Chapter XI
The last sufferings of Christ coming to his death. Both the shame and
torments are to be considered in them.
We have seen our Lord Christ a man of sorrows and sufferings through the whole course of his life ; we have seen him betrayed, apprehended, seized on as a criminal, and brought to examination and judgment ; and all
these were the fruits of his being made sin and a curse. Now the next part and conclusion of the curse, unto which all the other tend, as so many small
rivulets into the ocean, is death ; and that, & 1. Natural, of the body: To dust thoushalt return, Gen. iii. 19, which
phrase notes out the separation of soul and body. So Eccles. xii. 7, it is
* Dust returns to the earth, and the soul to God that gave it.
expounded,
2, Death spiritual, of the soul: Thou shalt die the death, Gen. ii. 17, which words intimate a double death, even another death besides that of
the body, and beyond it. Now, 1. I shall shew how Christ was made a curse in his enduring a bodily death ; the circumstances whereof do all of them yet add unto the curse
thereof. You see that death in itself (whether natural or violent) is by God s first sentence on Adam made a curse for sin. And thus is the death
of every man who dies not in the Lord. But yet further, whereas there was but one particular kind of death that was in a more eminent manner, of all deaths else, the most accursed and that was hanging upon a tree even that did Christ undergo, so that to be sure he might bear the ex
tremity of the curse herein. And that kind of death was not accursed by God s law and doom only, but was also esteemed to be a curse among the
Gentiles. Thus it was among the Romans, who, when they would curse
any man unto whom they owed ill will, they expressed it by this, Abi in malam crucem; that is, I would thou wert crucified, or Mayest thou die the death of the tree. Equivalent to which is that way of cursing taken up by
ill tongues among us, when they say, Go and be hanged, &c. In that his last suffering the death of the cross (which was the epitome of all), two things are eminently to be considered by us :
(1.) The shame of that death, and the circumstances of it.
(2.) The pains of those sufferings, and the death itself, which is the
separation of soul and body, and the conclusion of all. And unto these may the chief of those his sufferings, either preparatory unto, or at his
death, be reduced. The apostle, in Heb. xii. 2, draws them to these two heads :
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[1.] Enduring the cross, which includes both the pains of his suffering, and death itself.
[2.] The shame that accompanied it, in those words, despising the shame. And Christ himself, particularly summing up all that was to|be done to him, and that was foretold of him by the prophets (as he says), Luke xviii. 31,
* Behold we go to Jerusalem, and all things that are written
by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. The main particulars of which, all, he after mentions : ver. 32, 33, he expresseth
* The Son of man shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on ; and they shall
it in these words,
scourge him, and put him to death; which particulars, if you will reduce them to heads, do fall into these two :
1. The shame, expressed in three particulars: (1.) Mocked. (2.) Spite
fully entreated. (3.) Spitted on.
2. The pains, laid down in two things : (1.) Their scourging him. (2.) Their killing him.
And accordingly we find two especial epithets of excellency mentioned of
Christ, when his sufferings are mentioned by the apostles, on purpose to
aggravate those sufferings from the worth of the person that underwent them : the first, that they killed the Prince of life : so says Peter, Acts
* they crucified the Lord of glory: so Paul, 1 Cor.
iii. 15 ; the other, that
ii. 18 ; the first serving to illustrate his dying, that they should kill the Prince of life ; the second, the shame of his death, that they should crucify the Lord of glory the apostle mentioning his glory, together with his
crucifying, so to set out the shame of that death above all other, and also as an evil to be considered in his death, as great as death itself, and greater. And accordingly in respect of death he is called the Lamb slain, Rev.
xiii. 8, and in respect of shame he is called a worm and no man, Ps. xxii.
6, being trodden on by all men, and his life of so poor a value with them, that
they made no more of it to kill him than to tread a worm to death, which
to do no man hath the least regret. And accordingly also, Heb. vi. 6, the sin
of apostates from Christ is set out by their doing (so far as in them lies) that unto Christ, which the Jews, that put him to death, did to him at his
: 1 . That * they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh ; secondly, that they put him to an
crucifying. It is set out by these two things
open shame. And so I reckon this of shame with the curse of his death, because they are thus linked together by the apostles ; and also because
indeed, in all death, shame is a part of the curse (and therefore it is said, the body is sown in dishonour, 1 Cor. xv. 43) ; but especially in Christ s
death, for it was more than dying, the kind of death being the shame-
fullest. And though shame be not mentioned in the words of the curse of our first parents, yet the first fruit, and so the first appearance of the curse
* they were
(that we read of) even in them, was shame and fear ; it is said,
ashamed, &c. And so I come, 1. To the shame of this death. It is a great question, whether shame
or death be the greater evil. There have been those who have rather chosen death, and have wiped off a dishonour with their blood. So Saul slew himself rather than he would fall into the hands of the Philistines, who would have insulted over him, and mocked him as they did Samson. So that king, Jer. xxxviii. 19, rather chose to lose his country, life, and
all, than to be given to the Jews, his subjects, to be mocked of them. And we see that many malefactors that are to be condemned to die, and though, dying as malefactors, any sort of death hath shame in it, yet to avoid a
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degree of shame in death, they out of the greatness of their spirits choose a death that is much more painful, as to be pressed to death, rather than
this same hanging on a tree, which unto this day is, in men s esteem, of all
deaths else, the most ignoble and ignominious. Yea, confusion of face is one of the greatest miseries that hell itself is set forth unto us by. There
is nothing that a noble nature more abhors than shame ; for honour is a
spark of God s image ; and the more of God s image there is in any one, the more is shame abhorred by him, which is the debasing of it ; and so the
greater and more noble any one s spirit, the more he avoids it. To a base, low spirit, indeed, shame is nothing ; but to a great spirit (as to David), than to have his
* glory turned into shame, as Ps. iv. 2, is nothing more
grievous. And the greater glory any one loseth, the greater is his shame. What must it be then to Christ, who because he was to satisfy God in point of honour debased by man s sin, therefore of all punishments else he suf
fered most of shame ; it being also (as was said) one of the greatest punish ments in hell. And Christ, as he assumed other infirmities of our nature, that made him passible in other things as to be sensible of hunger, want
of sleep, bodily torments, of unkindnesses, contempt so likewise of dis
grace and shame. He took that infirmity as well as fear ; and though he had a strength to bear and despise it (as the author to the Hebrews speaks), yet none was ever more sensible of it. As the delicacy of the temper of his
body made him more sensible of pains than ever any man was, so the great ness of his spirit made him more apprehensive of the evil of shame than ever
any was. So likewise the infinite love and candour of his spirit towards mankind made him take in with answerable grief the unkindnesses and
injuries which they heaped upon him. And if to be abhorrent of shame be a spark of God s image, so as where more of that image or of glory is in
any one, the more abhorrent he is of shame ; yea, if even those in hell are confounded with it (they there still retaining so much of God s image in
them), then what must so much shame and contempt be unto Christ, who was and is the brightness of his Father s glory, and the express image of
his person ? Heb. i. 3. Such an image of him as no mere creature is
capable to be ; all which he considered and took in, well knowing what and who he was, and this before his sufferings. So John xiii. 3, and also when he was both at Pilate s and at the high priest s bar. As therefore the
highest lights have the deepest shadows, so all his glory being turned into shame, it made his shame the deeper and the greater. Now if we go over all the particulars of this his shame, never was any shame like unto it. There was nothing but shame, and that the utmost that could be, in all the passages of his sufferings.
This shame I shall set forth to you by these two generals (which will con
tain several particulars under them) :
1. Their mocking and spiteful entreating of him.
2. Other circumstances, that, through God s providence, were ordered to accompany his misusage and death, that served to heighten the shamefulness of them.
1. For their cruel mocking and shameful usage of him, the very words
that Christ, in Luke xviii. 32, expresseth it in the general by, are very em-
phatical. The one s^Trai^^ffirat, which we translate, He shall be mocked, in the derivation of it, signifies to make a child of one. Theylnade a child or fool of him by their actions and dealings with him. Like unto which is the word that is used of Herod s mocking of him, Luke xxiii. 11, he made no body, or nothing of him. The other word,
CHAP. XI.] OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 265
principally respecteth contumelious speeches, and injurious despiteful railing at ; u|3g/$, noting out the highest kind of injury, and that done out of a
despite. It is the same word whereby the sin against the Holy Ghost is
expressed, Heb. x. 29, and is there translated doing despite. Now for him whose name is / am, to whom all beings are but shadows, for him to
* Everlasting Father and the wis dom of God, for him, I say, to be made a child of, what an intolerable shame is this ! Died Abner as a fool dies / said David of him. Truly through their usage of him Christ died no otherwise.
be made nothing of, for him who is the
But I rather come to those several particular ways wherein they express their extreme contempt and despiteful Blockage of him ; as,
(1.) Their putting several apparels upon him in derision; one while
arraying of him in purple, another while in white, then shifting him into
his own clothes again, thus making him ridiculous to all that saw him. Unmeetness and unsuitableness of apparel is matter of shame. Jehoshua
the high priest appeared in filthy apparel, Zech. iii. 3, and so Christ our
high priest, being clothed with all our sins. For one to be led about in
a fool s coat, what a shame is it ! Yet thus was he served.
(2.) Their using jeering and mocking gestures. Because he had said he was a king, they therefore make a May-game king of him ; and,
[1.] They crown him with a crown of thorns.
[2>] They put a reed in his hand for a sceptre, (though his sceptre was a
sceptre of righteousness, Heb. i. 8), to shew how powerless and weak a
king he was, who had a kingdom and sceptre as easily broken as a reed. And therefore, to demonstrate his weakness the more in respect of any such
kingdom as he assumed a title unto, they strike him with his own sceptre, which is to a king the same disgrace, and much more ignominious, as for an
able scholar to have his own argument retorted on him to his own confuting and confusion ; as for a valiant man to have his weapon taken from him, and with it to be beaten.
[3.] They hoodwink and blindfold him, and hide his face. Now cover
ing the face is a gesture of shame ; Jer. xiv. 3, it is said, They were ashamed and covered their heads. Then they smite him, and when they have done it, they in scorn ask him, Who smote him ? because he took on him to be a prophet.
[4.J They smite him both with their hands and with their rods : both are mentioned. And majus dedecus est manu feriri quam yladio ; no noble spirit can brook a box on the ear, or buffet, but takes it in more disgrace than a wound honourably given. And therefore Micaiah, you know, was smitten on the cheek by the lying prophet, as a token of disdain ; for to smite with the hand or fist argues subjection in the party smitten. :.
[5.] They in mockery kneel to him, and salute him as they did their
Caesar, Hail, king of the Jews. To him whom all the angels (when a
child) did worship Let all the angels of God worship him, Heb. i. 6
to whom every knee shall bow, both that is in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth ; to him do they in scorn bow the knee, and then as flout
ingly salute him with an All hail, king, &c. The greater reverence is
given in a disgraceful way, the greater the disgrace is ; for shame is glory turned into inglory or shame.
[6.] They spit on him ; and it was not one or two of them that did this, but many, as it is said. Now this is the greatest indignity that may be.
* shall
If a father spit in his daughter s face (who yet is an inferior to him),
she not be shut up? (says God, Num. xii. 14), in that he hath disgraced
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her. And Isa. 1. 6, Christ is brought in, saying, I hid not my face from shame and spitting upon ; they are both linked together. The face is the
noblest of the exterior parts of man, as in which God s image doth shine
forth, and is therefore called the glory of God, 1 Cor. xi. 7. Now there
fore for it to have an excrement, with which men will not defile a clean room
they tread on, cast upon it, what a disgrace, is it ? And if so, how much
more, then, for that face to be spitted upon, in which the light of the glory of God shines far more immediately and more plentifully, 2 Cor. iv. 6. And how disgraces of this nature must needs work upon a spirit so high and
so full of glory as his was, we may see (and yet but a glimpse of it neither) by the heart of that king (one of our own), who, being deposed, and by night removed, was in his journey shaved, to the end he might not be known, and
set upon a mole-hill instead of a chair of state, and washed with puddlewater, in the midst of which he burst out into this pathetical speech, I will
yet have clean water to be washed with ; and forthwith he shed many tears, which in rivulets distilled down his princely cheeks, and cleansed them from that filth wherewith the puddle -water had sullied and besmeared them. What heart would it not affect to read this story of a king ? And how much more did it affect his own heart ? And yet what was he to Christ, who in
the midst of all their misusage of him knew well what a kingdom he was born unto ! as himself told Pilate.
[7.] They unbare him and make him naked, and then whip him ; and both these to his shame. Nakedness, you know, is shameful ; and, there
fore, our first parents, when they were naked, were ashamed. And then for
whipping, it was a punishment inflicted upon none but slaves and villains, never upon a free-born Roman. Therefore how afraid were the whippers of Paul when they heard that he was a Roman. And mastiffia (or one that
is subject to whipping), and a base villain, are all one. Now the reason why they might whip Christ was, that he had taken upon him the form of a servant ; and so they whipped him, as we use to do runaways, which Peter
alludes to, speaking to servants, and setting before them Christ s example, We like sheep had gone astray, and by his stripes were we healed, 1 Peter ii. 24, 25.
[8.] They mock him and abuse him by giving him gall before, and
vinegar after he was upon the cross, to quench his thirst with. Which
therefore Christ is brought in mentioning, as being sensible of the scorn of
it, Ps. Ixix. 21 (which psalm is a psalm of Christ).
[9.] They wag their heads at him when on the cross, and gape with their mouths ; which is, first, a gesture of despising
: so, Isa. xxxvii. 22, it is
said of Sennacherib, that Zion had despised him and shaken her head at him. Secondly, it is a gesture of detestation. So, Jer. xviii. 16, it is said
of Israel, that every one that passeth by her shall be astonished and wag his head at her. Thirdly, it is a gesture of scorn. So, Lam. ii. 15,
it is said, they hiss and wag their heads (at Jerusalem), and say, Is
this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, and joy of the whole
earth ?
[10.] They mock and jeer him by the most contumelious words that
cpuld be u/3gflfqftra/, He shall be opprobriously reviled, Luke xviii. 32
yea, they blasphemed him. First, In all his offices : as, first, prophetical ; they blindfold him, and smite him, and then bid him prophesy who it was that smote him. Christ will one day tell him that did it who it was.
Second, priestly ; he saved others (say they), let him save himself. Why, he was even then a-saving others by bearing their misusage ; he was then
CHAP. XI.] OF CHEIST THE MEDIATOR. 267
a-doing that for which they mocked him. Third, kingly ; If, say they,
< thou be the king of Israel, then come down, &c. Thus they mock all
his offices. So,
Secondly, His person, and his being the Son of God ; He trusted in God (say they), and said he was the Son of God ; let God now save him
if he will have him. And (which is strange) in these and the like speeches
they use the very same words that in Psalm xxii. were foretold should be
used by them when he should be crucified. V. For these words of theirs you have there recorded, ver. 8 ; so that, as Paul afterward told them, they
fulfilled the prophecies, whilst they ridiculed him. Yea,
Thirdly (Which is an inhumanity unheard of before or since), They mock
at his very prayers, which he makes out of the deepest bitterness of spirit that ever creature spake out of, and which were full of the saddest com
plaints that could be uttered, when he cried out most bitterly, Eli, Eli, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? They put it off, and turn it
into a scoff, as if they understood it not : He calls for Elias, say they in
scorn ; as if he had prayed unto a creature, unto Elias, instead of the living God : and let us see, say they, if Elias will come and help him. In Heb. xi., among other persecutions of the martyrs, cruel mockings are mentioned as none of the least, reproaches being to the soul (as the
psalmist expresseth it, Ps. Ixiv. 4) as the pricking of a sword. Now was
there ever such cruel mockings as these heard of? Christ complains in
* They persecute him whom thou
Ps. Ixix. 26 (for it is a psalm of him),
hast smitten. When God had smitten him, and he in bitterness cried,
Eli, Eli, My God, my God, they turn it to Elias. Take the most hateful
malefactor that ever was, one that hath been the most flagitious traitor to
his prince and country that ever pestered the earth, and so had rendered
himself most abominable and odious to all mankind ; yet, let him come to
die for it, and though the rage and fury of men make them not to compas sionate his tortures, as being far less than his desert, yet still for his soul, as it stands in relation to God, they wish well to it, and that it may be
saved ; their malice rageth not to jeer at the prayers he makes for the
salvation thereof. Nay, men are even ready to afford comfort and help
unto, and to further such a man s faith, and to join in prayers with, and for
him. But these Jews scoff at Christ s very prayers. They speak what
they are able to make him despair. If ever the devil was abroad, and the
malice of hell in the hearts of men, it was at that day. In the second place, add unto all these misusages those circumstances
that accompanied both his death and mockings, to heighten his shame the more. God contrived all things so to fall out as to make his shame above measure shameful, as our sin had been above measure sinful ; he heaped shame upon shame upon him.
The first circumstance here observable is that of time. All this was done
to him at the most public time that could be chosen out ; even at the pass-
over, when all the males came up to Jerusalem, and many strangers with
them, to celebrate that feast a concourse like our commencement at our
universities, or like the most general assembly you can imagine.
Second is, the circumstance of place. Which, 1. For the publicness of it, was at Jerusalem, the head city of Jewry, a
stage the most eminent upon which to be made a spectacle to men and
angels. Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem (said two of his disciples unto himself),
* and hast not known these things ? Luke xxiv. 18. * These
things were not done in a corner (as his disciples said). And when God
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would shame David, he cast in this circumstance to aggravate it ; Thou
(says God) didst it secretly, but I will punish it before this sun.
2. (More specially and restrictly) For the infamousness of the place ; he was crucified at Golgotha, a place of skulls, as ignominious as our Tyburn. The place had a reproach in it: therefore, Heb. xiii. 13, Jesus suffered without the gate, says the apostle ;
* let us therefore go forth to him without
the camp, bearing his reproach) namely, of suffering in such a place. It shewed he was an outcast, rejected of men, and as dung cast out.
3. For the persons that mocked him, they were persons of all sorts ;
kings and rulers, Herod and the elders, the priests and soldiers, together with the multitude of common people that followed him, and that passed by occasionally, yea, the very thieves themselves that were crucified with him. Now the baseness of the persons that contemn one doth add to the
contempt. Therefore you shall find Job complaining, Job xxx. 1-10, that
those that were younger than he, and whose fathers he would have disdained
to set with the dogs of his flock, did mock him : they are (says he, ver. 8,
9) the children of villains, more vile than the earth they tread on, and now
* Reproach (says Christ in one of the psalms made of him)
I am their song, yea, their by-word, &c.
* hath broken my heart, Ps. Ixix. 20.
4. The death itself was also the most shameful ; even the death of the
cross ; which for his disciples to preach and profess, had in the eyes of all
the world a shame in it. Therefore Paul, Gal. v. 11, calls it the offence
or scandal of the cross. And if that were a shame, to profess a crucified
God, what a shame was it then for God himself to suffer such a death. The cross was so shameful, that therefore none of all the meanest and
basest of the people could be procured so much as to carry it ; so that they were fain to compel Simon of Gyrene unto it. And it was the custom ever
after to call such as carried a malefactor s cross, Crucigeri, as a brand of
disgrace. And for himself to carry it (as he did), was such an addition of
ignominy unto his death, as for a malefactor to go all the way to the gallows with a rope about his neck.
5. All this was aggravated also by the persons that suffered with him, and their saving one of their lives before his. A comparative contempt is more than a simple one. As,
(1.) That he should be crucified between two thieves, as if he were the
prince of them. It is made an heightening circumstance of his shameful death (in Isa. liii. 12), that he was numbered amongst the transgressors. Then,
(2.) (Yet further) That Barabbas, the most infamous thief, seditious
person and murderer that was in that nation (and so a proclaimed enemy unto that state), should be voted to live by the common voice of all the
people, and this when with the same breath they cry, Let Jesus be crucified, let him be crucified. Pilate put them upon choosing one of these two, and set Jesus in the comparison with Barabbas, on purpose to get Jesus
saved, not thinking they would be so shameless as to prefer him to Christ, who was a murderer as well as a thief, and one that had made himself odious unto them all, and whom by their law they were not to pardon or
suffer to live. Yet they are content to bring both the blood he had shed
(by sparing him), and Christ s also, upon their heads, by crucifying him, rather than to deliver him that was innocent. Thus much for the shame of his death and sufferings.
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