4. Remember how ready the Lord Jesus was to suffer the hardest and vilest things for you. He had a bitter Cup put into his hands to drink for you, into which the wrath both of God and man was squeezed out. 1Never had man such sufferings to undergo as Christs. Whether you consider (1) the dignity of his person, who was in the form of God, and might have stood upon his Peerage and Equality with him, he is the sparkling Diamond of Heaven, Acts 7.56. The Darling of the Fathers Soul, Isa. 42.1. glorious as the only begotten of the Father, John 1.14. yea glory it self, James 2.1. yea, the very brightness of glory, Heb. 1.3. He is the delicia Christiani orbis, fairer than the Sons of men: And for him to be so debased, below so many thousands ⟨p. 134⟩of his own Creatures, become a Worm, and no man; this was a wonderful humiliation. It was Jeremiah's lamentation, that such as were brought up in Scarlet, embraced Dunghills; that Princes were hanged up by the hands, and the faces of Elders were not reverenced. But what was that to the humiliation of the Lord of Glory? Or (2) that he suffered in the prime and flower of his years; when full of life and sense, and more capable of exquisite sense of pain than others: For he was optime complexionatus, 2of a singular Constitution; and all the while he hanged on the Tree, his sense of pain not at all blunted or decayed, Mark 15.37, 39. Or (3) the manner of his death. It was the death of the Cross, which was as a Rack to Christ: for in reference to the distention of his Members upon the Cross, is that spoken, Psal. 22.17. I may tell all my bones Or (4) That all this while God hid his face from him. When Stephen suffered, he saw the Heavens opened. The Martyrs were many of them ravished and transported with ecstasies of joy in their sufferings; but Christ in the dark. He suffered in his Soul as well as in his Body; and the sufferings of his Soul, were the very Soul of his sufferings. It was the Fathers wrath that lay so heavy on him, as to put him into such an agony, that an instance was never given of the like in nature: For he sweat [Greek or Hebrew] great drops, or clodders of blood, which fell from his Body to the ground, Luke 22.24. It amazed him, and made him very heavy. See Mark 14.33. yea, sorrowful even to death, Matth. 26.38.
4. Remember how ready the Lord Jesus was to suffer the hardest and vilest things for you. He had a bitter Cup put into his hands to drink for you, into which the wrath both of God and man was squeezed out. 1Never had man such sufferings to undergo as Christs. Whether you consider (1) the dignity of his person, who was in the form of God, and might have stood upon his Peerage and Equality with him, he is the sparkling Diamond of Heaven, Acts 7.56. The Darling of the Fathers Soul, Isa. 42.1. glorious as the only begotten of the Father, John 1.14. yea glory it self, James 2.1. yea, the very brightness of glory, Heb. 1.3. He is the delicia Christiani orbis, fairer than the Sons of men: And for him to be so debased, below so many thousands ⟨p. 134⟩of his own Creatures, become a Worm, and no man; this was a wonderful humiliation. It was Jeremiah's lamentation, that such as were brought up in Scarlet, imbraced Dunghills; that Princes were hanged up by the hands, and the faces of Elders were not reverenced. But what was that to the humiliation of the Lord of Glory? Or (2) that he suffered in the prime and flower of his years; when full of life and sense, and more capable of exquisite sense of pain than others: For he was optime complexionatus, 2of a singular Constitution; and all the while he hanged on the Tree, his sense of pain not at all blunted or decayed, Mark 15.37, 39. Or (3) the manner of his death. It was the death of the Cross, which was as a Rack to Christ: for in reference to the distention of his Members upon the Cross, is that spoken, Psal. 22.17. I may tell all my bones Or (4) That all this while God hid his face from him. When Stephen suffered, he saw the Heavens opened. The Martyrs were many of them ravished and transported with extasies of joy in their sufferings; but Christ in the dark. He suffered in his Soul as well as in his Body; and the sufferings of his Soul, were the very Soul of his sufferings. It was the Fathers wrath that lay so heavy on him, as to put him into such an agony, that an instance was never given of the like in nature: For he sweat great drops, or clodders of blood, which fell from his Body to the ground,
- 1Dolor Christi fuit major omnibus doloribus. Aquin.
- 2Aquinas.
