destroy him that had the power of death, that "is, the devil.”8 And there was another benefit, consequent to his suffering in our nature, viz. his rising again in it; and thus giving us the fullest certainty of our own resurrection to eternal life. Even while he sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for his Church, and ruling over it, his being man, both makes him a proper person to represent men, and offer up their devotions; and affords us the most sensible assurance of his knowing the wants, and being touched with the necessities of the nature in which he shares. "Wherefore in all things it behoved him (says "the Apostle) to be made like unto his brethren, "that he might be a merciful and faithful high "priest in things pertaining unto God. For, in "that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, "he is able to succour them that are tempted." "Seeing, then, that we have not a high priest, that "cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one, who was in all points tempted, like as we are; we may come boldly "to the throne of grace, in confidence of obtaining mercy, and finding grace to help, in "time of need." And since, lastly, we have a judge appointed us, who hath experienced whereof we are made; we may be in the utmost degree certain, that his judgment will be according to equity; that, on the one hand, all due allowances will be made to us; and, on the other, no undue ones must be expected by us in that day, "When "God will judge the world in righteousness by "that man, whom he hath ordained;"2 and to "whom he hath "given authority to execute 'judgment, because he is the Son of Man."3 66 (8) Heb. ii. 14. (9) Heb. ii. 17, 18. (2) Acts xvii. 31. (1) Heb. iv. 14, 15, 16. (3) John vi. 27. LECTURE IX. Article IV. CREED. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried: he descended into Hell. IMMEDIATELY after the mention of our Saviour's birth, the Creed goes on to the mention of his sufferings; for, indeed, his whole state on earth was a suffering state. By condescending to be “made in the likness of men," he exposed himself to all the necessities, infirmities, and pains, to which men are naturally subject. Besides this, he underwent the many inconveniencies of a low and unsettled condition. And, which was yet much heavier, though his whole life was spent in "doing good," yet was it spent also in bearing troubles and uneasiness from all around him. 2 The prejudices and misapprehensions of his kindred and disciples were no small trial. But the perverseness and malice of his enemies was a great one beyond example. They were no less. persons 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, superstition and wickedness, had rendered implacable against him. Every condescension to win them gained only contempt from them: every endeavour to convince and reform them did but exasperate them they misrepresented and derided-they reviled and threatened-they assaulted and (1) Phil. ii. 7. (2) Acts x. 38. persecuted 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 disciples to betray him into their hands; terrified the rest into forsaking him; and after a most unjust condemnation, followed by a variety of despiteful usage amongst themselves, to obtain the execution of their sentence, they accused him to the Roman power; first as a blasphemer against their law; and, failing in this, then as a rebel against the emperor, Tiberius Cæsar, the most suspicious of men by which last suggestion they forced the governor, though declaring himself to be satisfied 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 sunk under it, with the cross on which he was to suffer. any, This instrument of death consisted, as its name denotes, of two large pieces of wood, crossing each other. On one the arms of the condemned person were stretched out, and his hands nailed; on the other his feet, joined together, were fastened in the same manner and thus he was to hang naked, exposed to heat and cold, till pain and faintness ended his life. The Jews, while they executed their own laws, never crucified till they were first put to death some other way; after which their bodies were sometimes hanged on a tree till the evening. But it seems that only the worst of malefactors were thus treated; who are, therefore, styled in the law of Moses, "ac"cursed."3 The Romans, indeed, and other nations, crucified men alive but usually none besides their slaves; a sort of persons, most of them, far lower than the lowest of servants amongst us. (3) Deut. xxi. 23. 66 was. 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 cross." 4 Now, the torment of hanging thus by nails, that pierced through parts of so acute a feeling as the hands and feet, could not but be exquisite; especially as it was almost always of long duration. And, therefore, this punishment was accounted, in every respect, the severest 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 so soon. He had suffered the whole night before, and all that day, a course of barbarous treatment, sufficient to wear down the strength of a much rougher and robuster make than, probably, his Before this he had felt agonies within, grievous enough to make him "sweat, as it were, great drops of blood." Partly the near view of what he was just going, most undeservedly, to suffer, might thus affect a mind, which, having so much tenderness and sensibility in the case of others, could not be without some proportionable degree of it in his own. And further, the thought, how sadly, 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 still reject the salvation which he came to offer, and how few receive it effectually; what guilt even good persons often contract, and how tremendous will be the final doom of bad ones; these reflections, which naturally would all present themselves to him in the strongest light on this great occasion, could not but cause vehement emotions in his breast, zealous as he was for the glory of God, and the eternal happiness of men. 66 (4) Phil. ii. 7, 8. E (5) Luke xxii. 44. But chiefly beyond comparison, the awful sense, that he was to bear all these innumerable sins of mankind "in his own body on the tree," "being made a curse for us, to redeem us from the "curse of the law,"7 might well produce feelings inexpressible and inconceivable, which, operating much more powerfully than mere bodily tortures, and making "his soul exceeding sorrowful, even "unto death," might so exhaust his strength, by heigthening his sufferings, as to shorten them very considerably. And accordingly we read, that when he had hung on the cross from the sixth hour to the ninth, he cried with a loud voice, in the words of the twenty-second psalm, where David speaks, as a type and representative both of his sufferings and his following glory, "My God, my "God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" not in the feast intending, as David before him did not, to signify a distrust of his love, in whom, at the same time, he claimed an interest as his God; but only to express, that those comforts of the divine presence, which he used to feel, were now, for mysterious reasons, withheld from him in that concluding hour of temptation, which himself so emphatically called "the power of darkness."" Then adding words of the firmest trust, "Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit, he bowed his head, and gave up the Ghost."1 66 Thus did God "fulfil what he before had showed "by the mouth of all his Prophets, that Christ "should suffer." 2 It was intimated in the first prediction, made upon the fall; namely, that the seed of the woman should be bruised.” 193 It was prefigured, both in the sacrifices of the Old Testament, and several remarkable portions of its history. He is mentioned by David, as having (6) 1 Pet. ii. 24. (7) Gal. iii. 13. (8) Matt. xxvi. 38. |