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

2. For the pain; this kind of punishment was not only infamous, but terrible; no sooner the Soldiers had their commission, but they charged, and discharged upon him such bloody blows, as if he had been the greatest offender, and basest slave in all the World.¹ Nicephorus calls these whippers bloody Hang-men, by the fierceness of whose whipping many had dyed under their hands.² The manner of their whipping is described thus; After they had stripped him, they bound him to a pillar, whither came six young and strong Executioners, Scourgers, Varlets, Hang-men (saith Jerome) to scourge him, and whip him while they could; whereof two whipped him with rods of thorns; and when they had wearied themselves, other two whipped him with ropes or whip-cords, tied and knotted like a carters whip; and when they were tired, the other two scourged off his very Skin with wires, or little chains of Iron; and thus they continued, till by alternate and successive turns they had added stripe upon stripe, and wound upon wound, latter upon former, and new upon old, that he was all over in a gore blood. ³The Scripture tells us, that He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him, and with his stripes we are healed; he was wounded, bruised, chastised, whipped with stripes; if you would know with how many stripes? some reckon them to the number of the Soldiers, Six hundred and sixty, or a thousand stripes? others reckon them according to the number of the bones, compacted in mans body, which say Anatomists are two hundred and sixty, and Christ having received for every bone three stripes according to the triple manner of his whipping, they amounted in all to seven hundred and eighty stripes; others reckon them to five thousand, above the forty which the Jews were commanded not to exceed in.—And the truth is, if the whole band of Soldiers were the whippers of Christ (as some would have it) I cannot see but his stripes might be more than so; when the Son of an Israelitish woman blasphemed God, the Lord said to Moses, ⁴Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp, and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him; now Christ had said before all the band, that he was the Son of God, which they called Blasphemy;