3. Consider, how by these things men do but prepare for their own torment in a dying hour. There is bitterness enough in death, you need not add more gall and wormwood to increase the bitterness of it. What is the violencing and wounding of con- science now, but the sticking so many pins or needles in your death- bed, against you come to lie down on it ? This makes death bitter indeed. How many have wished in a dying hour, they had rather lived poor and low all their days, than to have strained their con- sciences for the world ? Ah ! how is the face and aspect of things altered in such an hour.
No such considerations as these had any place in Pilate's heart ; for if so, he would never have been courted, or scared in such am act as this.
Inf. 4. Did Christ stand arraigned and condemned at Pilate's bar ? Then the believer shall never be arraigned and condemned at God's bar. This sentence that Pilate pronounced on Christ gives evidence that God will never pronounce sentence against such : for had he intended to have arraigned them, he would never have suf- fered Christ, their surety, to be arraigned and condemned for them. Christ stood at this time before a higher judge than Pilate ; he stood at God's bar as well as his. Pilate did but that which God's own hand and counsel had before determined to be done, and what God himself, at the same time, did ; though God did it justly and holily, dealing with Christ as a creditor with a surety ; Pilate most wickedly and basely, dealing with Christ as a corrupt judge, that shed the blood of a known innocent to pacify the people. But cer- tain it is, that out of his condemnation flows our justification : and had not sentence been given against him, it must have been given against us.
O what a melting consideration is this ! that out of his agony comes our victory ; out of his condemnation, our justification ; out of his pain, our ease ; out of his stripes, our healing : out of his gall and vinegar, our honey ; out of his curse, our blessing ; out of his crown of thorns, our crown of glory ; out of his death, our life : if he could not be released, it was that you might. If Pilate gave sentence against him, it was that the great God might never give sentence against you, If he yielded that it should be with Christ as they required, it was that it might be with our souls as well as we can desire. And therefore,
Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.
308 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SE11M. XXV.
Chjeust's memorable Address to the Daughters of Jerusa- lem, in his Way to the Place of his Execution.
Luke xxiii. 27, 28, &c.
And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, •which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning untd them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.
X HE sentence of death once given against Christ, the execution quickly follows. Away they lead him from Gabbatha to Golgotha, longing as much to be nailing him to the cross, and feeding; their eyes with his torments, as the eagle doth to be tearing the flesh, and drinking the blood of that lamb she hath seized in her talons, and is carrying away to the top of some rock to de- vour.
The Evangelist here observes a memorable passage that fell out in their way to the place of execution ; and that is, the lamenta- tions and wTailing of some that followed him out of the city, who expressed their pity and sorrow for him most tenderly and com- passionately: all hearts were not hard, all eyes were not dry. " There followed him a great company of people, and of women, " which also bewailed and lamented him," &c.
In this paragraph we have two parts, viz. the lamentation of the daughters of Jerusalem for Christ, and Christ's reply to them.
Is The lamentation of the daughters of Jerusalem for Christ. Concerning them, we briefly enquire who they were, and why they mourned.
(1.) Who they were ? The text calls them " * daughters, i. e. " inhabitants of Jerusalem ; for it is a Hebraism ; as daughters of " Zion, daughters of Israel."0 And it is like the greatest part of them were women; and there were many of them, a troop of mourners, that followed Christ out of the city towards the place of his execution, with lamentations and wailings.
(2.) What the principle, or ground of these their lamentations was, is not agreed by those that have pondered the story, -f Some are of opinion their tears and lamentations were but the effects and fruits of their more tender and ingenuous natures, which were
Qvyurpsg lzpx<fakr\[J» i. e. mulieres Hieresolyvxitance ; Hebraismus : sic Jdice Tsionis. Piscat. in loc. f Mr. Anthony Burgess, Spiritual refining, p. 120.
THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 309
moved and melted with so tragical and sad a spectacle as was now before them. It is well observed by a * judicious author, " That " the tragical story of some great and noble personage, full of he- " roical virtue and ingenuity (yet inhumanely and ungratefully " used) will thus work upon ingenuous spirits who read or hear " of it, — which when it reaches no higher, is so far from being " faith, that it is but a carnal and fleshly devotion, springing from " fancy, which is pleased with such a story and the principles of " ingenuity stirred towards one, who is of a noble spirit, and yet " abused. Such stories use to stir up a principle of humanity in " men unto a compassionate love ; which Christ himself at his " suffering found fault with, as being not spiritual, nor raised " enough in those women that went weeping to see the Messiah " so handled. Weep not for me, (saith he) i. e. weep not so much *' for this, to see me so unworthily handled by those for whom I '" die."" This is the principle from which some conceive those tears to flow.
But f Calvin attributes it to their faith, " looking upon these <c mourners as a remnant reserved by the Lord in that miserable " dispersion ; and though their faith was but weak, yet he judges " it credible that there was a secret seed of godliness in them, " which afterwards grew to a maturity, and brought forth fruit And to the same sense others give their opinion also.