crucified persons should be broken, in order to effect and secure their death ; thus making up by increased agony what might be equivalent to the longer duration of their misery. Permis- sion is granted ; the order given ; and in part executed : the legs of both the malefactors were broken ; but, our Lord being already dead, the soldiers forbore to execute this order upon him. But one of the soldiers, wantonly and of his own mind, thrust a spear into his side ; from whence issued a stream of blood and water ; the water flowing from the pericardium, and the blood from the heart itself.
Now this we call singular : for it was strange, that an order given in relation to him as well as the other two, should be executed on them, and not on him; and it was strange also that an unauthorized act of violence should be committed upon him, and not on them : for, if done to them, it would have been an act of mercy ; but, as done to him, it was only an act of malice, as impotent as it was inhuman.]
But God had wise ends in permitting this —
[There were prophecies yet remaining to be accomplished : and it was necessary that every part of Scripture should be fulfilled. Now it had been ordained respecting the paschal lamb, that " not a bone of it should be broken0." This lamb was intended to be a type of Christ; and that peculiar appoint- ment in the type must be verified in the antitype: and, if not verified in him, Christ's claim to the Messiahship must be void. Behold then, how nearly Jesus' title to the Messiahship was destroyed ! The proposal of breaking the legs was made, and acceded to, in reference to him as well as to the malefactors who were crucified with him : it was also executed first on one of the malefactors, then on the other. Why does not the man proceed? Why does he presume to disobey the order? Who has told him to exercise his own discretion ? Who interferes about the matter, or attempts either to restrain or to dissuade the executioner. Had he but given the intended blow, there had been an end to all Jesus' pretensions to the Messiahship. But an invisible hand restrained him ; God himself overruled his mind ; and therefore overruled it, that the Scripture might not be broken.
But why does one of the soldiers take upon him to offer an indignity to the body of Jesus, without any commission or order from his superiors? There was another prophecy to be fulfilled, which had said, that the Jews should look on Him whom they had pierced d :" therefore God put it into the heart of his enemies to do to him what they did not to the others, and to refrain from doing to him what they did to the others; to
c Exod. xii. 40. Numb. xv. 12. (i Zech. xii. 10.
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