he hung himself, is very brittle. The rulers consulted what was to be done with the money which he had rejected. They scrupled to lay it out for religious uses; but, wishing to spend it in some way that might appear charitable, they purchased with it a field for the burial of strangers; and so inadvertently fulfilled an ancient prophecy, Zech. xi. 12. 135. Jesus is led away to be crucified. Matt. xxvii. JESUS was now taken to be crucified. We read of crucifixion in the Egyptian, Grecian, and Carthaginian history; but it was not a Jewish punishment, and would not therefore have been suffered by our Lord, if the Romans had not been in his time the sovereigns of Judæa. Among them it was the mode of executing slaves, and was deemed so disgraceful, that Cicero, enlarging upon the crimes of Verres, describes his crucifixion of a Roman citizen as the highest conceivable enormity; and declares, that no language is adequate to express the horror he feels at the infliction upon such of this most cruel and most shocking punishment'. To the ancients, the cross of Christ was a stumbling-block in a higher degree than can well be conceived by us; for the use of it, which Constantine abolished, out of respect to the Saviour, has never been revived; and it is dignified and sanctified in our imagination, by having been made by him the very instrument of his triumph; (Eph. ii. 16.) but to a Roman, who saw in the cross nothing more than the legal mode of punishing strangers and slaves, it was only associated with ideas of guilt and ignominy. "The Pagans," says Justin Martyr," are fully convinced of our insanity, for giving the second place, after the immutable and eternal God and Father of all, to a person who was crucified." To the Jews it was still more f Juvenal, vi. 218. Cicero in Verrem, v. and pro Rabirio. * Apol. ii. 60. 66 odious; for they esteemed him who suffered by it as not only condemned by men, but forsaken by God. "The person whom you call the Messiah," says Trypho the Jew, "incurred the lowest infamy, for he fell under the greatest curse of the law, he was crucified; for it is written, "Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree"." The very same text had been previously brought forward by an apostle, (Gal. iii. 13.) to magnify the Saviour's love, in suffering for our sakes as an execrable malefactor; and we see, from this consent of Jew and Gentile, that when it is said that "Christ endured the cross,” (Heb. xii. 2.) it might be truly added, that he despised the shame." Crucifixion was likewise, from the pain it gave, and its long duration, a most cruel punishment; so that the Romans, to express the greatest degree of suffering, borrowed from it the term, which we retain, excruciating'. The prisoner, having first been scourged, was fastened to the upright beam, by tying or nailing his feet; and on the transverse by his hands, wounds in which, from the abundance of the nerves, are peculiarly painful. Thus suspended, he hung sometimes for days, until he perished through agony and want of food. Jesus, worn out by his previous sufferings, (for he had been kept up all the preceding night, hurried from place to place, and buffeted in derision by the soldiers, as well as scourged according to the custom,) expired after six hours. The place of execution, from the bones that were suffered to accumulate there, was called Golgotha, or the place of sculls; and is, through the Vulgate, better known to us by the Latin name of Calvary. It was usual for a condemned person to carry the transverse beam of his own cross; but Jesus was already so exhausted, that, after bearing it beyond the gate, he sunk under the burden, and they were obliged to transfer it to another. Simon the Cyrenian, whom they met coming out of the country, had this service imposed upon him, probably because he was a disciple. A great multitude of the people followed, and women, who beat their breasts, and lamented him. Jesus took this last opportunity of directing their thoughts to the guilt and impending ruin of their nation: "If they do these things to the green tree, what shall be done to the dry?" that is, if the Romans inflict this punishment upon the innocent, how awful will be the fate of this sinful nation. Two malefactors (who were also robbers, λyotaì, not xλEπтoì, thieves) were led out to suffer with him; and thus was literally fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy, (liii. 12.) that he was numbered among the transgressors. They were probably associates of Barabbas, whom the infatuated people preferred to the Lord of life and glory. It was permitted to give the condemned a portion of wine mingled with myrrh, of a stupefying quality; and some charitable person seems to have prepared this cordial. But, having tasted, he declined drinking it; for his purpose was to suffer death in all its bitternessk. 136. The Crucifixion. Matt. xxvii. Mark xv. Luke xxiii. John xix. FOUR Roman soldiers nailed him to the cross, and while they were so employed, he "interceded for the transgressors,” (Isa. liii. 12.) pleading their ignorance, the only circumstance that could be urged in extenuation. They next elevated the cross, and the violent precipitation of it into the cavity prepared for it, must have given a convulsive shock to his whole frame. Above his head, as was customary, was written the cause for which When Fructuosus, bishop of Taragon, and his two deacons, were led to be burnt in the amphitheatre, their friends offered them spiced wine, which they, in imitation of their Saviour, refused. Ruinart Acta Martyrum, p. 220. and the Hymn of Prudentius. The wine mixed with myrrh of Mark, and the vinegar mixed with (xoan) gall of Matthew, appear to be two names for the same cup, for the latter word means any bitter herb. Jeremiah xxiii. 15. viii. 14. This wine of stupidity (ovov naravikas, Psalm lx. 3.) is the same as that which is called, with apparent contradiction, sivos ängarov xsxegarμivos, that is, wine unmixed with water, but mixed with poisonous and stupefying ingredients. "Give strong drink unto him who is ready to perish." Proverbs xxxi. 6. he suffered, in the three languages that were in use; and Pilate had so worded it, that it expressed what he really was; nor would he alter it at the request of the chief priests to suit their view of him. The soldiers shared among them his dress; but as his inner vest was of a kind that would be useless if divided, they cast lots for it, whereby they fulfilled a prediction in that wonderful Psalm, (xxii.) which is a prophetic history of the Saviour's final sufferings and ultimate triumph, and to which he drew the attention of the bystanders, and of future ages, by repeating the opening of it while on the cross. In this painful state he continued from about nine o'clock in the morning to three in the afternoon, exposed to the mockery of both people and rulers, who insulted him in the very language which David, a thousand years before, had put into the mouths of the murderers of the Messiah. One, too, even of his fellow-sufferers joined in reviling him; but the other acknowledged that he was the Messiah, and received in return an assurance that he should accompany him that very day to Paradise, or the place of departed spirits'. His petition was to be remembered when he came in his kingdom; but he grants him more than he asked, an immediate reward; and thus, in the moment of his greatest degradation, performs an act of Sovereignty, by the forgiveness of sins. This case is a solitary instance which can never occur again; recorded to preserve the awakened dying sinner from despair, by shewing that even those that at the last extremity throw themselves upon the Redeemer's mercy, will be admitted into his kingdom. At the same time it holds out no encouragement to those who sin against conviction, and presumptuously flatter themselves that they shall have time and inclination to repent upon their death i This distinction, familiar to the Jews, is observed by St. Paul, who tells the Corinthians (2 Cor. xii. 2, 4.) that he was caught up to the third heaven, that he might contemplate the scene of supreme felicity which awaits the just after the resurrection; and that he was caught up to Paradise, that he might be acquainted with their immediate enjoyment of the intermediate state. bed. Probably no one ever so improved a dying hour as this robber, or under such unfavourable circumstances; for he believed Jesus to be the Messiah, when one disciple had betrayed, another had denied, and all had forsaken him; when the nation had rejected him, and his crucifixion seemed to prove that he was disowned not only by them but by God. He acknowledged the justice of his own sentence, and bore testimony to the innocence of Jesus; and was only anxious for salvation; for he had nothing to hope and fear in a world which he must leave so soon; and therefore he must have believed in the spiritual nature of the Messiah's kingdom. His faith then we see was of that saving kind which would have expanded into all the actions of a Christian life, if time had been afforded. One instance only of the acceptance of a dying repentance is recorded, that none might despair; and only one, that none might presume. In the height of his sufferings, Jesus still showed his affection for his mother, who, accompanied by her sister Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary of Magdala, and the beloved disciple, stood near to him. To the care of the latter he bequeathed her, and she henceforth shared his home. About three o'clock, under the influence of the same feelings as during his agony, he cried out in the Psalmist's words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" showing that the withdrawing from his spirit of his consolatory presence was more dreadful to him than all the sufferings that the malice of his enemies could inflict. A centurion with some soldiers were in attendance; and Jesus, complaining of thirst, a natural circumstance arising out of his state of pain, one of them, filling a spunge with vinegar and water (the usual beverage of soldiers) out of a vessel that happened to stand near, raised it up to him upon a reed. Having received the vinegar, and thereby fulfilled another prophecy, Psalm lxix. 21. he cried out with all the energy he could exert," It is finished;" and then, the horror which had oppressed him being removed, he again, in a loud |