Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

and Malice of his Enemies was a great one beyond Example. They were no lefs Perfons than the Rulers and Guides of the Jewish People, with their blind Followers: whom the Purity and Humility of his Doctrine, and the very needful Severity of his Reproofs for their Pride, Superftition, and Wickedness, had rendered implacable against him. Every Condefcenfion to win them gained only contempt from them: every Endeavour to convince and reform them did but exafperate them: they mifreprefented and derided, they reviled and threa tened, they affaulted and perfecuted him : till at Length, the Hour being come, which he knew was the proper one to yield himself up to them; they bribed one of his Difciples to betray him into their Hands; terrified the rest into forfaking him; and, after a moft unjuft Condemnation, followed by a Variety of defpiteful Ufage amongst themselves, to obtain the Execution of their Sentence they accufed him to the Roman Power; first as a Blafphemer against their Law; and, failing in this, then as a Rebel against the Emperor, Tiberius Cafar, the moft fufpicious of Men: by which laft Suggeftion they forced the Governor, though declaring himself to be fatisfied of his Innocence, yet to comply with them for his own Safety. After this he was abused and scourged by the Soldiers, crowned in cruel Mockery with Thorns, and loaded, probably till he funk under it, with the Cross, on which he was to fuffer.

This Inftrument of Death confifted, as its Name denotes, of two large Pieces of Wood, croffing each other. On one, the Arms of the condemned Perfon were stretched out, and his Hands nailed; on the other, his Feet, joined together, were faftened in the fame Manner and thus he was to hang naked, exposed to Heat and Cold, till Pain and Faintnefs ended his Life. The Jews, while they executed their own Laws, never crucified any, till they were firft put to Death fome other Way; after which, their Bodies were fometimes hanged on a Tree till the Evening. But it feems, that only the worst of Malefactors were thus treated;

who

who are therefore ftiled in the Law of Mofes, accurfed. The Romans indeed, and other Nations, crucified Men alive but ufually none befides their Slaves; a Sort of Perfons, most of them, far lower than the lowest of Servants amonst us.

This then was what the Son of God underwent, when having taken upon him the Form of a Servant, he became obedient unto Death, even the Death of the Crofs. Now the Torment of hanging thus by Nails, that pierced through Parts of fo acute a Feeling as the Hands and Feet, could not but be exquifite; efpecially as it was almost always of long Duration. And therefore this Punishment was accounted, in every Refpect, the fevereft of any. Our Saviour indeed continued under it only about three Hours: a much smaller Time, though a dreadful one, than was usual. And there are plain Reasons for his expiring fo foon. He had fuffered, the whole Night before, and all that Day, a Course of barbarous Treatment, fufficient to wear down the Strength of a much rougher and robufter Make, than probably his was. Before this, he had felt Agonies within, grievous enough to make him fweat, as it were, great Drops of Blood. Partly the near View of what he was juft going, most undefervedly, to fuffer, might thus affect a Mind, which, having fo very much Tenderness and Senfibility in the Cafe of others, could not be without fome proportionable Degree of it in his own. And further, the Thought, how fadly, from the Time of their Creation to that Day, Men had contradicted the End for which they were created; how large a Part of the World would ftill reject the Salvation which he came to offer, and how few receive it effectually; what Guilt even good Perfons often contract, and how tremendous will be the final Doom of bad ones: these Reflections, which naturally would all present themfelves to him in the strongest Light on this great Occafion, could not but caufe vehement Emotions in his Breast, zealous as he was for the Glory of God and • Deut. xxi. 23.

d Phil. ii. 7, 8.

• Luke xxii. 44.

the

[ocr errors]

the eternal Happiness of Men. But chiefly beyond Comparison, the awful Senfe, that he was to bear all thefe innumerable Sins of Mankind in his own Body on the Tree, being made a Curfe for us, to redeem us from the Curfe of the Law, might well produce Feelings inexpreffible and inconceivable, which, operating much more powerfully than mere bodily Tortures, and making his Soul exceedingly forrowful, even unto Death", might fo exhauft his Strength by heightening his Sufferings, as to shorten them very confiderably. And accordingly we read that when he had hung on the Cross from the fixth Hour to the ninth, he cried with a loud Voice, in the Words of the twenty-fecond Pfalm, where David fpeaks, as a Type and Reprefentative both of his Sufferings and his following Glory, My God, my God, why haft thou for faken me? not in the leaft intending, as David before him did not, to fignify a Diftruft of his Love, in whom at the fame Time he claimed an Intereft, as his God; but only to exprefs, that thofe Comforts of the divine Prefence, which he used to feel, were now, for myfterious Reasons, with-held from him in that concluding Hour of Temptation, which himself so emphatically called the Power of Darkness. Then adding Words of the firmeft Truft, Father, into thy Hands I commend my Spirit, he bowed his Head, and gave up the Ghoft

Thus did God fulfil what he before had fhewed by the Mouth of all his Prophets, that Chrift should fuffer1. It was intimated in the first Prediction, made upon the Fall; namely, that the Seed of the Woman fhould be bruifed. It was prefigured, both in the Sacrifices of the Old Teftament, and several remarkable Portions of its Hiftory. He is mentioned by David, as having his Hands and Feet pierced": He is largely defcribed by Ifaiah, as a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with Grief; wounded and bruifed for our Iniquities, and brought as a

[blocks in formation]

Lamb to the Slaughter: He is exprefsly ftiled by Daniel, Meffiah the Prince, that fhould be cut off.

Thefe Prophecies, the Creed informs us, were fulfilled under Pontius Pilate: for fo was the then Governor of Judea under the Roman Emperor called. And he is named, because the most usual Way of fignifying at what Time any Thing was done, anciently was by mentioning the Perfon, under whofe Government it was done: there not being any other Method of reckoning univerfally received, as that of counting by the Year of our Lord is now among Christians. And it was very ufeful to preserve the Memory of the Date: partly, that in After-ages Inquiry might be better made into the Hiftories and Records of that Age, concerning these extraordinary Events, faid to have then happened; and chiefly, that the Meffiah might appear to have come and died at that exact Fulness of Time, when it was foretold he fhould. One Mark of it was, that the Sceptre was then to be departed from Judah': which evidently was departed, when it was reduced to be a Roman Province. Another was, that the fecond Temple was to be yet ftanding; for the Glory of it was to be greater than the Glory of the former : and this could be true only by the fulfilling of another Prophecy, The Lord, whom ye seek, fhall come to his Temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in. Accordingly he did come to it, and it ftood but a few Years longer. A third Mark was, that, from the restoring of Jerusalem, to the Meffiah's being cut off, were to be fuch a Number of Weeks; each plainly confifting, not of seven Days, but of feven Years: which Number was compleated, while Pontius Pilate was Governor and therefore it was requifite to obferve, that under him our Saviour fuffered.

:

Next to the Mention of his Death, in the Creed, follows that of his Burial: a Favour not allowed by the Romans to thofe who were crucified, unless fome con

[blocks in formation]

fiderable Perfon interceded for it. But the Jewish Law requiring, that they fhould be taken down and buried before Night"; and the next Day being a great Festival, when the Violation of this Law would give more than ordinary Offence to the People; Jofeph of Arimathea, an honourable Counsellor, who alfo waited for the Kingdom of God, craved the Body of Jefus from Pilate: who after, making due Inquiry, if he were already, and had been any while dead, gave the Body to Jofeph; who buried him refpectfully in his own new Tomb, a Sepulchre hewn out of a Rock; the Entrance into which the Jews fealed up, and fet a Guard over. And thus were his own Predictions fulfilled, that he should be crucified, the most unlikely of all Deaths: and at the fame Time that of Ifaiah, that he should not only be buried, but with the moft unlikely of all Burials in fuch a Case, making his Grave with the Rich".

The laft Part of this Article is, that he defcended into Hell: an Affertion founded on Pfal. xvi. 10. where David prophefies of Chrift, what St. Peter in the Acts of the Apostles explains of him, that his Soul fhould not be left in Hell; which imports, that once he was there. And hence, after fome Time, it was inferted into our Creed, which in the Beginning had it not. However, being taught in Scripture, the Truth of this Doctrine, is indubitable: the only Queftion is about the Meaning

of it.

The firft Thought of moft, or all Perfons, to be fure, will be, that the Word Hell, in this Article, fignifies what it doth in common Speech, the Place where Devils and wicked Men are punished. And it hath been imagined, that Chrift went to triumph over the Devil there; and fome add, to rescue Part of the Souls which he held under Confinement, by preaching, as the Scrip

w Deut. xxi. 22, 23. Luke xxiii. 50-53. John iii. 14. xii. 32, 33.

* Matth. xxvii. 57-60.
y Matth. xxvii. 62-66.
a Ifa. liii. 9.

Origen against Celfus, 1. 2. § 42. faith, that Chrift mfelf there, τας βελομένας, η άς έωρα επιτήδειο τέρας.

Mark xv. 43-46.
Matth. xx. 19.

b Acts ii. 24-32.
converted Souls to

ture

« AnteriorContinuar »