Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…

1. For the shame, it was of such infamy that the Romans Exempted all their Citizens from it.¹ Is it lawful for you (said Paul) to scourge a man that is a Roman?—And when the Centurion heard that, he went, and told the chief Captain, saying, take heed what thou dost, for this man is a Roman; the Romans looked upon it as a most infamous punishment, fit only for thieves and slaves, and not for free-born or privileged Romans; and the Jews themselves would not suffer it above so many stripes, lest a brother should seem vile unto them;² If a wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the Judge shall cause him to lye down,—forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed, lest if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee. Whipping is so unworthy a punishment, that only children, bondslaves, and rogues were used to be corrected therewith, especially if they exceeded the number of forty stripes;³ when Paul was thus used, he tells us, Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Theophilact says they would not exceed that number, lest Paul should have become infamous, and ever after uncapable of public office, and hoping they might have regained him, they would not brand him with that note of infamy. O then if one stripe above forty was so infamous amongst the Jews, what shame, what infamy was this, when so many scores, hundreds, and thousands of stripes (as some reckon them) were laid on Jesus Christ? and yet our Lord doth not disdain to undergo them for our sakes, he bears in his body those wounds and stripes that we had deserved by our sins.

1. For the shame, it was of such infamy that the Romans Exempted all their Citizens from it.¹ Is it lawful for you (said Paul) to scourge a man that is a Roman?—And when the Centurion heard that, he went, and told the chief Captain, saying, take heed what thou dost, for this man is a Roman; the Romans looked upon it as a most infamous punishment, fit only for theeves and slaves, and not for free-born or priviledged Romans; and the Jews themselves would not suffer it above so many stripes, lest a brother should seem vile unto them;