Seeing then so great a Prophet could not die but in Jeru salem, seeing the death he was to suffer was not agreeable to the laws and customs of the Jews; it was necessary a Roman governor should condemn him, that so the counsel of the will of God might be fulfilled, by the malice of the one and the customs of the other.

And now the advantage of this circumstance is discovered, every one may express the importance of it in this manner-I am fully persuaded of this truth as beyond all possibility of contradiction, that in the fulness of time God sent his Son, and that the eternal Son of God so sent by him, did suffer for the sins of men, after the fifteenth year of Tiberius the Roman emperor, and before his death, in the time of Pontius Pilate the Cæsarean procurator of Judea; who, to please the nation of the Jews, did condemn him whom he pronounced innocent, and delivered him according to the custom of that empire, and in order to the fulfilling of the prophecies, to die a painful and shameful death upon the cross. And thus I believe in Christ that suffered under Pontius Pilate.

Was Crucified.

FROM the general consideration of our Saviour's passion, we proceed to the most remarkable particular, his crucifixion, standing between his passion, which it concludeth, and his death, which it introduceth. For the explication whereof it will be necessary, first, to prove that the promised Messias was to be crucified, that he who was designed to die for our sins, was to suffer upon the cross; secondly, to show that our Jesus whom we worship was certainly and truly crucified, and did suffer, whatsoever was so foretold, upon the cross; thirdly, to discover what is the nature of crucifixion, what peculiarities of suffering are contained in dying on the cross.

That the Messias was to be crucified, appeareth both by types which did apparently foreshow it, and by prophecies which did plainly foretell it. For though all those representations and predictions which the forward zeal of some ancient fathers gathered out of the law and the prophets cannot be said to signify so much, yet in

many types was the crucifixion of Christ represented, and by some prophecies foretold. This was the true and unremoveable stumbling-block to the Jews, nor could they ever be brought to confess the Messias should die that death upon a tree to which the curse of the law belonged; and yet we need no other oracles than such as were committed to those Jews, to prove that Christ was so to suffer.

A clearer type can scarcely be conceived of the Saviour of the world, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, than Isaac was; nor can God the Father, who gave his only-begotten Son, be better expressed than by that patriarch in his readiness to sacrifice his Son, "his only son Isaac, whom he loved." Now when that grand act of obedience was to be performed, we find Isaac walking to the mountain of Moriah with the wood on his shoulders, and saying, "Here is the wood, but where is the sacrifice?" while in the command of God, and the intention and resolution of Abraham, Isaac is the sacrifice who bears the wood. And the Christ, who was to be the most perfect sacrifice, the person in whom all nations were perfectly to be blessed, could die no other death in which the wood was to be carried; and seeing to die upon the cross, was, by the formal custom used in that kind of death, certainly to carry it. Therefore Isaac bearing the wood did presignify Christ bearing the cross.

When the fiery serpents bit the Israelites, and much people died, Moses, by the command of God, "made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole; and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived," Numb. xxi. 9. Now if there were no more express promise of the Messias than the seed of the woman, which should bruise the serpent's head; if he were to perform that promise by the virtue of his death; if no death could be so perfectly represented by the hanging on the pole as that of crucifixion; then was that manifestly foretold which Christ himself informed Nicodemus, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up," John iii. 14.

The paschal lamb did plainly typify that Lamb of God

that taketh away the sins of the world; and the preparing of it did not only represent the cross, but the command or ordinance of the passover did foretell as much. For while it is said, "Ye shall not break a bone thereof," Exod. xii. 46; it was thereby intimated, that the Saviour of the world should suffer that death to which the breaking of the bones belonged, (and that, according to the constant custom, was the punishment of crucifixion) but only in that death should by the providence of God be so particularly preserved, as that not one bone of his should be touched. And thus the crucifixion of the Messias in several types was represented.

Nor was it only thus prefigured and involved in these typical resemblances, but also clearly spoken by the prophets in their particular and express predictions. Nor shall we need the accession of any lost or additional prophetical expressions, which some of the ancients have made use of: those which are still preserved even among the Jews, will yield this truth sufficient testimonies.

When God foretells by the Prophet Zachary, what he should suffer from the sons of men, he says expressly, "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced," Zech. xii. 10; and therefore shows that he speaks of the Son of God, who was to be the Son of Man, and by our nature liable to vulneration; and withal foretells the piercing of his body: which being added to that prediction in the psalms, "They pierced my hands and my feet," clearly representeth and foretelleth to us the death upon the cross, to which the hands and feet of the person crucified were affixed with nails. And because these prophecies appeared so particular and clear, and were so properly applied by that disciple whom our Saviour loved, and to whom he made a singular application even upon cross; therefore the Jews have used more than ordinary industry and artifice to elude these two predictions, but in vain. For these two prophets, David and Zachary, manifestly did foretell the particular punishment of crucifixion.

the

It was therefore sufficiently adumbrated by types, and promulgated by prophecies, that the promised Messias was to be crucified. And it is as certain that our Jesus, the Christ whom we worship, and from whom we receive

that honor to be named Christians, was really and truly crucified. It was first the wicked design of Judas, who betrayed him to that death; it was the malicious cry of the obdurate Jews, " Crucify him, crucify him." He was actually condemned and delivered to that death by Pilate, "who gave sentence that it should be as they required." He was given into the hands of the soldiers, the instruments commonly used in inflicting that punishment, who "led him away to crucify him."

He underwent those previous pains which customarily antecede that suffering, as flagellation, and bearing of the cross; for "Pilate, when he had scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified; and he bearing his cross went forth into Golgotha." They carried him forth out of the city, as by custom in that kind of death they were wont to do; and there between two malefactors, usually by the Romans condemned to that punishment, they crucified him. And that he was truly fastened to the cross, appears by the satisfaction given to doubting Thomas, who said, "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, I will not believe;" and our Saviour said unto him, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands," John xx. 25; whereby he satisfied the apostle, that he was the Christ; and us, that the Christ was truly crucified; against that fond heresy, which made Simon the Cyrenean not only bear the cross, but endure crucifixion, for our Saviour. We therefore infer this second conclusion from the undoubted testimonies of his followers, and unfeigned confessions of his enemies, that our Jesus was certainly and truly crucified, and did really undergo those sufferings, which were pretypified and foretold, upon the cross.

Being thus fully assured that the Messias was to be, and that our Christ was truly crucified, it, thirdly, concerns us to understand what was the nature of crucifixion, what the particularities of suffering which he endured on the cross. Nor is this now so easily understood as once it was; for being a Roman punishment, it was continued in that empire while it remained heathen; but when the emperors themselves received Christianity, and the towering eagles resigned the flags unto the

cross, this punishment was forbidden by the supreme authority, out of a due respect and pious honor to the death of Christ. From whence it came to pass, that since it hath been disused universally for so many hundred years, it hath not been so rightly conceived as it was before, when the general practice of the world did so frequently represent it to the Christian's eyes. Indeed if the word which is used to denote that punishment did sufficiently represent or express it, it were enough to say that Christ was crucified: but seeing the most usual or original word doth not of itself declare the figure of the tree, or manner of the suffering; it will be necessary to represent it by such expressions as we find partly in the evangelical relations, partly in such representations as are left us in those authors whose eyes were daily witnesses of such

executions.

The form then of the cross on which our Saviour suffered was not a simple, but a compounded, figure, according to the custom of the Romans, by whose procurator he was condemned to die. In which there was not only a straight and erected piece of wood fixed in the earth, but also a transverse beam fastened unto that towards the top thereof: and beside these two cutting each other transversely at right angles (so that the erected part extended itself above the transverse), there was also another piece of wood infixed into, and standing out from, that which was erected and straight up. To that erected piece was his body, being lifted up, applied, as Moses's serpent to the pole; and to the transverse beam his hands were nailed: upon the lower part coming out from the erected piece his sacred body rested, and his feet were transfixed and fastened with nails: his head, being pressed with a crown of thorns, was applied to that part of the erect which stood above the transverse beam; and above his head, to that was fastened the table on which was written, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin characters, the accusation, according to the Roman custom; and the writing was, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

Thus by the propriety of the punishment, and the titular inscription, we know what crime was then objected Div. No. XIV.

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