rify him: fuch a Father (whom he fo dearly loved) frowning upon, and hiding his face from him, it might well trouble him: fuch a pity, fuch a love, contemplating man's finfulness, feeling his misery, it is not strange that it fhould affect him. But I muft pafs over this most large and fruitful fubject of meditation. When the world was in the most general peace and deepest calm, and confequently men's attention more ready, and their minds more capable of instruction; when the greatest (or the most confiderable) part of the world was united under one empire, and fo more fit to be incorporated into a fpiritual commonwealth, (to communicate in offices of piety, to impart and receive instruction;) when mankind generally was better civilized, inquifitive after knowledge, and receptive of truth; when the fceptre of legislation and fupreme authority was juft departed from Judah; while the Jewish temple yet ftood, but not long before its deftrucDan. ix. 26. tion; when the seventy hebdomades (of years) were near expiring, (the time when the Meffias thould be cut off;) in fhort, when all things were duly prepared and fuited for the great effects defigned by God to proceed from our Saviour's paffion and other performances, then did he fuffer and do what God had in his wifdom and goodness predetermined, prefignified, and predicted. I might add, the time was fit to be fet down, as a character apt to confirm the truth of the history; for direction to a fair inquiry and trial concerning it; to exclude all confufion and uncertainty about it. As for the perfon whom; if we confider him as a Roman ftranger, as a governor and judge, according to his perfonal qualities, or according to his deportment in this affair, fomething in all these respects may offer itself obfervable. He was an alien from the commonwealth of Ifrael; fo Jews and Gentiles confpired in violence and injury against their Rom. iii.19. common Saviour; that fo (in type and mystery) every mouth might be stopped, and all the world might become guilty before God. Neither was it for nothing decreed by God, that the Jews fhould deliver our Saviour up to the Matt. xx. Gentiles, (roïç ëdveσw,) to mock, and scourge, and crucify him. 18. ἀσεβῶν. 1 Pet. iii.18. Col. i. 21. The Jews out of envy and malice delivered up, accused, Matt. xxvií. profecuted, infligated, and importuned against him; the Gentiles out of ignorance, profaneness, and unjust partiality, condemned and executed him: whereby the ingratitude, iniquity, and impiety of all mankind in fome fort Rom. v. 6. did appear, and was aptly represented; and in confequence ver. 8. άμthereof his infinite goodness is demonftrated, who for for. impious, unjuft, flagitious a generation, for fuch malicious div. enemies and cruel perfecutors, did willingly fuffer: he Rom. v. 10. fuffered for them by whom he suffered. I might add, that a ftranger was more likely to be a fair and indifferent judge, and to do what was defigned and fit to be done in our Saviour's trial. Confider Pilate as a governor and judge, for fo he was; Cæfar's procurator, and prefident Matt. xxvii. of Judæa, (ἐπίτροπος and ἡγεμὼν;) and therein we may 2, &c. discern the wisdom and special providence of God punishing our Saviour for us by his own officer in a course of justice; the loyal obedience of our Saviour submitting both to God and man, (though in a case of plain outrage and highest injuftice against himself ;) the heinousness of that wicked proceeding, wherein that facred power committed to him by God, and the venerable name of justice, were so abused. So that if ever, then one might have faid with the Wife Man, I faw the place of judgment, Ecclef. iii. that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, 16. that iniquity was there. As for this Pilate's perfonal qualities, he is reported, by the hiftorians near those Philo, Jofetimes, to have been a man of a harsh and rough temper; phus, &c. wilful and haughty in fpirit; rapacious, violent, and cruel in his proceedings; and was therefore a proper inftrument of providence for the execution of such a business, so holy and gracious in God's purpose, fo villainous and barbarous according to man's intention: fuch an one deferved to bear the guilt of a fact fo bafe and execrable, was worthy to be employed, might be ready to undertake therein: it had not been so plaufible in itself, that such an act should, nor fo credible that it could, proceed from any perfon of good difpofition or right intention. But of him Jofeph. Anit could not be improbable, who, by his former violences, tiq. xviii. 5. 15. (fuch as upon their complaints did foon after remove him from his charge,) had fo incenfed the Jews, that he Mark xv. fhould not stick to gratify them in a matter that they fo earneftly concerned themselves in, and which in semblance (setting apart confiderations of juftice and honesty, fo little material in fuch a perfon's regard) fo little touched his own intereft; in yielding up fo poor and inconfiderable (in outward fhew) a perfon, however in his own confcience most innocent, as a boon or facrifice to their importunate rage. Such he was; and yet it is obfervable, that he behaved himself, in comparison of the furious Jews, with fome moderation and ingenuity. He was fo fair in examination of the cafe, as, notwithstanding John xix. 6. their eager and clamorous profecution, to difcern the right, and declare our Saviour guiltlefs: he was fo far conftant and true to his confcience, as to expoftulate with the Jews, and once, twice, a third time, to challenge Luke xxiii. them, Why, what evil hath he done? As often did he difAas iii. 13. cover his inclination and readiness (yea, his will and inten 14, &c. tion) to free the innocent perfon; yet had he not the heart or the honefty thoroughly to refift their impor tunity; they were more obftinate in their wicked, than he refolute in his good purpose: fo out of fear to offend them, and favour to oblige them, (thofe ufual corrupters of right judgment,) he yielded to them; fuffering himself bafely to be overborne by their wicked folicitations, facrificing acknowledged innocence to his own private interest and their implacable malice. Thus did this heathen judge behave himself, ferving divine Providence, not only in the public and formal condemnation of our Saviour to the punishment due to us, but in the folemn and serious abfolution of him from all blame in himself; in outward thew he condemned our Saviour; in truth he condemned himfelf (his corrupt judge) and the Jews (his malicious accufers:) though he took away his life, yet he cleared bis reputation, and afforded a teftimony most valid and convincing of his innocence; fuch as was requifite to confute all the Jewish calumnies and afperfions, and to confirm our faith. 2. 6. Luke Farthermore; the name of Pontius Pilate intimates the place of our Saviour's paffion, he being well known to have been governor of Judæa, and to have his tribunal of justice at the mother city thereof, Jerusalem; at Jerufalem, that bloody city, as the Prophet calls it, whofe cha- Ezek. xxii. racter it was to be the killer of the Prophets, and ftoner 2 xxiv. 6. of them that were fent unto her; out of which it was (in a 33,34. manner) impoffible that a prophet should perish; yet the place of all the world moft favoured and graced by God by special benefits and privileges; his own proper feat, Pf. xlviii. 2. (the city of God, the city of the great King, so it is styled,) Ixxxvii. 3. which he had chofen out of all the tribes of Ifrael (out of Deut. xii. 5. all the people upon earth) to put his name (to place his Neh. i. 9. 1 Kings xi. efpecial prefence) there; the holy, the beloved city Efra vi. 12. Rev. xx. 9. there, at his own doors, as it were, before his own facred Matt. iv. 5, palace, where most efpecial refpect and veneration were 27, 53, &c. due to him, was the King of heaven adjudged and executed; by procurement of his own fervants, peculiarly related to him, the chief priests and elders of his chosen people, persons wholly devoted to his fervice, and highly dignified by him, (whose office and efpecial duty it was to maintain truth and encourage righteoufnefs, to procure honour to God and obedience to his commandments :) which as it greatly advances the goodness of him who willingly fuffered there, and by fuch, fo it much aggravates man's ingratitude and iniquity. It follows, crucified; whereby is expreffed the manner and kind of our Saviour's paffion; which was by being affixed to a crofs, (that is, to a kind of gibbet or patibulum,) mainly confifting of two beams, (or pieces of wood;) one erect, to which the length of his body was applied and fastened by nails; the other transverse, to which (his arms being stretched out) his hands were nailed: which kind of fuffering we may briefly confider as moft bitter and painful; as moft ignominious and fhameful; as agreeable and advantageous to the defigns of our Saviour's fuffering; as fignificant and emblematical; as completory of divine predictions and prefignifications; in fine, as inftructive, admonitory of duty, and excitative of devotion, to us. 1. We may eafily imagine what acerbity of pain must be endured in his limbs being ftretched forth, racked, and tentered; and, continuing in that posture, in the piercing his hands and his feet (parts moft exquifitely tender and fenfible) with sharp, hard iron nails; fo that (as it is faid Pfal. cv. 18. of Jofeph) the iron entered into his foul, or his foul Heb. et Sep-entered into iron, in abiding exposed to the injuries of fun tuag. fcorching, wind beating upon, weather fearching his grievous fores and wounds: fuch a pain it was; and that no ftupifying, no tranfient pain, but very acute, and withal lingering: we fee, in the story, he and those that suffered with him had both presence of mind and time to dif course; three long hours and more he continued under fuch torment, sustaining every minute beyond the pangs of an ordinary death. So that well may that in the Lam. i, 12. Lamentations be applied to his fuffering ftate; Behold, and fee if there be any forrow like unto my forrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. Such a kind of fuffering did our Saviour choose to undergo, declaring the excefs of his love, (in being ready to endure the faddeft afflictions and fmarts for us;) fignifying the heinousness of our fins, (deferving fo extreme punishment ;) exemplifying the hardest duties of obedience and patience to us. 2. And as most sharp and afflictive in pain, so most vile Lactant. iv. and shameful was this kind of fuffering. It was fervile P. 436. fupplicium, (quod etiam homine libero, quamvis nocente videatur indignum,) a punishment never by the Romans (under whom our Saviour fuffered) legally inflicted upon freemen, but only upon flaves, (such as were scarce regarded as men, or in life, having forfeited, as it were, made away, or quite loft themselves;) and among the Jews, that punishment which approached nearest, and in part agreed therewith, (for they had no fuch cruel or inhuman kind of punishment appointed by their law,) hanging up the dead bodies of fuch as had been executed, |