Ans. 2. Secondly, As the sufferings of Jesus Christ were very free and voluntary, so they were very great and heinous. What agony, what torment was our Saviour racked with! how deep were Ms wounds! how weighty his burden! how full of trembling his cup, when he lay under the mountains of the guilt of all the elect 1 How bitter were his tears ! how painful his sweat ! how sharp his encoun- ters! how dreadful his death! who can compute i how many vials of God's inexpressible, insupportable wrath Christ drank off ? In that 53d of Isaiah you may read of despising, rejected, stripes, smitings, wounds, sorrows, bruising, chastisement, oppression, affliction, cutting off, putting to grief, and pouring out of his soul to death ; all these put together speaks out Christ to be a very great sufferer. He was a man of sorrows, as if he were a man made up of sorrows : as the man of sin, as if he were made up of sin, as if he were nothing else. He knew more sorrows than any man, yea, than all men ever did ; for the iniquity, and consequently the sorrows, of all men met in him as if he had been their centre ; and he was acquainted with griefs ; he had little acquaintance else, grief was his familiar acquaintance, he had no acquaintance with laughter. We read not that he laughed at all, when he was in the world. His other acquaintance stood afar off, but grief followed him to the cross. From his birth to his death, from his cradle to the cross, from the womb to the tomb, he was a man of sor- rows, and never were sorrows like his ; he might say. Never grief or sorrow Hke mine. It is indeed impossible to express the sufferings and sorrows of Christ ; and the Greek Christians used to beg of God, h' dyvcoa-rmv kottcov, that for the unknown sufferings of Christ he would have mercy upon them ! Though Christ's sufferings are abundantly made known, yet they are but httle known ; eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it or can it enter into the heart of man to conceive what Christ suffered ; ' who hath known the power of God's wrath ? ' Christ Jesus knew it, for he underwent it ; his whole life was made up of suffering. He was no sooner born, but sufferings came troop- ing in upon him. He was born in an inn, yea, in a stable, and had but a manger for his cradle. As soon as his birth was noised abroad, Herod, under a pretence of worshipping of him, had a design to mur- der him, so that his supposed father was fain to fly into Egypt to secure his life. He was persecuted before he could, after the manner of men, be sensible of persecution ; and as he grew up in years, so his sufferings grew up with him. Hunger and thirst, travel and weari- ness, scorns and reproaches, false accusations and contradictions still waited on him, and he had not where to lay his head : 1 Pet. iii. 18, * For Christ also hath once suffered for sins.' This is the wonderment of angels, the happiness of fallen man, and the torment of devils, &c., that Christ hath suffered. The apostle's words look like a riddle, ' Christ hath suffered ;' as if he should say, read thou if thou canst what he hath suffered ; as for my part they are so many, that in this short epistle I have no mind to record them ; and they are so griev- ous, that my passionate love won't suffer me to repeat them, and
^ Misprinted ' impute.' — G.
80 OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST.
therefore I content myself thus abruptly to deliver them, ' Christ hath suffered.' Christ's sufferings were unspeakable, his sufferings were unutterable ; and therefore the apostle satisfies himself with this imperfect, broken speech, ' Christ hath sufi'ered.' Oh, what woes and lamentations, what cries and exclamations, what complaints and sor- rows, what wringing of hands, what knocking of breasts, what weep- ing of eyes, what wailing of tongues belong to the speaking and hear- ing of this doleful tragedy ! Even in the prologue I tremble, and at the first entrance I am as at a non-plus, that I know not with what woeful gesture to act it, with what moanful voice to pronounce it, with what mournful words, with what pathetical speeches, with what em- phatical phrases, with what interrupted accents, with what passionate compassionate plaints to express it. The multiplicity of the plot, and the variety of the acts and scenes is so intricate, that my memory fails to comprise it ; the matter so important, and the story so excellent, that my tongue fails to declare it ; the cruelty so savage, and the mas- sacre so barbarous, that my heart even fails to consider it. Where- fore I must needs content myself, with the apostle here, to speak but imperfectly of it, and thinks this enough to say, * Christ hath suf- fered ; ' and well may I think this enough, for behold what perfection there is in this seeming imperfect speech. For,
First, To say indefinitely, he * suffered ' without any limitation of time, what is it but to say that he always suffered without exception of time ? And so indeed the prophet speaks of him, namely, ' That he was a man of sorrows,' Isa. liii. 3. His whole life was filled up with sufferings. But,
Secondly, To say only he ' suffered,' and nothing else, what is it but to say that he patiently suffered ; he never resisted, never rebelled, never opposed ? ' He was led as g, sheep to the slaughter ; and as a lamb dumb before the shearer, so opened he not his mouth,' Acts viii. 32 ; Isa. liii. 7. ' And when he was reviled, he reviled not again ; when he suffered, he threatened not,' 1 Pet. ii. 23. But,
Thirdly, To say precisely he ' suffered,' and no more, what is it but to say that he freely suffered, that he voluntarily suffered ? Christ was under no force, no compulsion, but freely suffered himself to suffer, and voluntarily suffered the Jews to m^ke him suffer, having power to quit himself from suffering if he had pleased. ' I lay down my Hfe, no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself : I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again,' John x. 17. But of this before.
Fourthly, To say plainly he ' suffered,' what is it but to say that he innocently suffered, that he wrongfully suffered ? For had he been a malefactor, or an offender, it should have been said that he was pun ished, or that he was executed ; but he was full of innocency, he was holy and harmless ; and so it follows in that 1 Pet. iii. 18, ' The just for the unjust.' But,
Fifthly, To say peremptorily he ' suffered,' what is it but to say that he principally suffered, that he excessively suffered ? To say he ' suf- fered, what is it but to say he was the chief sufferer, the arch-sufferer ? and that not only in respect of the manner of his sufferings, that he suffered absolutely so as never did any, but also in respect of the mea-
OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST IN HIS BODY. 81