"It was written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things (y);" and "the Spirit of God, which was in the prophets, testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ (z);" he was to be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; oppressed and afflicted; wounded and bruised; brought to the slaughter, and cut off out of the land of the living (a)." The suffering of Christ was also typified in the sacrifices of the law, and particularly in the passover. Our Saviour himself forewarned his disciples of his passion, and St. Paul preached to the Thessalonians, that "Christ must needs have suffered (b).”—“ If hunger and thirst, if revilings and contempt, if sorrows and agonies, if stripes and buffetings, if condemnation and crucifixion, be sufferings, Jesus suffered; if the infirmities of our nature, if the weight of our sins, if the malice of man, if the machinations of Satan, if the hand of God, could make him suffer, our Saviour suffered; if the annals of times, if the writings of his apostles, if the death of his martyrs, if the confession of the Gentiles, if the scoffs of the Jews be testimonies, Jesus suffered (c);"—" and therefore those things which God before had shewed by the mouth (y) Mark, c. 9. v. 12. (a) Is. c. 53. (c) Pearson, Art. 4. (z) 1 Pet. c. 1. V. 11. (b) Acts, c. 17. v. 3. mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath fulfilled (d).” And as Christ TRULY SUFFERED, so likewise he was CRUCIFIED AND DEAD. The particular mode of Christ's death was predicted by Zachariah, "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced (e)," and again by David, "they pierced my hands and my feet (ƒ);" alluding to the practice of nailing to the cross the hands and the feet of the person crucified. Christ himself also intimated by what death he should die, and at the same time referred to a type of it in the Old Testament: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up (g)." The crucifixion of Jesus is related by all the Evangelists; and the incredulity of Thomas, recorded by St. John, afforded an opportunity of shewing that the prophecies of Zachariah and David were literally fulfilled (h). That Jesus really expired upon the cross was evident both to his faithful friends, who out of regard to their Lord and Master were present at his crucifixion, and also to his implacable enemies, who fancied that they thus saw the accomplishment of their wicked purpose. And even the Roman soldiers, who (d) Acts, c. 3. v. 18. probably (e) Zach. c. 12. v. 10. (g) John, c. 3. v. 14. probably felt little either of affection, or of malice, seeing him already dead, forbore to break his legs; but "one of these soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water (n)," which is a known sign of actual death in human bodies. The mention of the grave of the Messiah in the following passage of Isaiah, may be considered as a prediction that he was to be buried: "He was cut off out of the land of the living; and he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death (o)." And not only the burial of the Messiah, but the time he was to remain interred, was typified in the person of Jonas, "for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (p)." It was the custom of the Romans, by whose authority our Saviour was put to death, not to allow the bodies of those who were crucified to be taken from the cross and buried; they were left to putrefy, or to be devoured by the fowls of the air. But it was in the power of the magistrate to dispense with this custom; and accordingly we find that "when the even was come, there (n) John, c. 19. v. 34. (p) Matt. c. 12, v. 40. VOL. II. came (0) Is. c. 53. v. 8 & 9. L came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple: he went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed (q):" and thus it that Christ was BURIED. appears The article concludes with stating, that the object of Christ's passion was TO RECONCILE THE FATHER TO US, AND TO BE A SACRIFICE NOT ONLY FOR ORIGINAL GUILT, BUT ALSO FOR ACTUAL SINS OF MEN. By original guilt is meant that guilt which was incurred by the disobedience of Adam, and transmitted to all his posterity; and by actual sins of men are meant those sins which individuals actually commit, "for there is no man that sinneth not (r)." I shall transcribe bishop Burnet's excellent explanation and proof of this part of the article, to which it will be unnecessary to make any addition: "The notion of an expiatory sacrifice which was then, when the New Testament was written, well understood all the world over, both by Jew and Gentile, was this, that the sin of (q) Matt. c. 27. v. 57-60. (r) 1 Kings, one person was transferred on a man or beast, who was upon that devoted, and offered up to God, and suffered in the room of the offending person; and by this oblation the punishment of the sin being laid on the sacrifice, an expiation was made for sin, and the sinner was believed to be reconciled to God. This, as appears through the whole book of Leviticus, was the design and effect of the sin and trespass offerings among the Jews, and more particularly of the goat that was offered up for the sins of the whole people on the day of atonement. This was a piece of religion well known both to Jew and Gentile, that had a great many phrases belonging to it, such as the sacrifices being offered for, or instead of sin, and in the name, or on the account, of the sinner; its bearing of sin, and becoming sin, or the sinoffering; its being the reconciliation, the atonement, and the redemption of the sinner, by which the sin was no more imputed, but forgiven, and for which the sinner was accepted. When, therefore, this whole set of phrases in its utmost extent, is very often, and in a great variety, applied to the death of Christ, it is not possible for us to preserve any reverence for the New Testament, or the writers of it, so far as to think them even honest men, not to say inspired men, if we can imagine that in so sacred and important a matter |