§ 10. Experience of a suffering painful state, is a great help to our understanding of the Gospel: It taketh off from me the scandal of Christ's Cross, and helpeth me to perceive the great use and reasons of it, when I am under sufferings. O what need have I of such an example as Christs. All the parts of his suffering are as useful to teach me how to suffer as the Ten Commandments to teach me what to do. That he was put to fly from proud domineering Pharisees, false Teachers and worldly Rulers, and to converse most with the Poor in Wildernesses or obscure various places? That he was hated and persecuted for doing good, and accounted a Sinner for neglecting mens Ceremonies, and Traditions: That he was hardly believed even by them that saw his Miracles: And his own Disciples were so slow in learning; and that in his suffering they all forsook him and fled, and one denied him with Oaths and Curses. All these are instructing Instances; That Christ's natural (though sinless) aversation to Death and Suffering, and his fear, should be so powerful, and the sense of God's punishing Justice so terrible, as to make his Soul sorrowful even to the Death, and cast him into an Agony, where he sweat Water and Blood, and to pray thrice that the bitter Cup if possible might pass from him, which he came into the World to drink; all these also are teaching parts of the Sufferings of Christ; That Rulers, and Priests, and Soldiers, and the Rabble should agree to Scorn him; Cloth him in derision, Spit on him, Buffet him, Scourge him, make him their Jest that came to save them; that they should make a Sinner of him that never sinned, but came to destroy it and save ⟨p. 315⟩men from it; yea, to make him no less than a Deceiver, a Blasphemer, and an usurping Rebel against Caesar, and write this last as his Accusation on his Cross, thinking to leave his Innocency no Vindication or Defence; for the Lord and Saviour of the World to undergo all this, is very instructing to a suffering Believer: That he should as such a Malefactor be reviled on a Cross, and numbered with Transgressors, and his side be pierced, and he there cry out to his Father as forsaken by him: That thus dying he was buried, and his Soul went to the place of separated Souls, and yet into Paradise; they are excellent Lessons which may be learnt from all this.
§ 10. Experience of a suffering painful state, is a great help to our understanding of the Gospel: It taketh off from me the scandal of Christ's Cross, and helpeth me to perceive the great use and reasons of it, when I am under sufferings. O what need have I of such an example as Christs. All the parts of his suffering are as useful to teach me how to suffer as the Ten Commandments to teach me what to do. That he was put to fly from proud domineering Pharisees, false Teachers and worldly Rulers, and to converse most with the Poor in Wildernesses or obscure various places? That he was hated and persecuted for doing good, and accounted a Sinner for neglecting mens Ceremonies, and Traditions: That he was hardly believed even by them that saw his Miracles: And his own Disciples were so slow in learning; and that in his suffering they all forsook him and fled, and one denied him with Oaths and Curses. All these are instructing Instances; That Christ's natural (though sinless) aversation to Death and Suffering, and his fear, should be so powerful, and the sense of God's punishing Justice so terrible, as to make his Soul sorrowful even to the Death, and cast him into an Agony, where he swate Water and Blood, and to pray thrice that the bitter Cup if possible might pass from him, which he came into the World to drink; all these also are teaching parts of the Sufferings of Christ; That Rulers, and Priests, and Souldiers, and the Rabble should agree to Scorn him; Cloth him in derision, Spit on him, Buffet him, Scourge him, make him their Jeast that came to save them; that they should make a Sinner of him that never sinned, but came to destroy it and save ⟨p. 315⟩men from it; yea, to make him no less than a Deceiver, a Blasphemer, and an usurping Rebel against Caesar, and write this last as his Accusation on his Cross, thinking to leave his Innocency no Vindication or Defence; for the Lord and Saviour of the World to undergo all this, is very instructing to a suffering Believer: That he should as such a Malefactor be reviled on a Cross, and numbred with Transgressours, and his side be pierced, and he there cry out to his Father as forsaken by him: That thus dying he was buried, and his Soul went to the place of separated Souls, and yet into Paradise; they are excellent Lessons which may be learnt from all this.
