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on those who need it, perhaps, less than ourselves. Even now, O Saviour, when thou wert within the view of thy Calvary, thou canst foresee and pity the vastation of thy Jerusalem, and givest a sad prophecy of the imminent destruction of that city which lately had cost thee tears, and now shall cost thee blood. It is not all the indign cruelty of men that can rob thee of thy mercy.

Jerusalem could not want malefactors, though Barabbas was dismissed. That all this execution might seem to be done out of the zeal of justice, two capital offenders, adjudged to their gibbet, shall accompany thee, O Saviour, both to thy death and in it. They are led manacled after thee, as less criminous: no stripes had disabled them from bearing their own crosses. Long ago was this unmeet society foretold by thine evangelical seer, "He was taken from prison and from judgment; he was cut out of the land of the living; he made his grave with the wicked." O blessed Jesu, it had been disparagement enough to thee to be sorted with the best of men, since there is much sin in the perfectest, and there could be no sin in thee; but to be matched with the scum of mankind, whom vengeance would not to let live, is such an indignity as confounds my thoughts. Surely there is no angel in heaven, but would have been proud to attend thee; and what could the earth afford worthy of thy train? yet malice hath suited thee with company next to hell; that their viciousness might reflect upon thee, and their sin might stain thine innocence. Ye are deceived, O ye fond Judges: this is the way to grace your dying malefactors; this is not the way to disgrace him whose guiltlessness and perfection triumphed over your injustice: his presence was able to make your thieves happy their presence could no more blemish him than your own. Thus guarded, thus attended, thus accompanied art thou, blessed Jesu, led to that loathsome and infamous bill, which now thy last blood shall make sacred: now thou settest thy foot upon that rising ground which shall prevent thine Olivet, whence thy soul shall first ascend into thy glory.

There, while thou art addressing thyself for thy last act, thou art presented with that bitter and farewel-potion wherewith dying malefactors were wont to have their senses stupified, that they might not feel the torments of their execution. It was but the common mercy of men to alleviate the death

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of offenders: since the intent of their last doom is not so much pain as dissolution.

That draught, O Saviour, was not more welcome to the guilty than hateful unto thee. In the vigour of all thine inward and outward senses, thou wouldst encounter the most violent assaults of death, and scornedst to abate the least touch of thy quickest apprehension. Thou well knewst that the work thou wentst about would require the use of all thy powers; it was not thine ease that thou soughtst, but our redemption; neither meantst thou to yield to the last enemy, but to resist and to overcome him: which that thou mightst do the more gloriously, thou challengedst him to do his worst; and, in the mean time, wouldst not disfurnish thyself of any of thy powerful faculties. This greatest combat that ever was shall be fought on even hand; neither wouldst thou steal that victory which thou now achievedst over death and hell. Thou didst but touch at this cup; it is a far bitterer than this, that thou art now drinking up to the dregs. Thou refusedst that which was offered thee by men, but that which was mixed by thine eternal Father, though mere gall and wormwood, thou didst drink up to the last drop. And therein, O blessed Jesu, lies all our health and salvation. I know not, whether I do more suffer in thy pain, or joy in the issue of thy suffering.

Now, even now, O Saviour, art thou entering into those dreadful lists, and now art thou grappling with thy last enemy; as if thou hadst not suffered till now, thy bloody passion begins: a cruel expoliation begins that violence. Again do these grim and merciless soldiers lay their rude hands upon thee, and strip thee naked; again are those bleeding weals laid open to all eyes; again must thy sacred body undergo the shame of an abhorred nakedness. Lo, thou that clothest man with raiment, beasts with hides, fishes with scales and shells, earth with flowers, heaven with stars, art despoiled of clothes, and standst exposed to the scorn of all beholders. As the first Adam entered into his Paradise, so dost thou, the second Adam, into thine, naked; and as the first Adam was clothed with innocence when he had no clothes, so wert thou (the second) too; and more than so; thy nakedness, O Saviour, clothes our souls, not with innocence only, but with beauty. Hadst not thou been naked, we had been clothed with confusion. O happy nakedness,

whereby we are covered from shame! O happy shame, whereby we are invested with glory! All the beholders stand wrapped with warm garments; thou art stripped to tread the wine-press alone. How did thy blessed mother now wish her veil upon thy shoulders! and that disciple, who lately ran from thee naked, wished in vain that his loving pity might do that for thee, which fear forced him to for himself.

Shame is succeeded with pain. O the torment of the cross! Methinks I see and feel, how, having fastened the transverse to the body of that fatal tree, and laid it upon the ground, they racked and strained thy tender and sacred limbs, to fit the extent of their fore-appointed measure; and having tendered out thine arms beyond their natural reach, how they fastened them with cords, till those strong iron nails, which were driven up to the head through the palms of thy blessed hands, had not more firmly than painfully fixed thee to the gibbet. The tree is raised up, and now, not without a vehement concussion, settled in the mortise. Woe is me, how are thy joints and sinews torn, and stretched till they crack again, by this torturing distention! how doth thine own weight torment thee, while thy whole body rests upon this forced and dolorous hold, till thy nailed feet bear their part in a no less afflictive supportation! How did the rough iron pierce thy soul, while passing through those tender and sensible parts, it carried thy flesh before it, and as it were rivetted it to that shameful tree!

There now, O dear Jesu, there thou hangest between heaven and earth, naked, bleeding, forlorn, despicable, the spectacle of miseries, the scorn of men. Be abased, O ye heavens and earth, and all ye creatures wrap up yourselves in horror and confusion, to see the shame and pain and curse of your most pure and omnipotent Creator. How could ye subsist, while he thus suffers in whom ye are? O Saviour, didst thou take flesh for our redemption, to be thus indignly used, thus mangled, thus tortured? Was this measure fit to be offered to that sacred body, that was conceived by the Holy Ghost, of the pure substance of an immaculate virgin? Woe is me, that which was unspotted with sin is all blemished with human cruelty, and so woefully disfigured, that the blessed mother that bore thee could not now have known thee; so bloody were thy temples, so swoln and discoloured was thy face, so was the skin of thy whole body streaked with red

and blue stripes, so did thy thorny diadem shade thine heavenly countenance, so did the streams of thy blood cover and deform all thy parts! The eye of sense could not distinguish thee, O dear Saviour, in the nearest proximity to thy cross: the eye of faith sees thee in all this distance; and by how much more ignominy, deformity, pain, it finds in thee, so much more it admires the glory of thy mercy. Alas! is this the head that is decked by thine eternal Father with a crown of pure gold, of immortal and incomprehensible majesty, which is now bushed with thorns? Is this the eye that saw the heavens opened, and the Holy Ghost descending upon that head, that saw such resplendence of heavenly brightness on mount Tabor, which now begins to be over-clouded with death? Are these the ears that heard the voice of thy Father owning thee out of heaven, which now tingle with buffettings, and glow with reproaches, and bleed with thorns? Are these the lips that "spake as never man spake, full of grace and power," that called out dead Lazarus, that ejected the stubbornest devils, that commanded the cure of all diseases, which now are swoln with blows, and discoloured with blueness and blood? Is this the face that should be "fairer than the sons of men," which the angels of heaven so desired to see, and can never be satisfied with seeing, that is thus foul with the nasty mixtures of sweat and blood, and spittings on? Are these the hands that "stretched out the heavens as a curtain," that by their touch healed the lame, the deaf, the blind, which are now bleeding with the nails? Are these the feet which walked lately upon the liquid pavement of the sea, before whose footstool all the nations of the earth are bidden to worship, that are now so painfully fixed to the cross? O cruel and unthankful mankind, that offered such measure to the Lord of life! O infinitely merciful Saviour, that wouldst suffer all this for unthankful mankind! That fiends should do these things, to guilty souls, it is (though terrible, yet) just; but that men should do thus to the blessed Son of God, it is beyond the capacity of our horror.

Even the most hostile dispositions have been only content to kill; death hath sated the most eager malice: thine enemies, O Saviour, held not themselves satisfied, unless they might enjoy thy torment. Two thieves are appointed to be thy companions in death; thou art designed to the midst, as the chief malefactor: on whether hand soever thou lookest,

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thine eye meets with an hateful partner. But, O blessed Jesu, how shali I enough admire and celebrate thy infinite mercy, who madest so happy an use of this Jewish despite, as to improve it to the occasion of the salvation of one, and the comfort of millions? Is not this, as the last, so the greatest speciality of thy wonderful compassion, to convert that dying thief? with those nailed hands to snatch a soul out of the mouth of hell? Lord, how I bless thee for this work! how do I stand amazed at this, above all other the demonstrations of thy goodness and power! The offender came to die: nothing was in his thoughts but his guilt and torment; while he was yet in his blood, thou saidst, This soul shall live. Ere yet the intoxicating potion could have time to work upon his brain, thy Spirit infuses faith into his heart. He, that before had nothing in his eye but present death and torture, is now lifted up above his cross in a blessed ambition; "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Is this the voice of a thief, or of a disciple? Give me leave, O Saviour, to borrow thine own words; "Verily I have not found so great faith, no not in all Israel." He saw thee hanging miserably by him, and yet styles thee Lord; he saw thee dying, yet talks of thy kingdom; he felt himself dying, yet talks of a future remembrance. O faith stronger than death, that can look beyond the cross at a crown; beyond dissolution, at a remembrance of life and glory! Which of thine eleven was heard to speak so gracious a word to thee in these thy last pangs? After thy resurrection, and knowledge of thine impassible condition, it was not strange for them to talk of thy kingdom; but, in the midst of thy shameful death, for a dying malefactor to speak of thy reigning, and to implore thy remembrance of himself in thy kingdom, it is such an improvement of faith as ravisheth my soul with admiration. O blessed thief, that hast thus happily stolen heaven! How worthy hath thy Saviour made thee to be a partner of his sufferings, a pattern of undauntable belief, a spectacle of unspeakable mercy! "This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Before I wondered at thy faith, now I envy at thy felicity. Thou cravedst a remembrance; thy Saviour speaks of a present possession, "This day:" thou suedst for remembrance, as a favour to the absent; thy Saviour speaks of thy presence with him; thou speakst of a kingdom, thy Saviour of Paradise. As no disciple could be more faithful,

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