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be thrown upon these torn and tender parts; how dreadful must have been the sufferings! How exquisite the torture! Add to which, the death of the Cross was a slow, a tedious, a lingering death. The pain, great as it was, did not quickly put an end to the life; and so by its own violence deliver the sufferer from misery. It destroyed him by degrees. It tortured, without immediately killing him. No vital part was touched. The crucified person was left to live under all this torment, till through anguish, loss of blood, fatigue and famine, his natural strength was quite worn out, and his heart ceased to beat. You may remember, that when Jesus had hung for six hours on the Cross, Pilate marvelled that he were dead already : and the two Thieves, who were crucified with him, were both yet alive, when the soldiers down their bodies from the cross in the day on which they had been executed. we cannot well conceive a death more painful than the death of the cross; or one which the most ingenious cruelty could have invented more suited to its purpose.

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came to take evening of the

On the whole,

In the second place, it was the most shameful of deaths. Any death by the hand of the public executioner is shameful. It is always intended to bring disgrace on those who suffer it. But we can hardly have any just conception of the degree of infamy which was attached to the death of the cross. We must indeed be sensible that the very circumstance of being publicly hung up as a criminal, exposed to the eye of every beholder, and having the crime, for which this punishment was supposed to be inflicted, written in

large letters on the top of the cross, was in itself very ignominious. But it was the general opinion in which this punishment was held, that stamped on it the deepest ignominy. It was not a Jewish, but a Roman punishment; one, however, which was deemed too infamous for any Roman citizen ever to suffer. It was inflicted only on the lowest and vilest of mankind ; on slaves, and notorious criminals; on such as were accounted the pests and outcasts of society, a disgrace tohuman nature, and unworthy to be treated like human beings. These were the persons for whom, by the Roman law, this punishment was reserved. And hence we may judge in what light it was generally regarded, and how great was the infamy attached to it. As a fact also which farther proves and clears this point, it may be added, that it was not uncommon to take even the dead bodies of criminals, who had not fallen alive into the hands of public justice, and to hang these upon the cross, as the way of expressing the greatest detestation and contempt of their character, and of branding their memory with disgrace and ignominy. And it was for this reason; for the shame and infamy which this death brought with it, as much as for the pain and torture which it inflicted, that the Jews were so elamorous for Jesus to be crucified. They not only designed, by putting Him to this slow and painful death, to gratify their malice and cruelty; but they intended also, by the infliction of this punishment, to sink and degrade Him to the very lowest depth of debasement; to rank Him with the worst and vilest of mankind; to set him forth to the nation, and to the world, as an ob

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ject of universal detestation and scorn; and to make his very name infamous and accursed.

Such were the general circumstances which distinguished the death of the cross from every other death, and made it beyond all others dreadful and degrading. But in addition to these, there were in the case of Jesus some particular circumstances, which increased and aggravated both the usual pain and shame of crucifixion. As if the pain of the cross were not of itself sufficient to glut the vengeance of his enemies, they beat and buffeted him, and tore his back with scourges, before they led him to be crucified. They made a crown of thorns, and fixed it on his head, by driving the points into his bleeding temples. They next forced him, though exhausted by these cruelties, to carry to the place of execution, one end at least of the heavy cross, to which be was to be nailed: and when arrived at the fatal spot, instead of giving to him, as was frequently the case with others, a cordial draught, which might support the spirits, or deaden the sense of feeling, they offered to him vinegar mingled with gall; which was so offensive, that even fainting and parched with thirst, as he must have been, he refused to drink it.

Again, as if the common shame and ignominy of crucifixion were not sufficient to express the infamy, with which his enemies wished to load him; they preferred before Him Barabbas, a notorious robber, who for sedition and murder had been cast into prison; demanding that he might be released, and Jesus crucified. Then to shew more pointedly the light in which they wished to represent him, they executed him in com

pany with two malefactors; placing him in the midst, as being in their judgment the worst and vilest of the three. Next, in derision, they placed this writing over his head; "Jesus, the King of the Jews;" by which they meant in the most insulting manner, to scoff at his pretensions to that title. Here then, we might have supposed that malice would have ceased its efforts; that if pity had not touched the breast at the sight of so much misery, yet, that invention itself would have been worn out. But, no

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miny still awaited the wretched sufferer. While hanging in this dreadful torment, he was yet to encounter farther indignities; to listen to every reproachful taunt which scorn and passion could cast forth upon him. The soldiers, who had nailed him to the cross, mocked him, laughed at his sufferings, and derided his cries. The people who passed by, railed on Him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Ah! thou that déstroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself, and come down from the cross." One, at least, of the thieves who were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. Nay, the scribes and elders, the rulers and the priests, even the chief priests themselves, were so forgetful of what became their rank and character, as to take a part in this inhuman scene, and to join in reviling Jesus, and in putting Him to shame. "He saved others, Himself He cannot save. King of Israel descend now from the cross, may see and believe."

Let Christ the

Such was the death which Jesus died. the cross and the shame, which He suffered.

that we

Such were

But how

did he suffer them? This was the second thing to be ⚫considered.

II. "He endured the cross, despising the shame." This expression of enduring the cross, means something more than merely bearing it, and undergoing the pain. It is descriptive of the manner in which he bore it. It implies that he bore it with fortitude, with meekness, with patience. He endured it. He neith ́er shrunk from it, nor sunk under it. He met it with boldness. He went through it with constancy. The whole account of his sufferings justify us in putting this meaning on the word endure. Though He knew clearly before-hand, the bloody baptism which awaited Him: He yet described himself as "struitened till it were accomplished." When the time drew near, far 'from seeking to avoid the cross, He "stedfastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem."a When the hour was rcome, though He could have had twelve legions of angels to assist Him, yet He made no resistance, but yielded himself up into the hands of his enemies. Throughout the trying scene which followed, he shewed no fear, no impatience, no unwillingness, to finish what he had begun. "He gave his back to the smiters, and his cheek to them that plucked off the hair. He hid not his face from shame and spitting." "Brought as

a lamb to the slaughter, he opened not his mouth."b He made no complaint, uttered no lamentation. When he was reviled, he reviled not again. All was composure, dignity, self-possession, and greatness of mind. He felt for others, but he felt not for himself.

a Luke, xii. 50.-ix. 51. b Isaiah, 1. 6.—liii. 7.

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