A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

At length, being come to Mount Calvary, they execute the sentence which Pilate had so unrighteously pronounced. They nail him to his cross by his hands and feet, then raise it erect, and fix one end in the ground, he being still suspended on it by the nails which pierced his hands and feet. Now Christ's sufferings are come to the extremity: now the cup, which he so earnestly prayed that it might pass from him, is come, and he must, he does drink it. In those days crucifixion was the most tormenting kind of death by which any were wont to be executed. There was no death wherein the person expired so much of mere torment: and hence the Roman word, which signifies torment, is taken from this kind of death. —Besides what our Lord endured in his excruciating death in his body, he endured vastly more in his soul. Now was that travail of his soul, of which we read in the prophet; now it pleased God to bruise him, and to put him to grief; now he poured out his soul unto death, as in Is. liii. If the mere forethought of this cup made him sweat blood, how much more dreadful and excruciating must the drinking of it have been! Many martyrs have endured much in their bodies, while their souls have been joyful, and have sung for joy, whereby they have been supported under the sufferings of their outward man, and have triumphed over them. But this was not the case with Christ; he had no such support; but his sufferings were chiefly those of the mind, tho' the other were extremely great. In his crucifixion Christ did not sweat blood, as he had before, because his blood had vent otherwise, ⟨p. 162⟩and not because his agony was now not so great. But tho' he did not sweat blood, yet such was the suffering of his soul, that probably it rent his vitals; as seems probable by this that when his side was pierced, there came forth blood and water. And so here was a kind of literal fulfilment of that in Psal. xxii.14. "I am poured out like water:—my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels."

Now under all these sufferings the Jews still mock him; and wagging their heads say, "Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself: if thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." And even the chief priests, scribes, and elders, joined in the cry, saying, "He saved others, himself he cannot save." Probably the devil at the same time tormented him to the utmost of his power; and hence it is said,