* Vide T.ypsium de cruce^ I. 1. c. 11. Ingenui hominis nulla est estimatio.
Homer in his 21st Odysse, calls this death M xa^a^Ge, i. e. impure; and Eustathius /x/aso',, i. e. base.
f This is appointed, not in honour of the burial of the dead body, but to the end that such a body, which was accursed, might be quickly removed from the sur- face of the earth, that so the earth might not be defiled. IVius Bwfrerius.
324 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SEItM. XXVI.
might be removed as soon as might be, from before the eyes of men ; and that the earth might not be defiled, by his lying on the surface of it, when taken down.
However, as the learned Junius hath judiciously observed, this curse is only a ceremonial curse ; for otherwise it is neither in it- self, nor by the law of nature, or by civil law, more execrable than any other death. And the main reason why the ceremonial law affixed the curse to this, rather than to any other death, was principally with respect to the death Christ was to die. And therefore, reader, see and admire the providence of God, that Christ should die by a Roman, and not by a Judaic law. For cru- cifying, or hanging on a tree, was a Roman punishment, and not in use among the Jews. But the scriptures cannot be broken.
Fifthly, The death of the cross was a very slow and lingering death. They died leisurely. Which still increaseth and aggra- vated the misery of it. If a man must die a violent death, it is a favour to be dispatched : as they that are pressed to death, beg for more weight. And it is a favour to those that are hanged, to be smitten on the breast, or plucked by the heels by their friends. On the contray, to hang long in the midst of tortures, to have death coming upon us with a slow pace, that we may feel every tread of it, as it comes on, is a misery.
The tyrant that heard the poor martyr was dead under his first torments, said, as one disappointed, Evasit, " He hath escaped " me." For he intended to have kept him much longer under torments. And it was the cruel counsel of another to his execu- tioner ; " Let him die so as he may feel himself how he dies *." And surely in this respect it was worse for Christ, than any other that ever was nailed to the tree. For all the while he hanged there, he remained full of life and acute sense. His life departed not gradually, but^was whole in him to the last. Other men die gradually, and, towards their end, their sense of pain is much blunted. They faulter, and expire by degrees, but Christ stood under the pains of death in his full strength, -f* His life was whole in him. This was evident by the mighty out-cry he made when he gave up the ghost, which argued him to be full of strength, contrary to the experience of all other men. Which made the centurion when he heard it, to conclude, " Surely this was the " Son of God," Mark xv. 37, 39.
Sixthly, It was a succourless and helpless death to Christ. Some- times they gave to malefactors amidst their torments, vinegar and
* Moriatur, ut sentiat sc mori.
f Christ retained life and strength so long as he pleased, and laid them down when he pleased. Ames,
SERM. XXVI. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 325
myrrh, to blunt, dull, and stupify their senses. And if they hanged long, would break their bones to dispatch them out of their pains. Christ had none of this favour. Instead of vinegar and myrrh, they gave him vinegar and gall to drink, to aggravate his torments. And for the breaking of his bones he prevented it, by dying before they came to break his legs. For the scriptures must be fulfilled, which say, Not a bone of him shall be broken.
This now was the kind and nature of that death he died. Even the violent, painful, shameful, cursed, slow, and succourless death of the cross. An ancient punishment both among the Ro- mans and Carthaginians *. But in honour of Christ, who died this death, Constanstine the Great abrogated it by law, ordaining that none should ever be crucified any more, because Christ died that death.
Secondly \ As to the manner of the execution. They that were condemned to the death of the cross, (saith -f- a learned Antiquary of our own) bare their cross upon their own shoulders, to the place of execution. They were stripped of all their clothes, for they suffered naked. And then were fastened to the cross with nails.
The manner how that was done {, one gives us in these words, They stretched him out (meaning Christ) like another Isaac upon his own burden, the cross ; that so they might take mea- sure of the holes. And though the print of his blood upon it, gave them the true length of his body ; yet how strictly do they take it longer than the truth. Thereby at once to crucify and rack him. Then being nailed, like as Moses lifted up the serpent, so was the Son of man lifted up. And when the cross, with the Lord fasten- ed on it, fell into its socket, or basis, it jerked the whole, and every part of his sacred body. And the whole weight hanging upon his nailed hands, the wounds by degrees grew wider and wider : till at last he expired in the midst of those tortures.
And that the equity of their proceedings might the better ap- pear to the people, the cause of the punishment was written in capital letters, and fixed to the tree over the head of the malefac- tor. Of this appendant to this kind of death, I shall speak dis- tinctly in the next sermon, before I come to handle the manner of his death : there being so much of providence in that circum- stance, as invites us to spend more than a few transient thoughts upon it. Meanwhile, in the next place,
Thirdly, We will enquire briefly into the reasons why Christ
* Sozom, lib. 1 . cap. 8.
f Godwin's Antiq. 1. 5. sect. 3. p. 192.
| Herles' Contemplat, of Christ's passion.
326 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SERM. XXVI.
died this, rather than any other kind of death. And amongst others, these three are obvious.
First, Because Christ must bear the curse in his death, and a curse by law was affixed to no other kind of death, as it was to this.
The learned Masius upon Joshua ii. 29. commenting upon the death of king Ai, who was hanged upon the tree, until the even- ing, tells us, " * That the principal reason of the malediction M and execrableness of his death was, because the death of Christ *6 was prefigured in that mystery." Christ came to take away the curse from us by this death ; and so must be made a curse. On him must all the curses of the moral law lie, which were due to us. And that nothing might be wanting to make it a full curse, the very death he died, must also have a ceremonial curse upon it.