from the Throne of God. Justice goes through the earth. Mercy leaves no quarter of heaven unsearch'd to see, if it were possible to find a person composed of so much love, qualified with so much Innocency. But in earth Justice could not meet with the man. Every child she met with, were it but of a day old, was conceived of unclean seed, and warmed in a sinful womb. For men, as they grew in age, so they grew in sin, they all were unfit for this work.

In heaven Mercy, though she met with creatures devoyd of sin, yet none endued with so much love or confidence, that they durst undergo the wrath of God, and die for a company of lost people. And yet had they been willing, they never could have satisfied; they wanted a body to do it: They were not persons of infinite worth, of infinite virtue, which he must be, that would satisfy for this infinite wrong, or else Justice would be clamorous still.

Justice now returns in Triumph, and Mercy near dead and despairing to the Throne of God, and both agreeing that Truth should speak for them; she delivers this great truth, I see there is no man, and confess there is no Intercessor. But in that instant Peace steps up, and closes all. You my dear Sisters, know nothing at all, nor understand. Qui dedit consilium, ferat auxilium. He that hath given the counsel to look for such a man, let him help now, and find the man himself. And the Prince of Peace well understanding what was said, proffers himself, Ecce venio, Behold I come to help. I, (for I know that's the desire of Peace) will become the Son of man to save what is lost. By partaking the Nature of man, I am content to partake of his miseries, and subject myself unto his punishments. And by uniting my Divine Nature unto his, fill it with all grace and heavenly perfections: And if it appear that I shall do what he was bound to do, and pay for him what for his disobedience he was bound to suffer, the Bond must be void, and penalty satisfied, and then though death doth arrest him, yet it shall not be able to detain him, but erit optima, shall be good, as the Sentence was. And thus by this free and voluntary offer of the Son of God, to become the Son of man, and to make his Soul a Sacrifice for sin, the desires of these Litigants were satisfied. Man was punished as Justice exacted; Man died as Truth required; Man was pardoned as Mercy entreated; and God and man reconciled as Peace expected. When therefore Truth flourished out of the earth, the second person in the Trinity became the Son of man, then Righteousness looked down from heaven. It beheld and saw not only an equal satisfaction, but a superabundant also: Merits of that infinite worth, that they were able to make amends for the sins of ten thousand worlds, and to deserve that reward which God had to give.

Such a Title to heaven, such a Plea for a pardon, no Religion in the world can show besides the Christian. That some satisfaction is necessary, they evidently manifest by their Sacrifices, cutting of their flesh, petitions, prayers, charms, and other kinds of will-worship; but that any of these can soundly satisfy justice, rests upon them to prove; nay, upon the point they disclaim it; for being put to it, they maintain this blind and false Paradox, Justitiae divinae bonitatem divinam esse 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , That God's mercy is a full satisfaction to his justice; wh • ch in other words is as if they should affirm, That because he is merciful, and will forgive sinners, therefore justice, will she, nill she, must be contented with it. For more she shall not have, nor more expect. This were a quick way to obstruct all proceedings of justice; I will, saith the Judge, save this Malefactor out of the mercy I bear to mankind, never therefore proceed farther against him.

Among the Socinians there is no other way; among the Turks no other way; among our New practical Atheists no other way. Marvel not that I link them together. For I conceive much of their Religion is out of the Alcoran. Mahomet doth acknowledge Christ to be a holy Prophet; and Socinus doth no more; for a good example he will grant him to be; for to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , his soul an offering for sin, he doth deny. Thus they deny the Lord that bought them, and give the lie to our Prophet, who affirms, That he gave his soul a sacrifice for sin. A sacrifice, and that (though Legal) when time was, was accepted for satisfaction.

Accepted I say, for it was not so in itself. The Jew will tell you of his scape-Goat, his Calves, his red Heifer, and a multitude of other Rites ordained by God to that purpose. But all they had their power, if any, from this one Sacrifice of Christ to be Sacrific'd. In themselves the Apostle affirms, that they could not satisfy for sin; no more power in any of these, without relation to Christ, than in a Heathen Ramm, or a Graecian Hecatomb. They made no man perfect; short they came of satisfaction to justice. Types they only were of that blood which was to be shed; which being shed, they have no farther use, but are abrogated, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for their weakness and inutility. There is not then anything, no not in the Jewish Religion, nor ever was, that could save what was lost, in strict terms of Justice.

And if not there, then sure nothing either among the Mohammedans, or Heathens. Ask the Musselman how he hopes for Remission of sin; and his answer will be, That his Prophets prayer shall be upon you. Say his Prophet had been, what he was not, a just, holy man, yet his motion only could have been for mercy. But justice exacts, and expects satisfaction, not entreaties; for real payment, not for words. There is not then in the Alcoran, a Sacrifice to be found for sin. From these, turn to their Predecessors the Heathens; and among them somewhat is to be found, that comes nearer to the point. A satisfaction they held was necessary, and to that purpose at the Altar slew a Beast, sometimes a man. Sanguine litastis, &c. Sanguine quaerendi reditus.

But these their satisfactions were not satisfactory. Of theirs, nay of better Sacrifices, the Apostle delivers his Vote, That it was impossible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should satisfy for sins; What, a man sin, and a beast die? Justice will never be corrupted with that.

Yea, but what say you to the fruit of the body for the sin of the soul? for such a custom there was among the Heathens, begun by the Canaanites, continued by the Carthaginian • , followed by the Massilians, Grecians, Gauls, nay almost all Nations, to offer their sons and daughters unto Devils; for it ran in their heads, Pro vitâ hominum nisi vita hominis r • ddatur, numen deorum non posse placari. A true Maxim, but not true in their sense. For it was not the life of a mere man could do this. For had it been one of their best men, as it was commonly one of their worst, yet the best had been borne in sin, and brought up in sin; and sin for sin can never satisfy.

Is there then no sacrifice to be found for sin? none among the Jews? none among the Mohammedans? None among the Heathens? Then bless God who hath made thee a Christian, and acquainted thee with a way, how Mercy and Truth meet; Righteousness and Peace meet and kiss. You that are out of the way, be of good cheer, for truth will direct you. You that are affrighted with the justice of God, be not dismayed, your debt is paid, his mercy will save you. You that are disheartened with his anger and hot indignation, take heart again, for your peace is made.

This may quiet thy soul; and finding this peace within, enjoin thy tongue without, David's task, Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise his holy Name: And bind thy knee to perform the Prophets and Apostles command, Bow to the Name of Jesus who made his soul an offering for sin for thee; fall low at his Name, even to his very footstool. And this service began and performed by the heart on earth, will, I doubt not, be ended and perfected in heaven; where the four and twenty Elders cast down their Crowns, and acknowledge, Thou Lord art worthy (and worthy is the Lamb that was stain) who hast Redeemed us by thy blood out of every Kingdom, and tongue, and people, and nation; to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. And therefore let every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and in the sea, and all that in them is, cry with a loud voice; Blessing, Glory; Honor, Power be unto him that sits upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever, Amen, Amen.

1. Ecce & compatere. Behold and suffer with him.

Look into his Body, you may easily do it; his stripes are as Lattices, and his wounds as so many windows to let in your eyes; mark and note well, how our friends do open their doors unto us that we may come in; their Garners, that we fill our sacks; their Cellars that we taste their wine; their purses to lend us money; but did you yet ever hear of a friend, that would open his whole heart to another man? No, no: No friend is so dear, nor no heart so clear, that hides not some secret; for the heart is a depth, and no man can know it; only the Son of God is he, that to his friends denied nothing, hides no secret from them that was fit for them to know; shuts no door against them; is well content, that they should see all, all that was in his bowels. Clavus penetrans factus est mihi clavis reserans. The nails and spear-head serve as keys to unlock his heart; enter in then and look into the palms of his hands, where he hath engraven you. Look through the door of his side, 'tis open, where he means to hide you; you may see if you please, his bowels of loving-kingdness, and heart of compassion, moving, and stirring, and yearning upon you; and will not your bowels move and stir? can you for very humanity be less than compassionate toward him? Pity him at least, make your hearts sound as a harp, and every string bring to the ear, Ah Lord, ah his Glory; and yet alas, what good can you do him, if you do pity him? what stripe can you hinder? what wound can you close? what blood can you staunch? or what comfort can you add? And yet this he looks for, this he calls for. He looks if there be any to be sad with him, he looks if there be any man who will bring a towel and wipe off his blood; any balm and oil to supple his wounds, any man that will bathe his injuries with tears, and bury his body in a compassionate heart; some few he sees, and he sees too too few, and this is it which puts him in a passion still.

He may well to this day complain as he did by one Prophet, that men hid their faces from him, that they esteemed him not; and ask as he did by another, Have you no regard? Is it nothing to you? shall I shed all these tears? pour forth all this blood, and sweat, and bleed and die thus ignominiously, thus painfully for you, and will you not think upon it, not pity me for it, have no esteem, no regard? You may if you please, see me by the inspection of my heart (easy it is to do it, for patent vulnera, patent viscera, my heart is as open as my wounds) see me I say you may, not only virum dolorum, a man of sorrows, but virum amorum, a man composed of love, who out of mere love would suffer all this for you; and will you not so much as regard it? not esteem it? not pity me for it.

Were ye members of my Body as you do pretend, you could not choose but suffer with me; for can any one member of the body suffer, and the rest not suffer with it? Can the head be in pain, and the foot, and the hand, and the arm at ease? I could not be so, when you were diseased; I could not be at rest in heaven, till I had put myself into pain to ease you; and will you not put yourselves to a little pain to ease me? 'It is but your compassion as yet I call for, for your regard; your consideration only of my sorrows, you may easily grant that, it will cost you nothing; Oh let me have that, That however, if no more.

How should these earthy and rocky hearts of ours rend in pieces and shake at such powerful words! why are not our faces covered with blackness, and all our joy turned to a threne? What more brutish than the unreasonable creatures? and yet they heard his complaints, and saw what he suffered, and afforded what compassion they could; the Sun felt his sorrows, and shrunk in his light, the earth heard his cries, and trembled at them. The stones, the hard cold stones felt it seems his pain, and cleft asunder; the graves and dead bodies his lamentable moans, and opened to hear them; and shall man then, for whose good all this was done, thus much suffered, have a heart more hard than these rocks? more insensible than these inanimate creatures? shall they? For very shame sympathize and suffer with him, and melt into compassion that he should be thus bruised, thus broken for your sake; You may post off all this hard usage to Pilate, to Herod, to the soldiers, to the Jews; but there is not a sinner in this place, who gave him not a blow. Behold then the man, and be compassionate at least.

5. Ecce & dilige.

But I call you not only to a weak and infirm pity of our Savior's sorrows; in the next place, Behold the man, and love him; compassion doth well, but love doth better; a tender-hearted enemy may afford him that (may be a Centurion, when he said, Doubtless, this was a just man) but a friend only this. You pretend, that you are his friends, let him then have love from you.

Love him? why who can do less? 'twere strange if we should not return love for love; he loved first, cast an affection upon us when we were strangers; strangers only? so perhaps his affection might be paralleled; it was when we were enemies; enemies so stubborn, that we stood out in rebellion, so poor, that we were exposed to the loathing of our persons, so contemptible, that no eye pitied us; and yet when we were such, he cast his skirt over us, and made that the tim • of love.

Then he came from heaven to make suite to our souls, and he was resolved to speed his suit, or to spend all he had. A man hath nothing more precious than his blood, and that he would spend to espouse us; his love to us, made him receive those wounds; we may read our names written in the palms of his hands, the nails were the pen, the blood the ink, with which he writ in capital letters; Sic Deus dilexit, So God loved; for if you ask me how much, I cannot tell; strangely I am sure; Nimium, I am certain; Christ so loved his enemies, that he made them his friends; so loved sinners, that he would make them just men; so the children of wrath, that he would make them vessels of mercy; so loved servants of sin, that he would make them his brethren; so the limbs of darkness, that he would make them members of his own body; so poor beggars, that he would make them his sons and heirs; heirs of a kingdom, heirs of the kingdom of heaven; you may wonder at it, as I do, but reason I can give you none, but sic dilexit, So he loved, and that's all.

But good God, how coldly do we answer his love! his was, so he loved; but ours, so so, very faint God wot; more fervent to any pleasure, to any profit, than to him. My brethren, this should not be, and for Christ's sake, let it be so no more; such is his love, that he will forget what is past, if you will but love him hereafter; stand not with him for so little, give it freely, give it him heartily, and thank him that he will accept of so little; a shame it were to receive so great a benefit as Redemption at his hands, and not love him; too much neglect to look upon such bitter wounds, and unheard of sorrows, and not love him, that would be for us thus wounded.

Lovest thou me? saith our Savior to Peter, and he asks again, Lovest thou me? and yet again he asks, Lovest thou me? The good man was sorry that the question should be thrice put to him, and returns a kind of passionate answer, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. Methinks I discern in your faces, that if I should propose the same question to you, What? Love ye your Savior? Love ye the Lord Jesus? • ove ye the Son of God, who died for you? You would all, with one voice reply, Ay, the Lord knows we all love him. Well then, I hope it is so, and therefore I will make no more question of it, but take it for granted that you do love him; I will only therefore make this motion, that by your life you testify your love, and by your works justify your love, and that this your love may continue, that you incrrease in it, and love him more, and then alls well. Not a word more of this then.

3. Ecce & Crede. Behold and Believe.

That he loved us, is out of all question; for else he never would have given his soul a sacrifice for us; and so much we are bound to Believe, and rely on. And therefore once more Behold the man, and believe in him.

They who were smitten with the fiery serpents, had no other way to save their lives, than by beholding the brazen serpent, erected on the top of a pole. To him as many as turned and looked, saved their lives. Those serpents are rotten, their stings pulled out, and the pole is taken down, nay the brass itself is become Nehushtan. But there is a fieryer serpent alive, that stings us still, the devil that old serpent, and his sting in sin; Art thou then with this wounded to death? Ecce & creed, look up man and Belive, Belive and Live; behold with the eyes of Faith this Antytipe of that Type exalted on the Cross, and save thy life.

Never let the greatest of thy spiritual enemies affright thee; for this man went up to the cross and conquered them; let not the long list of thy sins amaze thee; for he took the handwriting and nailed it banner wise to the wood. Before the person of this judge thou must appear; but for thy comfort, Ecce Homo, Behold the judge is thy Savior, Thomas was never bold and confident till he saw the wounds in his hands, and the hole in his side; then he believes, then he professeth openly, My Lord and my God; these he retains, these he will bring with him to judgment, that thou mayest creep into his side and hide thyself in his wounds till the wrath of God be overpast. Look up, and behold the sign of the Son of man in the clouds; the Cross on which he suffered exalted in Triumph, a terror to Infidels, an Asylum to all Believers, to which because they always did fly and trust, they cannot perish.

The Shunamites son revived not, until the Prophet put his own mouth on the child's mouth, his hands upon the child's hands, and his eyes upon the child's eyes, and stretched himself upon him, then the flesh waxed warm, he neez'd and came again. Dead we are, and if we mean to live to everlasting life, we must by faith set our eyes upon the cross of Christ, apply our defiled hands to his bleeding side, set our wicked feet to his wounded feet, join our sinful heart to his wounded heart; in a word put our fingers in his side, even dive and plunge our whole man in his wounds, sorrows, pains, shame, curse, and blood; for then we shall find our hearts to wax warm within us, and our fainting spirits will come again. The hand of faith will do all this. And we may be bold to do it. What he said to Thomas, he said to all, Reach hither thy hand. You heard but now what his love was. None greater than to lay down his life: None equal to lay it down for his enemies. Upon the abundance of his love then be bold to approach, to trust; credible it is not that he will deny you anything fit for him to give, for you to have, who hath given his life, for you.

Ecce homo, Behold all the gestures and postures of this man are such, as if he would invite a poor sinner to trust in him. His hands on the Cross are stretched out to receive thee, his head bowed down to kiss thee, his side open to hide thee, his tongue at liberty, and with that he begs a pardon for thee, Father forgive them. His eyes indeed are sad and heavy and dejected, but that sadness and heaviness is, because men have hard hearts, and will not believe; not believe him when he calls, Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will refresh you. Away then with this infidelity, Believe only, and thou shalt be safe.

4. Ecce & Spera, Behold the man and hope.

For when the eye of faith shall see so much in him, what is it not that the eye of Hope may not look for from him? He that came from heaven to die for our sakes, must needs raise our hopes that he will do much for us.

He came to proclaim the great Jubilee. Whatsoever then servants or debtors could hope for at the Jubilee, that we may hope for from him. When this great year of Jubilee came, there was a Remission and a Restitution. A remission; for then all bonds were freely given up, all prisons set open, and all prisoners for debt discharged, all servants and bondmen set free. A restitution or reinvestiture; for then all estates formerly mortgaged, forfeited, or any ways alien'd, were restored to the first owners in as ample manner, as ever they had or held them at any time before.

Behold then his side and his heart opened, and see a Gate of Hope set wide open to you. Expect from him what either servant, prisoner, or debtor could look for at the year of Jubilee.

1. Liberty from the slavery and bondage of sin; so that as a Lord he shall no more command you to drudge in his service, and then reward you with bitterness of soul.

2. Remission from all the punishments due to such drudges, the Vials of God's wrath here, and the wrath to come.

3. A restitution to what by sin we had forfeited; to wit, our present, and our future felicity. As then we love our own good, wisdom will advise us to behold the man by whom we hope, and must hope to receive all that can make us happy.

But the hope of the hypocrite shall perish, it shall be cut off, 'tis but like a spiders house, a little shog breaks it. If we will have our hope strong, we must have the Valley of Achor for our door of hope. The Valley of Achor was a Valley of trouble, of mourning for Achan's Sacrilege; and there if we begin, o • r hope will be the better confirmed, and much the sounder; and therefore once more,

5. Ecce homo, & resipisce, Behold the man and repent.

Behold and weep. I look not now for your tears of compassion, those I called for before. They are the tears of compunction which I now would have drop from your hearts and eyes for those sins of yours, which brought Christ to the Cross. It behooves you to look upon sin with another eye than most do. Fools make a mock of sin, but wise men consider that the Son of God was made a mock for sin. That can be no sight matter which brought the Son of God from heaven, made him a man, made him a servant, made him a curse, brought him to the whip, to the Cross, to Death.

Look upon all the revenges that God took upon sin before, they were light to this. Before they were upon men that deserved it, grievous sinners, Sodomites, Eg • ptians, Idolaters, &c. but now upon an innocent person. Before but on Vassals, but now the revenge was taken on his Son; before on enemies, now on his Beloved; before such was his patience, that he seemed to have 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a kind of truce with sinners; so much, that the worst servant in the house boasted of it, My master defers his coming. But now there was nor 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , nor 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , nor delay, nor passing over sin, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a clear demonstration of his Justice.

Take then a view of the Son of God in his bruises, and you will easily judge of the odious nature of iniquity. Our corrupt consciences are apt to make a heinous sin, like Zoar, a little one. But let it be considered in the death and passion of Christ, whereof it was the cause, and it will appear in its right shape, odious to us, because odious to God; since that being displeased for sin, nothing could please him but the Blood, the Bruises, the Paines, the Death of his only dear Son; and for no other reason, but because he would appear, pay for, and make intercession for sinners.

2. Which also should put us in mind to bewail them, and do what we can to be rid of them. 'It is the fashion of men, with bitter Invectives to prosecute the Jews as a bloody hard-hearted people, that they should crucify this innocent person; but all this while they forget themselves. Were it laid to heart, that not Judas betrayed him, but the whole world; not Annas and Caiaphas scoffed and derided him, but every man and woman that lived before and since; not the people then only buffeted him, and spet in his face, but all the living; that not Pilate delivered him, and the Jews crucified him, but every individual child of Adam; this, this would no question cause the most Marble heart to mollify, and melt into tears of repentant sorrow.

And till it come to this, we with our rods do but smite a Rock. Streams of water will never flow, till this be laid to heart. With this stroke when Peter fell upon the Jews, Ye have murdered and crucified the Son of God, then they fell upon their hearts: so that his words pierced their souls, as the Spear had done his; the effect was, three thousand of th • m were converted. I see I want St. Peters tongue; could I thunder and lighten as he did, I would hope to make you tremble, and pierce your hearts for piercing him. However 'tis the blow I mean to give; Never look strange at it, behold I • e • l it to your faces before all this Congregation, Ye have crucified the Lord of glory. You know how loath I am to impeach any of you. Had not your father Adam done it, I had not discovered your nakedness; but it were cruelty to teach you otherwise, and might bring your blood upon me. Guilty you are all; and my end in accusing you, is, that if you cannot be brought to weep for him, yet that you be moved to weep for yourselves; That your hearts prick, and shoot, and ache, 'tis well; but it will never be done as it should be, till they bleed for the blood of the Son of God shed for you and by you.

The Prophecy is extant, Th y shall see him whom they have pierced, and mourn. Mourne! not in an ordinary manner, but as he that mourns for his only Son; they shall be in bitterness, as one that is in bitterness for his first born: Such grief and bitterness was like to follow upon the sad thought, that they had pierced him. Be not then so Stoically void of sense, but mourn to consider how thy sins have pierced and stricken through the heart of thy Surety, thy Master, thy Maker; Groan and say,

O good God, what a spectacle is this thou settest before my eyes! I, even I am guilty; I have deserved those blows; And whence comes this exchange, that thy blessed Son is in my room! that I deserving to die, this innocent Lamb is made the Sacrifice! Wretch that I am, how have I forgotten myself! how thee! Oh pour forth thy holy Spirit, that I may judge myself as base before thy eyes, and my own, as thou wert esteemed base, and vilified in the eyes of the Jews for my sake.

3. Lastly, Forget it not, Consumm • tum est, All is finished. That storm which fell upon the Lord of glory, is stilled and quieted. Judas hath done his work, the Scribes and Pharisees, Elders and people have wreak'd their malice upon him; Pilate and Herod have crucified him; and from the Cross he is ascended to his Throne; and wi • l you not yet suffer the Son of God to be at rest? do you yet go about to fetch him out of his seat, and the second time nail him to the Cross! I fear to say it; and I had not said it, had not the Spirit of God said it before me, Those that willfully and obstinately live in presumptuous and malicious sins, do crucify to themselves again the Son of God, and put him to an open shame.

Never startle at it! in the Apostles time there were those that did it; and there be those that do it now, that crucify him afresh. Every notorious habitual enormity indulged to against conscience, is a Thorn, and a Naile, and a Spear yet to wound him. The List of particulars I give you not in; it is needless, since your own Counselor can with a wet finger bring to your memory a long Catalogue of Perjury, Murders, Sacrilege, Rebellion, Injustice, Oppression (I want a Nomenclator to say the rest) acted, countenanced, defended, justified. And is not this to crucify again the Son of God? is not this to put him to an open shame? If it be not, I confess I understand not the Apostle; but if it be, then Behold the man, and mourn.

Too much it is to anger him; Too unkind a part to provoke and grieve him. Of what pitch is this sin to crucify and shame him! I want a name to call it by. 'It is not that irremissible sin against the Holy Ghost, but it is next to it.

Crucify him, you will say? He is in heaven, far out of the reach of wicked men, how then can this be done? And so he was, when the Apostle wrote to the Hebrews, and yet there were those that did it then, and therefore there may be those that do it now. For they may crucifice, that is, do what lies in their power to crucify him. That they do it not, no thank to them; were he in their reach, I little doubt, that they, who under color of his Name justify those former ugly, heinous wickedness, would not stick to crucify him; And with him the endeavor is all. To do what man can, habetur pro facto, with him is reckoned as done, though the fact follow not. I find in the Gospel from our Savior's mouth, That he who looks after a woman to lust afer her, hath committed adultery with her in his heart; the woman in the mean time remaining chaste, as never thinking on such a matter: Then it one party may be an Adulterer, and the other not Adulterated; why not in the like sort, one crucify, and yet the other not crucified? This manner of speech then well serves, ad exaggerandam peccati maliciam, to aggravate some sins, and show the malice of some sinners, that do on their part all they can do, to fret, to grieve God, to crucify his Christ; and that's all one upon his account, as • f they did it.

Go on then you profane wretches, proceed in your ways you rebellious and debauched wretches, cause his Name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles; but then stand forth and hear your doom; 'tis a heavy sentence, and therefore I shall read it to you out of the Apostle, There remains no more Sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation which shall devour the Adversaries. He that despised Moses Law, died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment shall he be worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace?

Tell me, are you in love with crucifying now? have you anymore mind to that? Well, if you have, I will show you upon what you shall spend your malice. You carry an enemy about you, your own flesh; instead of crucifying Christ, fall to crucify it; and by the sword of the Spirit every day give it a blow, and wound it even to death. For again,

6. Ecce homo, & ulciscere, Behold the man, and be Reveng'd.

Men that thoroughly grieve for an injury offered, are withal quickly moved to take revenge on him that offered the wrong: Such a kind of affection should be in you; be revenged on sin that did Christ all the wrong. Deal by it, as it did by him. That Crucified, Mortified, and Buried him: Return like for like; Crucify, Mortify, and Bury it. Crucifying is a lingering death; put it to as much pain as you can; let it be dying all your life-time. Nail it fast down hand and foot, that it move not in you; thrust it through with the Sword of the Spirit, and wound the suggestions and provocations it offers to death. Mortify your earthly members, saith St. Paul; they killed Christ, and will not you kill them?

Wholly mortified I know they will not be, but deadened they may be very much; for dead God counts them, when they reign not in you, wear no Crowns, sit not on Thrones, bear no Swords, hold no Councils, create no Laws, nor yet rule by Ordinances. In a word, mortified you are, when you carry no affection, no sign of love to that evil which sometimes you do.

There is a Natural, there is a Civil, there is a Moral death; this last now I speak of. Every notable change of life from worse to better, is this Moral death. Happy we were, could we arrive to that perfection to die as Christ, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , once only; that at once there could be an utter ejection of sins dominion, and a continual persisting in what we well begin.

I can do no less than presume that these sorrows of our Savior have so set your hearts upon revenge, that at this time you are resolved to commit murder. Methinks I see every man moved with Phinehaz zeal, armed like a Soldier with a Spear in his hand, and a sword to hew asunder this Agag. Arise O Christian Soldier, kill and slay; the Lord be with thee, thou valiant man; run through this Moabitish woman, kill this same Amalekite; let not thine eye pity, kill and spare not, spare not any, not so much as thy bosom sin, for that was it that especially killed thy Lord. Take heed that it live not again; for if it revive, thou art but a dead man. It is of the Hydra's race, of a Serpentine brood; It will revive when the head is off, and stir and wriggle when it is hewn in pieces. Be wise therefore, take an advantage of every wound thou givest; and being deadened, tumble it into the grave, every day cast some mould upon it, roll a stone to the mouth of the Cave, that it never rise up anymore. Christ was buried for it, bury thou it for Christ's sake. To this Revenge it is that the Scripture exhorts, when it adviseth us to crucify the old man, to mortify our fleshly members; and the rather, because we are buried with Christ in Baptism. He then doth but prate, not believe, that Christ was Crucified, Dead, and Buried, who lives willingly and maliciously in a • y known sin.

Return O Shulamite, return, return, that we may look upon thee. This Shulamite is Christ; upon him you have looked this whole hour, and what needs he turn or return anymore? Is there anymore in him yet to be seen? Yes that there is. Return with me yet once again, long you shall not stay, and I will tell you what you shall more see in this my Shulamite.

7. Ecce homo & imitare, Behold the man, and follow him.

You shall see in him such a pattern and example to follow, that if all other Idea's and Draughts of virtues and goodness were broken to pieces and burnt, they may be found combined in him. Hence it is, that the Apostles who trode in his steps, so often call upon us to be like the Image of God's Son, to conform ourselves and lives to his, to learn of him, to walk as he walked, and bear such a mind as he did.

1. To be like him in Faith, who in that instant of his Dereliction, yet clasps both his arms about his Father with My God, my God. Similiter & vos. Go and do you likewise. In trouble, sorrows, in life, in death, hold fast with both hands the promises of God by a true and a lively Faith; Never let him go, keep your hold still, even beyond feeling, beyond Hope. Resolve with Jacob, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

2. Be like to him in patience; for when he was reviled, he reviled not again. Similiter & vos. Go and do thou likewise. Patiently bear those wrongs and injuries which are offered to thee, because thou belongst to him. Revenge not thyself, but refer thy wrongs 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to his Court above. It is well for the Disciple if he be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord.

3. Be like unto him in Humility. He humbled himself to the form of a servant, to the form of an ill servant, to the form of a ridiculous servant; Nay, us{que} ad mortem crucis, to the death of the Cross. Similit • r & vos, Go and do thou likewise. Let the same mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus. Be humble, exalt not yourselves above that which is fit. Nihil grande de vobis sentite. Think not magnifically of yourselves. Despise not your poor brethren, who are made of as good mettle as yourselves; earth and ashes every mothers Son; and shall earth and ashes exalt itself in the presence of an humble God?

4. Be like unto him in love; for he loved us, and gave himself for us; of which love when the Apostle speaks, he presents it with Heigth, and Depth, and Length, and Bredth; those four dimensions of the Cross, noting to us the exactest love that could be. Similiter & vos, Go and do you likewise. For in love there should be the virtue of the Loadstone to draw like love to it again, Serve one another therefore in love, do good to all men, even to your enemies, for so your love will be like Christ's. Almost his last words were, Father, forgive them. And these he would have you forgive, Those who persecute you, and despitefully use you; those that speak all evil of you. There is not on earth a greater sign of a soul thoroughly settled in the love of Christ, than to be thus minded. Come what will come, saith such a soul, frown or favor, respect or neglect, what I do, I will do; pray even for you that hate me, love you that ungratefully use me, although the more I love, the less I am beloved. This is love like the first Copy and Original.

Thus many several duties the sight of your Savior will put you in mind of. For it is Grande spectaculum, a wonderful and strange sight, a matter of scorn to an impious Wretch, to a pious soul a grand Mystery. You are now ready to turn your backs; yet ere you depart, for Christ's sake I ask one look more.

8. Ecce homo & retribue, Behold the man and be thankful.

A shame it were to be always receiving, and never restoring: The very earth doth it not; for the rain it drinks in, it returns you grass and fruits. Your fields do it not; for your labor and seed you sow, it returns you use. But I am not now in nature. Men, I know in state of grace would scorn to be compared, I am sure, exceeded by that sluggish element. Bethink then yourselves what to give. To give said I? nay, what to return; for it is no gift, it is a due, a debt.

Thankfulness is as due upon the receipt of a benefit, as any money upon a Bond; and therefore God never does us good, but expects that we be thankful. Thus the Indenture runs, Ego liberabo: Tu glorificabis. I will deliver thee, that is his promise; Thou shalt praise me, there's our duty. Guevam hath contracted all the Psalms into two words, Bless God, and let God bless. For indeed what do we else from one end of the Psalter to the other, but beg a blessing from him, and bless him for the receipt. Now this is done when we receive the benefit with a cheerful and glad heart, take what is done kindly, and acknowledge it for a courtesy, then when we write it not in our hearts as in sand, so lightly that every puff of wind will make it illegible.

Now if ever any benefit ought to be cheerfully received, and engraven with the point of a Diamond, it is this. For in this God made his promise of Liberabo appear to purpose. Here was deliverance and freedom from sin, hell, death, wrath; such enemies, that all other are not to be named on the same day with them. Under their paws we were, and from these he hath Redeem'd and delivered us. This would be thought on, remembered, Recorded; and so often as we read over the Record, to have an eye to Glorificabis, that is in the foot of it, that, that also is our duty. A duty not to be detained or paid at our pleasure, but due Debito justitiae, by Obligation; Man as well bound in justice to pay it, as God bound by promise to deliver him.

In brief then I shall now teach you how to pay it. Thus it is: As he hath made his soul a Sacrifice for us, so also we dedicate ourselves a whole Sacrifice to him; for though the Legal Sacrifices be ceased, yet Christians have yet what to offer. This is done

• 1. By tendering our prayers, supplications, thanksgivings to him, and in his Name.
• 2. By relief of his poor members, as occasion requires.
• 3. By taking the Cup of salvation, and calling on the Name of the Lord.
• 4. By offering to him a broken and a contrite heart.
• 5. By offering the Sacrifice of righteousness, and putting our trust in him.
• 6. In a word, in resigning ourselves, soul and bodies to his service.

In the Holocaust all was consumed, and turned to smoke, no man having benefit of any part of the Sacrifice: and by it we are taught to make whole offerings, not in part, but wholly to dedicate whatsoever we can call ours to God's service; yea, and if the Will of our God be so, even to death.

And by it we shall be no losers. Losers? Nay, Gainers every way; for, for the Cross we shall find a Crown, for torments ease, for trouble peace, for sorrow joy, for this death life: A life not like this to vanish, but which will last and continue forever and ever. Which God grant, &c.

1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c.

1. This same 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , this same word ascendit, he ascended, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , what doth it mean? what doth it signify? what doth it conclude? what else but that the same person descended from that place to which he ascended? Now this collection of Saint Paul will make good Christ's own words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; before Abraham was born, I am, where 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to be born, is referred to Abraham, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is referred to himself, I am, which is the proper name of God; God then he was of God before he descended. The Prophet then knew, that he was Jehovah; the Prophet in the Psalm out of which this verse was taken, calls him Jehovah; and the Apostle takes it for granted that he was Jehovah, existent above before he was existent below; or else how could he have said he ascended, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , if he had not known, that he descended first?

This was a peculiar that belonged to Christ's person alone; Angels 'tis true descended from thence, and took human bodies for a time; but their economy being done, they laid them aside, to heaven they did not carry them; You have heard of Enochs Translation; you have read of Elijah's mounting th • there in a fiery chariot; Nay we all profess our belief to ascend thither in these our bodies, who yet descended not from that place; that then this collection of the Apostle stand good, necessary it is that we attribute somewhat more to him than to them, more to Christ than to Elijah, Enoch, than to ourselves.

Now this difference doth not arise out of the ascent and descent; for the acts are and may be affirmed of Angels and men; but from the quality of the person who doth ascend. Never any that came down from heaven, and assumed a human body, ascended in that human body but he; never any, that in a human body ascended, came first down from heaven but he; which evinceth, that he was not only man, but God also. Certainly if Christ were merely from the earth, as we are; the Apostles collection were very weak, nay none at all; he could not have said, he descended first. But let it be supposed, that he was God from everlasting, then it follows necessarily, that his ascent from the earth to heaven, will i • fer his descent from heaven to the earth, of which our Savior himself puts us in mind, No man ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven.

It was then the self same person that descended, and the self same that ascended; the same which came from the Father, and the same that went to the Father; yet with this difference, That whereas in his descent, he was only God, in his ascent he was both God and man. The person was the same, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ipse, verse. 10. but otherwise qualified; he assumed our Nature into the subsistence of his person, and took that to heaven with him which he brought not thence.

In Christ there was but one person, but two natures; for God was manifested in the flesh, which being granted, easy it is to explain these two acts of his ascent and descent, and to know how to attribute them. In the same respect they are not to be taken; for we must refer his descent to what he was before he was man, that is, being God on high, it pleased him to descend, and to be made man; which was no natural motion, but an empting himself of his glory, and taking upon him the form of a Servant. But for his ascent, it must be referred to that person he then was; God invested with the nature of man, to which we may and do attribute a local motion. Truly then and properly in respect of his humanity, he did ascend from earth to heaven, as naturally as his body arose from the grave; And yet we say, that whole Christ did really ascend 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , because the Attributes proper to one own nature, are attributed to the whole person.

When therefore the Apostle saith, he who descended, is the same which also ascended, he intimates to us two things. First, that it is the same person, to whom these two Acts are attributed; then that these two acts must be understood after a different manner, viz. That he descended as God, without change of place. But as man he ascended to heaven, and went from us.

Who the person is, we now see, and in what sense the Acts are appliable to him. The next is, that we consider the places to which he came, to which he went, about which there is some difficulty; and what interpreters have thought of both, you shall now here.

2. He descended into 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , into the lower parts of the earth.

1. Some understand by the lower parts of the earth the Virgins womb, in which the Son of God was conceived and made man; in which sense we find the phrase once used, and but once only; I was fashioned secretly, Tachijoth Arets, in the lowest parts of the earth, where David by a Metaphor resembles the lowest parts of his mothers belly, where he was framed and formed, to the lowest part of the earth; noting the strange secret of his conception and formation in his mothers womb; that from the earth as from a common mother he came, that thither he must return; that below he was fashioned by a secret way, as metals and minerals lie and grow in the depths of this common parent. All which though true, yet I believe it reacheth not home to the Apostles intent; for his purpose is here to expound those words of David, He ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, he gave gifts unto men; which was done upon his ascent, not descent to the Virgins womb. Since then Christ during the time of his conception did not lead captivity captive, nor gave these gifts; his Mothers womb cannot aptly pertain to the Apostles purpose in this place; some other sense will be more appliable to Inferiores partes terrae, the lower parts of the earth.

2. By these parts then others understand terram ipsam, the earth itself, which because it is Insima pars mundi, the lowest element of the world, is here called by Hypallage inferiora terrae, the lower part of the earth; so that here should not be a comparison of the parts of the earth one to another, but of the parts of the world one to another; so that the Apostles meaning should be no more, but that he descended from heaven to the earth, left the happiness of heaven, emptied himself of his glory; took upon him the condition of men, that condition which the poorest, the meanest, the most inferior man on earth hath done; even that of a servant, and subjected himself to our misery. But this interpretation is subject to the same difficulties that the former was; and had the Apostle meant no more then his being on earth, he might have expressed it without