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

We may read here a Lecture of the immense love of God in Christ to us poor Gentiles; he is therefore whipped that he might marry us to himself,¹ and never reject us, or cast us off: we read of a Law in Moses, that if a man took a wife, and hated her, and gave occasions of speech against her, and brought an evil name upon her undeservably; that then the Elders of the City should take that man, and chastise him, ²—and she should be his wife, he might not put her away all his days. There is a great mystery in this ceremony; for that man (say some) was Christ, who by his incarnation betrothed unto himself the Gentile Church, but he seems to hate her, and to give an occasion of a speech against her, and to bring an evil report upon her, as Into the way of the Gentiles ye shall not go, and into the City of the Samaritans ye shall not enter; ³and it is not meet to take the Children's bread, and to cast it unto dogs. And now he is accused before the Elders, now he is whipped and chastised, and commanded by his Father to take her to his wife, and not to put her away all his days. I know there is much unlikeness in this mystery, for Christ was not whipped for calling the Church adulterous, that indeed was chaste; but he was whipped to present the Church as a chaste Virgin to his Father, that indeed was adulterous, Oh he loved the Church, and gave himself for it; ⁴—that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish; this was the meaning of Christ's whipping,⁵ The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes are we healed. Come then, and let us learn to read this love-letter sent from Heaven in bloody characters, Christ is stripped who clothed the Lilies of the Field; Christ is bound hand and foot, his hands that multiplied the Loaves; and his feet that were weary in seeking the straggling sheep; Christ is scourged all over, because all over we were full of wounds, and bruises, ⁶