consented, and delivered him first to be scourged; which the soldiers executed with violence and unrelenting hands, opening his virginal body to nakedness, and tearing his tender flesh, till the pavement was purpled with a shower of holy blood.' It is reported in the ecclesiastical story, that when St. Agnes and St. Barbara, holy virgins and martyrs, were stripped naked to execution, God, pitying their great shame and trouble to have their nakedness discovered, made for them a veil of light, and sent them to a modest and desired death. But the holy Jesus, who chose all sorts of shame and confusion, that by a fulness of suffering he might expiate his Father's anger, and that he might consecrate to our sufferance all kind of affront and passion, endured even the shame of nakedness at the time of his scourging, suffering himself to be divested of his robes, that we might be clothed with that stole he put off. For therefore he took on him the state of sinning Adam, and became naked, that we might first be clothed with righteousness, and then with immortality.

6

11. After they had scourged him without remorse, 'they clothed him with purple, and crowned him with thorns, and put a cane in his hands, for a sceptre, and bowed their knees before him,' and 'saluted him' with mockery, with a Hail, King of the Jews!' and they beat him,' and 'spat upon him:' and then Pilate brought him forth, and showed this sad spectacle to the people; hoping this might move them to compassion, who never loved to see a man prosperous, and are always troubled to see the same man in misery. But the

1 S. Aug. tract. xv. in Joann.

earth, which was cursed for Adam's sake, and was sowed with thorns and thistles, produced the full harvest of them; and the second Adam gathered them all, and made garlands of them, as ensigns of his victory which he was now in pursuit of against sin, the grave, and hell. And we also may make our thorns, which are in themselves pungent and dolorous, to be a crown, if we bear them patiently, and unite them to Christ's passion, and offer them to his honour, and bear them in his cause, and rejoice in them for his sake. And indeed, after such a grove of thorns growing upon the head of our Lord, to see one of Christ's members soft, delicate, and effeminate, is a great indecency, next to this of seeing the Jews use the King of glory with the greatest reproach and infamy.

12. But nothing prevailing, nor the innocence of Jesus, nor his immunity from the sentence of Herod, nor the industry and diligence of Pilate, nor the misery nor the sight of the afflicted Lamb of God, at last (for so God decreed to permit it, and Christ to suffer it) Pilate gave sentence of death upon him, having first washed his hands. Of which God served his end, to declare the innocence of his Son, of which in this whole process he was most curious, and suffered not the least probability to adhere to him: yet Pilate served no end of his, nor preserved any thing of his innocence. He that rails upon a prince, and cries, Saving your honour, you are a tyrant; and he that strikes a man upon the face, and cries him mercy, and undoes him, and says it was in jest, does just like that person that sins against God, and thinks to be excused by saying it was against his conscience; that is, washing our hands when

they are stained in blood; as if a ceremony of purification were enough to cleanse a soul from the stains of a spiritual impurity. So some refuse not to take any oath in times of persecution, and say it obliges not, because it was forced, and done against their will; as if the doing of it were washed off by protesting against it: whereas the protesting against it declares me criminal, if I rather choose not death than that which I profess to be a sin. But all the persons which co-operated in this death, were in this life consigned to a fearful judgment after it. The Jews took the blood (which Pilate seemed to wash off) upon themselves and their children;' and the blood of this paschal Lamb stuck upon their forehead, and marked them, not to escape, but to fall under the sword of the destroying angel; and they perished either by a more hasty death, or shortly after in the extirpation and miserable ruin of their nation. And Pilate who had a less share in the crime, yet had a black character of a secular judgment: for not long after he was by Vitellius, the president of Syria, sent to Rome to answer to the crimes objected against him by the Jews, whom to please he had done so much violence to his conscience; and by Cæsar's sentence he was banished to Vienna, deprived of all his honours, where he lived ingloriously, till, by impatience of his calamity, he killed himself with his own hand. And thus the blood of Jesus, shed for the salvation of the world, became to them a curse; and that which purifies the saints, stuck to them that shed it, (and mingled it not with the tears of repentance,) to be a leprosy loathsome and incurable. So manna turns to worms, and the wine of angels to vinegar and lees, when it is re

ceived into impure vessels, or tasted by wanton palates; and the sun itself produces rats and serpents, when it reflects upon the dirt of Nilus.

THE PRAYER.

O holy and immaculate Lamb of God, who wert pleased to suffer shame and sorrow, to be brought before tribunals, to be accused maliciously, betrayed treacherously, condemned unjustly, and scourged most rudely, suffering the most severe and most unhandsome inflictions which could be procured by potent, subtle, and extremest malice; and didst choose this out of love greater than the love of mothers, more affectionate than the tears of joy and pity dropped from the eyes of most passionate women, by these fontinels of blood issuing forth life and health and pardon upon all thine enemies; teach me to apprehend the baseness of sin, in proportion to the greatest of those calamities which my sin made it necessary for thee to suffer, that I may hate the cause of thy sufferings, and adore thy mercy, and imitate thy charity, and copy out thy patience and humility, and love thy person to the uttermost extent and degrees of my affections. Lord, what am I, that the eternal Son of God should suffer one stripe for me? But thy love is infinite. And how great a misery is it to provoke by sin so great a mercy, and despise so miraculous a goodness, and to do fresh despite to the Son of God? But our sins are innumerable, and our infirmities are mighty. Dearest Jesu, pity me, for I am accused by my own conscience, and am found guilty; I am stripped naked of my innocence, and bound fast by lust, and tormented with stripes and wounds of enraged appetites. But let thy innocence excuse me, the robes of thy righteousness clothe me, thy bondage set me free, and thy stripes heal me: that thou being my advocate, my physician, my patron, and my Lord, I may be adopted into the union of thy merits, and partake of the efficacy of thy sufferings, and be crowned as thou art, having my sins changed to virtues, and my thorns to rays of glory under thee our head, in the participation of eternity, O holy and immaculate Lamb of God. Amen.

DISCOURSE XX.

Of Death, and the due Manner of Preparation to it.

1. THE Holy Spirit of God hath in Scripture revealed to us but one way of preparing to death, and that is, by a holy life; and there is nothing in all the book of life, concerning this exercise of address to death, but such advices which suppose the dying person in a state of grace. St. James indeed counsels, that in sickness we should send for the ministers ecclesiastical, and that they 'pray over us,' and that we confess our sins, and they shall be forgiven ;' that is, those prayers are of great efficacy for the removing the sickness, and taking off that punishment of sin, and healing them in a certain degree, according to the efficacy of the ministry, and the dispositions or capacities of the sick person. But we must know that oftentimes universal effects are attributed to partial causes; because by the analogy of Scripture we are taught, that all the body of holy actions and ministries are to unite in production of the event, and that without that adunation one thing alone cannot operate: but because no one alone does the work, but by an united power, therefore indefinitely the effect is ascribed sometimes to one, sometimes to another; meaning, that one as much as the other, that is, all together, are to work the pardon and the grace. But the doctrine of preparation to death we are clearest taught in the parable of the ten virgins. Those who were wise stood waiting for the coming of the bridegroom, their lamps burning; only when the

Jam. v. 14, &c.

2 Matt. xxv.