rows: these stripes, thofe many wounds, are for "the healing of the nations;" and he stands there exposed and thewed forth, that we may "look to him and be faved." Now is he "the faireft among ten thousand, and altogether lovely! Now is he glorious in his apparel!" But all his fcourging, his ftanding like a criminal at the bar of a man; his blows, bruifes, threats, fcoffs, fhame, pain, or barbarous ufage, do not make him once complain or repine. We do not hear that he fo much as faid, O it is too much! But he fo loved us, that he bore contentedly all for us; and our eafe and peace was more to him than his own. He knew we had deserved all that and more; and therefore, to the astonifhment of the princes and priefts, and to the furprife of men and angels, he held his peace. After he had fuffered all indignity, and pain, and reviling, they ftripped off from him the purple garment, and, no doubt, fet his wounds afresh to bleeding; and now they put his own cloaths on him, and led him out to crucify him. They had preferred a murderer before him, and all together defired Pilate to crucify him. And now "behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the fin of the world!" Satan plagued his righteous fpirit; men had punished, and ftruck him, and fhamed him before Jews and Heathens; and God had now laid upon him the iniquities of us all. Thus, on the folemn feaft-day of expiation, it was the custom of the Jews to lead, or rather drag out by the horns, the fcape-goat, and bring him into the wildernefs, that he might in a fhadow carry away the fins of the people into a land uninhabited: fo, they laid the crofs upon Jefus, and dragged him out of the gates of the city, loaded with all our crimes, and the fin of the whole world. What pain. must he have borne in his body, when upon his raw and wounded back and fhoulders, he was obliged to

carry

carry a crofs large enough to hang him on and we may well think how that preffed into his fore flesh, and made it exceeding painful: befides, the crowds of people, who preffed about him, must have often fhook the crofs, and made him ready to fwoon away; and left this fhould be the cafe, or that he fhould die before they had got their malice fully fatisfied upon him, they offered him wine and myrrh, but he would not drink; and now methinks I fee him crawl up mount Calvary. This was the place of the execution of criminals, and where many guilty robbers and murderers had launched into eternity. It was the gate of death and hell; and here Jefus intended to open the gate of heaven. The death of the cross was esteemed curfed above all other deaths in the eyes of the Jews; and they no more fuppofed a hanged one could be faved, any more than a dog; and herein they fhewed their deep fpleen, in thrusting him, if poffible, not only out of the world, but into hell. Whence this fort of death was reckoned accurfed, or called fo of God, I know not unless because our ruin and fin began its reign upon a tree; but now Jefus ends the curfe in himfelf, and willingly is nailed upon the wood, that he may be a curfe for us, and become a Saviour even of fuch as perish in that way.

He was ftripped naked, and his cloaths given among the foldiers; and now methinks I fee them lay the cross on the ground, and throw him down backward upon it. No lamb ever laid fo meekly

upon the altar as this Lamb of God, when he offered himself for us: fee he stretches out his dear hands to receive the nails; and now hark while the executioner drives in the fatal iron! Thofe hands, that had been laid upon fo many children and others to bless them, now ftream with blood: this done, then in like manner his facred feet, which wanted

reft

reft and were weary with journies and travelling, inftead of reft must have torture and pain, and be fastened with nails; and thus fatan fulfils the fcripture, and "bruifes his heel." O come, in fpirit, and fee the Lamb! See how he weeps and bleeds, but opens, not his mouth! Well may that which was faid of Jofeph in the Pfalms be applied to him, "the iron entered into his foul," but this was the way he wrote our names in the book of life. O my foul, canft thou ever think he forgets thee? A woman may forget her fucking child, and flight the fruit of her body which flie bare with fo much pain, but he can never forget thee: he has graven thee upon the palms of his hands. He will never forget to eternity what he felt when his hands were driven through with nails on the cross, and when his pangs and labour brought thee to the new-birth. When Solomon defcribes him in his Song, he fays, "his hands had rings of beryl;" fo it appeared when round the heads of the nails the precious blood gushed out, and made open the wells of falvation.

But now comes on the heaviest time of fuffering; they raise the crofs upright, and fhewed him naked and wounded to all! O what fhouts of joy were heard from all the thousands of Ifrael, when they faw him lifted up! Jews and Gentiles mock together, and thake their heads, and clap their hands, and hifs at him, while his white and ruddy body was raifed up, like an enfign upon a hill. What must he have felt when he hung thus? What a rack was his whole body and foul in? For now that ftorm, which had been fo long gathering, burft upon him from on high now the fword of the Lord awakened on the man that was his fellow; and he who had kept filence with pain and grief hitherto, now roared for the difquietnefs of his heart. Men vented all

their malice and fury upon him; nothing but enemies feem to furround him; he heard their blafphemy on every fide with an aching heart. Satan, and all his unhappy multitude, fhewed all their rage could prompt them to do, and fcorned him now with all their power; and now his dear eternal Father, and the whole bleffed Godhead, feemed to leave him, that he might bear the fierceness of God's anger, and tread the wine-prefs of his wrath alone. It is true, no human creature can ever guess what he felt when he uttered that horrid cry, <6 Eli, Eli, lama fabathani!" It made heaven and earth and hell shake, and ftruck all with an eternal furprise and wonder if ever that was literally true, it might well be now, "that in heaven there was filence about the space of half an hour:" namely, while the battle feemed doubtful, when hell and all her powers heaped on him curfe upon curfe, and terror on terror; and the weight of all our fins and crimes, fecret and known, bowed down his foul; and the Lord fpared not his only Son, but fmote him without mercy, for the fheep that were fcattered. Satan wished nothing more, than that he should foon be tired out with mifery, and call for his angels and retire, and leave the world unredeemed; nor once thought he fo loved them, that he would wade through hell and death, to pluck them as brands out of the burning: but Jefus loved us even unto death, and weathered out the dreadful ftorm; nor once begged for pity or mercy, until in his last agony, when he had fully drank up the dregs of the cup of trembling and aftonishment, and made a perfect and complete atonement and amends for our fin, and endured all our wrath, paid down our full price and ransom; and then he was juftified in fpirit, namely, when God the Holy Ghost bare witness in his heart the world was now his own, and all things recovered by the blood

of

of his crofs, and the fin and iniquity ended, and the tranfgreffion finished, and the "everlasting righteoufnefs brought in," and then came the hour of the joy and gladness of his heart, with his arms ftretched out, like Sampfon, he took hold on the fin with one hand, and the wrath of God with the other, the two pillars on which all ftood, and then with his last cry he faid aloud, "It is finifhed !" and bowed down his head and gave up the ghoft; and, in his fall, he threw down all that was against us, all our blame, condemnation and curfes, and left it all nailed with his body to the tree. But then the heavenly hofts, who, no doubt, had looked on amazed and wondering hitherto, broke out in the new fong, Now is come falvation! he has obtained eternal redemption! he has caft the aecufer of the brethren down! he has bruised the serpent's head!" "Worthy is the Lamb that was flain, to receive bleffing, and honour, and thanksgiving for ever and ever!"

But let us go back a little, and obferve how he poured out his foul. How three hours he waded, as it were, through the depths of hell, and fought his fheep out of the bitterness of death. In this condition Jeremiah spoke of him when he faid; " Is it nothing to you, all ye that pafs by? Behold and fee if there be any forrow like unto my forrow, wherewith the Lord has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger!" It was then "out of the belly of hell he called unto God-his Father," when "the waves and storms went over his foul, and when the deep waters went nigh to fwallow him up." But amidit it all he had pity on his poor mother, and him whom he loved, and fpake comfortably to them: nor did all the blafphemous upbraidings of the multitude, nor their barbarous and hard-hearted behaviour make him angry, or provoke him to call fire from heaven to deftroy them, or cause hell or

tophet