1. When Pilate saw how the Jews were set upon his death, he consented, and delivered him first to be stripped.1 Then the Soldiers of the Governor took Jesus into the common Hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of Soldiers, and they stripped him. They pulled of his clothes, and made him stand naked before them all; He that adorns the Heaven with Stars, and the Earth with Flowers,2 and made coats of skins to clothe our first Parents in, is now himself stripped stark naked; I cannot but look on this as a great shame: it appears so by our first Parents Adam and Eve, who no sooner had sinned, and knew themselves naked but they sowed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons. 3If Adam was so ashamed of his nakedness before his own Wife (who was naked too, as well as he) what a shame, and blush was it in the face of Christ, when in the common Hall in view of the whole band, or company of Soldiers, he stands all naked? My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me, 4saith David in the Person of Christ. It is reported, in the Ecclesiastical story, that when two Martyrs, and holy Virgins (they call them Agnes, and Barbara) were stripped stark naked for their execution, God pitying their great shame and trouble, to have their nakedness discovered, made for them a veil of light, and so he sent them to a modest, and desired death; but our Saviour Christ, who chose all sorts of shame and confusion, that by a fullness of suffering he might expiate his Fathers wrath, and consecrate to us all kinds of sufferings and affronts, he endured the shame of nakedness at the time of his scourging; see here a naked Christ, and therein see the mercy of Christ to us; he found us like the good Samaritan, when we were stripped, and wounded, and left half dead, and that we might be covered, he quietly suffered himself to be divested of his own robes; he took on him the state of sinning Adam, and became naked, that we might first be clothed with righteousness, and then with immortality; oh what a blessed use may we make of the very nakedness of Christ?
1. When Pilate saw how the Jews were set upon his death, he consented, and delivered him first to be stripped.1 Then the Souldiers of the Governour took Jesus into the common Hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of Souldiers, and they stripped him. They pulled of his cloaths, and made hm stand naked before them all; He that adorns the Heaven with Stars, and the Earth with Flowers,2 and made coats of skins to cloath our first Parents in, is now himself stripped stark naked; I cannot but look on this as a great shame: it appears so by our first Parents Adam and Eve, who no sooner had sinned, and knew themselves naked but they sowed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons. 3If Adam was so ashamed of his nakedness before his own Wife (who was naked too, as well as he) what a shame, and blush was it in the face of Christ, when in the common Hall in view of the whole band, or company of Souldiers, he stands all naked? My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me, 4saith David in the Person of Christ. It is reported, in the Ecclesiastical story, that when two Martyrs, and holy Virgins (they call them Agnes, and Barbara) were stripped stark naked for their execution, God pitying their great shame and trouble, to have their nakedness discovered, made for them a veil of light, and so he sent them to a modest, and desired death; but our Saviour Christ, who chose all sorts of shame and confusion, that by a fulness of suffering he might expiate his Fathers wrath, and consecrate to us all kinds of sufferings and affronts, he endured the shame of nakedness at the time of his scourging; see here a naked Christ, and therein see the mercy of Christ to us; he found us like the good Samaritan, when we were stripped, and wounded, and left half dead, and that we might be covered, he quietly suffered himself to be divested of his own robes; he took on him the state of sinning Adam, and became naked, that we might first be cloathed with righteousness, and then with immortality; oh what a blessed use may we make of the very nakedness of Christ?
- 1Mat. 27.27.
- 2Gen. 3.21.
- 3Gen. 3.7.
- 4Psal. 44.15.
