Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification,…

First, For the Accursedness of it, there was no death that had a more peculiar curse on it then this. Howsoever all deaths are accursed when they light on one that is without Christ; but this death had a legal Curse: for as there was a legal uncleanness, so there was a legal Curse, and this was the curse annexed to the Cross; a type of that real Curse. Now the type of a real Curse, Was hanging on the tree: Thou shalt bury him that day, for he that is hanged on a tree is accursed by God, Deut. 21.23. so the Son of God was made a Curse for us, alluding unto this, Galat. And here we see the blessed Son of God, he in whom all the Nations of the earth are blessed: the fountain of all blessedness: We see him stand in so cursed a condition, to be made as it were as an Anathema, the highest degree of cursing that may be.

First, For the Accursedness of it, there was no death that had a more peculiar curse on it then this. Howsoever all deaths are accursed when they light on one that is without Christ; but this death had a legal Curse: for as there was a legal uncleanness, so there was a legal Curse, and this was the curse annexed to the Cross; a type of that real Curse. Now the type of a real Curse, Was hanging on the tree: Thou shalt bury him that day, for he that is ha•ged on a tree is accursed by God, Deut. 21.23. so the Son of God was made a Curse for us, alluding unto this, Galat. And here we see the blessed Son of God, he in whom all the Nations of the earth are blessed: the fountain of all blessedness: We see him stand in so cursed a condition, to be made as it were as an Anathema, the highest degree of cursing that may be.

Secondly, Consider the shame of it there is a place ⟨p. 385⟩in the best of Orators that expresses the detestableness and shame of this death of the Cross. Facinus, &c. see what a gradation there is, it is hardly to be expressed in English. Its a great fault to bind a Citizen of Rome and a Gentleman, what is it to beat him? what to crucify him? His Eloquence failed him there, as being not able to express the detestableness of it, and therefore the chief Captain was afraid that he had bound Paul, after he had heard he was a free-man of Rome, but then its worse to beat him; but what was it to crucify him? Our blessed Saviour went through all these indignities. First they come against him with swords and with staves, as against a thief. They sold him for a base price. They beat him with rods, pricked him, and after all, they crucified him. Consider then the shame of it: he that was to be crucified, was stripped naked, as naked as ever he came out of his mothers womb: However the Painters may lie in it. And was not this a shame thus to be stripped before thousands? Wherefore it was a custom among the Romans, that the greatest King, if he were baptized, was to be stripped naked, which they did as a memorial of the shame of our Saviour. So shameful a thing it was that they thought him unworthy to suffer within the walls. Christ that he might sanctify the people, suffered without the walls. Let us go with him out of the Camp bearing our reproach. He was as a man unfit to suffer within the walls. Pilate thought he would meet with them when they were so violent to have him crucified, and therefore he joins Barabbas with him, the vilest thief in the Country, and a Murderer: so that Peter cast this in their teeth, That they preferred a Murderer before him. He was reckoned