salem, how oft would I, and thou wouldst not: O yet, if in this thy day." Cruelty and unkindness, after good desert, afflict so much more, as our merit hath been greater. Whereabouts? without the gates, in Calvary, among the stinking bones of execrable malefactors. Before, the glory of the place bred shame ; now the vileness of it. When? but in the passover; a time of greatest frequence, and concourse of all Jews and proselytes: an holy time: when they should receive the figure, they reject the substance: when they should kill and eat the sacramental Lamb, in faith, in thankfulness, they kill the Lamb of God, our true passover, in cruelty and contempt. With whom? The quality of our company either increases or lessens shame. "In the midst of thieves," saith one, 66 as the prince of thieves:" there was no guile in his mouth, much less in his hands: yet behold he that thought it no robbery to be equal with God, is made equal to robbers and murderers; yea superior in evil. What suffered he? As all lives are not alike pleasant, so all deaths are not equally fearful. There is not more difference betwixt some life and death, than betwixt one death and another. See the Apostle's gradation: "He was made obedient to the death, even the death of the cross." The cross, a lingering, tormenting, ignominious death. The Jews had four kinds of death for malefactors; the towel, the sword, fire, stones; each of these above other in extremity. Strangling with the towel they accounted easiest: the sword worse than the towel: the fire worse than the sword: stoning worse than the fire: but this Roman death was worst of all. "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Yet, as Jerome well, he is not therefore accursed, because he hangeth; but therefore he hangeth, because he is accursed. "He was made, кarápa, a curse for us.” The curse was more than the shame: yet the shame is unspeakable; and yet not more than the pain. Yet all that die the same death, are not equally miserable: the very thieves fared better in their death than he. I hear of no irrision, no inscription, no taunts, no insultation on them : they had nothing but pain to encounter, he pain and

scorn. An ingenuous and noble nature can worse brook this than the other; any thing rather than disdainfulness and derision: especially from a base enemy. I remember that learned father begins Israel's affliction with Ismael's persecuting laughter. The Jews, the soldiers, yea, the very thieves flouted him, and triumphed over his misery; his blood cannot satisfy them, without his reproach. Which of his senses now was not a window to let in sorrow? His eyes saw the tears of his mother and friends, the unthankful demeanour of mankind, the cruel despight of his enemies ; his ears heard the revilings and blasphemies of the multitude; and, whether the place were noisome to his scent, his touch felt the nails, his taste the gall. Look up, O all ye beholders, look upon this precious body, and see what part ye can find free. That head, which is adored and trembled at by the angelical spirits, is all raked and harrowed with thorns: that face, of whom it is said, "Thou art fairer than the children of men," is all besmeared with the filthy spittle of the Jews, and furrowed with his tears: those eyes, clearer than the sun, are darkened with the shadow of death: those ears that hear the heavenly comforts of angels, now are filled with the cursed speakings and scoffs of wretched men: those lips, that “ spake as never man spake," that command the spirits both of light and darkness, are scornfully wet with vinegar and gall: those feet that trample on all the powers of hell, "his enemies are made his footstool," are now nailed to the footstool of the cross those hands that freely sway the sceptre of the heavens, now carry the reed of reproach, and are nailed to the tree of reproach: that whole body, which was conceived by the Holy Ghost, was all scourged, wounded, mangled: this is the outside of his sufferings. Was his heart free? Oh no: the inner part, or soul of this pain, which was unseen, is as far beyond these outward and sensible, as the soul is beyond the body; God's wrath beyond the malice of men. These were but lovetricks to what his soul endured; O all ye that pass by the way, behold and see, if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow. Alas, Lord, what can we see of thy

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sorrows? we cannot conceive so much as the heinousness and desert of one of those sins which thou barest: we can no more see thy pain than we could undergo it only this we see, that what the infinite sins, of almost infinite men, committed against an infinite Majesty, deserved in infinite continuance; all this thou, in the short time of thy passion, hast sustained. We may behold and see; but all the glorious spirits in heaven cannot look into the depth of this suffering. Do but look yet a little into the passions of this his Passion for, by the manner of his sufferings, we shall best see what he suffered. Wise and resolute men do not complain of a little; holy martyrs have been racked, and would not be loosed: what shall we say if the author of their strength, God and Man, bewray passions? What would have overwhelmed men, would not have made him shrink; and what made him complain, could never have been sustained by men. What shall we then think, if he were affrighted with terrors, perplexed with sorrows, and distracted with both these? And lo, he was all these. For first, here was an amazed fear; for millions of men to despair was not so much as for him to fear: and yet it was no slight fear: he began, idaμßolai, to be astonished with terror, "which in the days of his flesh, offered up prayers and supplications, with strong cries and tears, to him that was able to help him, and was heard in that he feared." Never was man so afraid of the torments of hell, as Christ, standing in our room, of his Father's wrath. Fear is still suitable to apprehension. Never man could so perfectly apprehend this cause of fear; he felt the chastisements of our peace, yea the curse of our sins and therefore might well say with David, "I suffer thy terrors with a troubled mind;" yea with Job, "The arrows of God are in me, and the terrors of God fight against me." With fear, there was a dejecting sorrow, αδημονία, My soul is on all sides heavy to the death:" his strong cries, his many tears, are witnesses of this Passion: he had formerly shed tears of pity, and tears of love; but now of anguish: he had before sent forth cries of mercy; never of complaint

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till now. When the Son of God weeps and cries, what shall we say or think? Yet further, betwixt both these and his love what a conflict was there! It is not amiss distinguished that he was always in agony; but now in ayovia, in a struggling passion of mixed grief. Behold, this field was not without sweat and blood; yea, a sweat of blood. Oh, what man or angel can conceive the taking of that heart, that without all outward violence, merely out of the extremity of his own Passion, bled through the flesh and skin, not some faint dew, but solid drops of blood? No thorns, no nails, fetched blood from him, with so much pain as his own thoughts. He saw the fierce wrath of his Father, and therefore feared: he saw the heavy burden of our sins to be undertaken, and thereupon, besides fear, justly grieved: he saw the necessity of our eternal damnation, if he suffered not; if he did suffer, of our redemption; and therefore his love encountered both grief and fear. In itself, he would not drink of that cup; in respect of our good, and his decree, he would and did; and while he thus striveth, he sweats and bleeds. There was never such a combat, never such a bloodshed, and yet it is not finished. I dare not say with some schoolmen, that the sorrow of his passion was not so great as the sorrow of his compassion: yet that was surely exceeding great. To see the ungracious carelessness of mankind, the slender fruit of his sufferings, the sorrows of his mother, disciples, friends; to foresee, from the watch-tower of his cross, the future temptations of his children, desolations of his church; all these must needs strike deep into a tender heart. These he still sees and pities, but without passion; then he suffered in seeing them.

Can we yet say any more? Lo, all these sufferings are aggravated by his fulness of knowledge, and want of comfort: for, he did not shut his eyes, as one saith, when he drunk this cup: he saw how dreggish, and knew how bitter it was. Sudden evils afflict, if not less, shorter. He foresaw, and foresaid, every particular he should suffer so long as he foresaw, he suffered: the expectation of evil, is not less than the

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sense to look long for good, is a punishment; but for evil, is a torment. No passion works upon an unknown object as no love, so no fear, is of what we know not. Hence men fear not hell, because they foresee it not. If we could see that pit open before we come at it, it would make us tremble at our sins, and our knees to knock together, as Belshazzar's; and perhaps without faith, to run mad at the horror of judgment. He saw the burden of all particular sins to be laid upon him; every dram of his Father's wrath was measured out to him, ere he touched this potion; this cup was full, and he knew that it must be wringed, not a drop left; it must be finished. Oh yet, if as he foresaw all his sorrows, so he could have seen some mixture of refreshing! "But I found none to comfort me, no, none to pity me." And yet it is a poor comfort that arises from pity. Even so, O Lord, thou treadest this wine-press alone; none to accompany, none to assist thee. I remember Ruffinus, in his Ecclesiastical story, reports that one Theodorus, a martyr, told him, that when he was hanging ten hours upon the rack for religion, under Julian's persecution, his joints distended and distorted, his body exquisitely tortured with change of executioners, so as never age, saith he, could remember the like: he felt no pain at all, but continued all the while in the sight of all men singing and smiling: for there stood a comely young man by him on his gibbet, an angel rather in form of a man, which with a clean towel still wiped off his sweat, and poured cool water upon his racked limbs, wherewith he was so refreshed, that it grieved him to be let down. Even the greatest torments are easy, when they have answerable comforts; but a wounded and comfortless spirit, who can bear? If yet but the same messenger of God might have attended his cross, that appeared in his agony; and might have given ease to their Lord, as he did to his servant! And yet, what can the angels help, where God will smite? Against the violence of men, against the fury of Satan, they have prevailed in the cause of God for men: they dare not, they cannot comfort, where God will afflict. When our Saviour had been