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to Christ, and hard to endure. Lastly, To illustrate their powerful influence to STRENGTHEN OUR MINDS with the vigour of the spiritual life, and confirm them in the hope of a blessed immortality.

XXXVII. In the history of the crucifixion, we have examined distinctly the things which preceded, accompanied, and followed it. We have seen that it was preceded by SCOURGING, the BEARING OF THE CROSS, and the STRIPPING of the clothes. The first was predicted by Isaiah: "I gave my back to the smiters,” or as the Septuagint has it,-" to the scourges." And again: "The chastisement of our peace," the signal punishment which brings peace to us, "was upon him;” "and with his stripes," the wounds inflicted by the scourge, "we are healed." The perverse Jews falsely supposed that these were justly assigned to him on account of his own crimes. "They esteemed him stricken "of God," or, " of the Gods,"a by the just judgment of those who are called Gods, and are a kind of vicegerents of the Supreme God ;-" smitten and afflict“ed," or beaten with the scourge, which is the usual punishment of slaves: whilst, however, he was not compelled by the force of another, but of his own accord submitted to suffering. - The Second circumstance was prefigured by all the victims on which the sins of the offerer were laid with his hands; and especially by the goat of sin-offering, which, having the sins of the whole people of Israel laid on it by the Highpriest, carried them" into a land not inhabited." But it

* Εις μαστιγας. Ch. 1. 6.

.5 .Ch. liii .מוסר שלומנו :

.4 .Is. iii מכה אלהים ומענה *

b

↳ Lev. i. 4. iii. 2. iv. 4.

ps in terram excisionis. Lev. xvi. 21, 22.

was most signally adumbrated by Isaac bearing the wood on which he was to be offered to God to one of the mountains in the land of Moriah.d That mountain was probably the same with Calvary; for, as Munster observes,* the mountainous country of Moriah had many hills, or little mountains, amongst which were the hill of the city of David, and of the temple, and Mount Calvary itself. The last circumstance was predicted by David in the following words: "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture."e

XXXVIII. David has a remarkable prophecy of the CRUCIFIXION itself in the same Psalm :f" Dogs have

compassed me," that is, the Roman soldiers prepared to crucify me; "the assembly of the wicked have in"closed me," to wit, the rebellious people of the Jews gathered from their habitations to behold the spectacle of my cross; "they pierced my hands and my feet,” transfixing them with nails; which was done by the soldiers in compliance with the demand of the Jews, and thus by the Jews themselves through their instrumentality." I may tell," or I number, I expose to be numbered by spectators, "all my bones:" to such a degree is my body racked and distended on the tree. XXXIX. The word " in this passage presents the cross to the view of the reader.‡

Cosmograph. lib. v. cap. 45.

כארי +

:

That this term may be rightly translated " they pierced," or have any proper sense at all, interpreters generally contend that it ought to be changed into 2 or NO; and they severely condemn the perfidy of the Jews in corrupting this word. But amidst so great a diversity of opinion amongst men of the first eminence, the celebrated

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XL. I refer also to the crucifixion the following words in Zechariah :h" And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced." This expression includes not merely what was done by the soldier's spear, to which John applies it; but also that which was done by the nails, or instruments of the crucifixion, which is attributed to the people at large, in other passages as well as this. The accomplishment of the prophecy directs us to this interpretation. When Peter, after the effu

Dr James Alting, unquestionably the most distinguished Hebrew grammarian of the present age, appears to me to have determined the matter. He shows that the translation commonly received among Christians may be defended without making the least alteration of a letter or point in the authentic text. This he does in the following manner. He says that is the masculine plural of the present participle in Kal, and signifies fodientes, digging, piercing. The Root is

, a word not to be found indeed in the Lexicons, (with the exception that Foster has it in his Dictionary, p. 373.) but corresponding in its signification to ; which appears from its derivatives a measure, and a platter; both of which vessels are formed by excavation or digging. Besides, the middle radical, is frequently changed into ; as in Hos. x. 14. ONP, Zech. xiv. 10. 772877, Prov. xxiv. 7. ; and in many other words of that sort. But the addition of the letter & in quiescent verbs having for the last radical, is shown by no satisfactory instance. From the root therefore, in the participle plural is very conveniently derived, instead of which 7 without the letter Mem is used here. For, as Kimchi observes in his Grammar, several plurals are used with the Chirek only, without the Mem. As 2 Sam. xxiii. 8. whwn wx), "chief among the captains;" Ezek. xxxii. 30. ›♪7›y bɔ, “all the Zi"donians." Thus, as is noted in the Masora, and from it by Elias Levita, occurs thrice instead of ; to which Alting has added other instances that are similar, or even less doubtful, and which incontestably confirm the remark. And what should hinder us from adding the word under consideration to the number? It may then be retained and read exactly as it is written, without any prejudice to the signification and sense.

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sion of the Spirit of grace, had reproved the Jews in these terms; "Him," that is, Jesus, "have ye taken, "and by wicked hands have crucified and slain ;"they were pricked in their hearts, and said,-Men "and brethren, What shall we do ?"k-and, according to the exhortation immediately addressed to them, "they "looked" unto Him whom they had crucified. They turned, by faith, from every vain hope, to the true Rock of salvation, acquiescing in Him alone.

XLI. The BRAZEN SERPENT which Moses, at the command of God, erected on a pole, that the Israelites, wounded by the envenomed bite of the serpents, might by looking upon it be healed, was an eminent type of the crucifixion of Christ, which our Lord expressly applies to himself.m The Serpent, we may remark, was a figure of Christ, who, although entirely without sin, yet came "in the likeness of sinful flesh;"" and, in consequence of his voluntary undertaking, stood in the place of those, who, in common with others, were "a "generation of vipers." The lifting up of the serpent on the pole, Jesus himself being Interpreter, signified the lifting up of Christ,-not his glorious exaltation to heaven, but his being ignominiously lifted up on the cross. It was the will of God, also, that the serpent should be lifted up in the wilderness by Moses, because Christ was nailed to the cross by virtue of the curse denounced by the law which was given by Moses. But on this topic we recollect, we have elsewhere spoken at large.*

* The Author here alludes to the Economy of the Covenants, Book iv. ch. 10. sect. 62-70.

J Acts ii. 23, 36.

1 Num. xxi. 6—9.

n Rom. viii. 3.

T.

k Verse 37.

m John iii. 14, 15.

• John xii. 32, 33.

XLII. The whole burnt-offerings, also, which were called y, elevations, because they used to be raised up, and ascended entire on the altar, intimated that Christ, when offering himself for our sins, should ascend and be lifted up on the cross.

XLIII. Nor is it altogether without reason, that learned men have observed, from the Commentaries of the Jews, that the Paschal lamb was wont to be hung by iron nails fixed in a wall or pillar, that thus it might be flayed;-that it was also transfixed with a wooden spit, and, fire being put under it, was suspended to roast in the midst of an oven. This might have a reference to Christ's hanging on the cross; particularly if the statement be correct which Justin makes in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. One spit, he says, was thrust from the lowest parts up to the head, and another again at the place betwixt the shoulders, to which the hinder feet of the lamb were hung-which somewhat exactly represents the figure of the cross. Yet, since this ceremony was not of divine appointment, but merely a part of Jewish order, it is wrong to seek in it a divine type.

XLIV. The crucifixion was immediately succeeded, 1st, By the GUARDING, which appears also to be comprehended in the words quoted above from the sixteenth verse of the twenty-second Psalm: "For dogs have "compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have in"closed me;" they have surrounded me, as if by forming a circle, that I might find no way of escape. 2dly, By REVILINGS; which were expressly predicted, together with the ignominious draught of vinegar. 3dly, By DEATH, of which we find very frequent and expli

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