Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

Thirdly, Consider the Pain of the Cross, whom God raised up, having loosed the sorrows of death: Act. 2.24. Not meaning there were sorrows that Christ endured after his death, but its meant of the sorrows that accompanied his death. It was the most dolorous death that ever could be endured. We scarce know what Crucifying is. The Christian Emperors in honour of our Saviour banished that kind of suffering, that none after him might suffer it: But yet it is fit we should know what it was, since it was so terrible a thing. And here, as the Apostle said to the Galatians, Suppose you see Christ crucified before your face at present. The manner of it was thus.

Thirdly, Consider the Pain of the Cross, whom God raised up, having loosed the sorrows of death: Act. 2.24. Not meaning there were sorrows that Christ endured after his death, but its meant of the sorrows that accompanied his death. It was the most dolorous death that ever could be endured. We scarce know what Crucifying is. The Christian Emperors in honor of our Saviour banished that kind of suffering, that none after him might suffer it: But yet it is fit we should know what it was, since it was so terrible a thing. And here, as the Apostle said to the Galathians, Suppose you see Christ crucified before your face at present. The manner of it was thus.

First there was a long beam, on which the party was to be stretched, and there was a cross-beam on which the hands were to be stretched: they pulled them up upon the Cross before they fastened them; they pulled him to his utmost length. And this is that the Psalmist speaks of, Psal. 22.17. You might tell all my bones. His ribs were so stretched, as that they even pierced the flesh: Conceive him now thus stretched with his hands and feet nailed to the wood: the stretching of Christ on the Cross, was such a thing as the working of the rack. Imagine him before your eyes thus represented. Your sins crucified him: being thus stretched upon the Cross to his full length, the hands and the feet were fastened, and nailed to the wood. It's no small torment to have the hands bored, especially if we behold the place, it was through the lower part of the hand where the veins and sinews all met together: It's a place that is full of sense, consider withal the bigness of the nails: