be made to us; and, on the other, no undue ones must be expected by us, in that day, "when God will judge the world in righteoufnefs by that man, whom he hath ordained* ;" and to whom he hath "given authority to execute judgment, be cause he is the Son of Man +."

Article IV.-Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; he defcended into hell.

IMM

MMEDIATELY after the mention of our Saviour's birth, the Creed goes on to the mention of his fufferings: for indeed his whole ftate on earth was a suffering ftate. By condefcending to be "made in the likeness of men," he exposed himself to all the neceffities, infirmities, and pains, to which men are naturally fubject. Befides this, he underwent the many inconveniences of a low and unfettled condition. And, which was yet much heavier, though his whole life was spent in doing good t, yet was it spent also in bearing troubles and uneafineffes from all around him.

The prejudices and misapprehenfions of his kindred and difciples were no small trial. But the perverseness and malice of his enemies was a great one beyond example. They were no lefs perfons than the rulers and guides of the Jewish peos ple, with their blind followers: whom the purity and humility of his doctrine, and the very needful severity of his reproofs for their pride, fuperftition, and wickednefs, had ren

dered

dered implacable against him. Every condefcenfion to win them gained only contempt from them: every endeavour to convince and reform them did but exafperate them: they mifreprefented and derided, they reviled and threatened, they affaulted and perfecuted him: till at length, the hour being come, which he knew was the proper one to yield himself up to them; they bribed one of his disciples to betray him into their hands; terrified the weft into forfaking him; and, after a most unjust condemnation, followed by a variety of despiteful usage amongst themselves, to obtain the execution of their sentence they accused him to the Roman power; first as a blafphemer against their law; and, failing in this, then as a rebel against the Emperor, Tiberius Cæfar, the most suspicious of men by which laft fuggeftion they forced the governor, though declaring himself to be satisfied of his innocence, yet to comply with them for his own fafety. After this he was abused and fcourged by the foldiers, crowned in cruel mockery with thorns, and loaded, probably till he funk under it, with the crofe, on which he was to fuffer.

This inftrument of death confifted, as its name denotes, of two large pieces of wood, croffing each other. On one, the arms of the condemned perfon were stretched out, and his hands nailed; on the other, his feet, joined together, were faftened in the fame manner: and thus he was to hang naked, expofed to heat and cold, till pain and faintness ended his life. The Jews, while they executed their own laws, never crucified any, till they were firft put to death fome other way; after which, their bodies were fometimes hanged on a tree till the evening. But it feems, that only the worst of malefactors were thus treated; who are therefore ftiled in the law of Mofes, accurfed*. The Romans indeed, and other nations, crucified men alive but ufually none befides their flaves; a sort of perfons, most of them, far lower than the lowest of servants amongst us.

This then was what the Son of God underwent, when, having" taken upon him the form of a fervant, he became obe. dient unto death, even the death of the cross t." Now the torment of hanging thus by nails, that pierced through parts of fo acute a feeling as the hands and feet, could not but be exquifite;

exquifite; especially as.it was almost always of long duration. And therefore this punishment was accounted, in every respect, the fevereft of any. Our Saviour indeed continued under it only about three hours: a much smaller time, though a dreadful one, than was usual. And there are plain reasons for his expiring fo foon. He had fuffered, the whole night before, and all that day, a course of barbarous treatment, sufficient to wear down the ftrength of a much rougher and robufter make, than probably his was. Before this, he had felt agonies within, grievous enough to make him "fweat, as it were, great drops of blood *." Partly the near view of what he was just going, most undeservedly, to fuffer, might thus affect a mind, which, having fo much tenderness and fenfibility in the cafe of others, could not be without fome proportionable degree of it in his own. And further, the thought, how fadly, from the time of their creation to that day, men had contradicted the end for which they were created; how large a part of the world would still reject the falvation which he came to offer, and how few receive it effectually; what guilt even good perfons often contract, and how tremendous will be the final doom of bad ones thefe reflections, which naturally would all prefent themselves to him in the ftrongeft light on this great oc cafion, could not but cause vehement emotions in his breaft, zealous as he was for the glory of God, and the eternal happinefs of men. But chiefly beyond comparison, the awful fenfe, that he was to bear all thefe innumerable fins of mankind "in his own body on the tree †," "being made a curfe for us, to redeem us from the curfe of the law ‡," might well produce feelings inexpreffible and inconceivable, which, operating much more powerfully than mere bodily tortures, and making "his foul exceeding forrowful, even unto death §," might fo exhauft his ftrength by heightening his fufferings, as to shorten them very confiderably. And accordingly we read, that when he had hung on the crofs from the fixth hour to the ninth, he cried with a loud voice, in the words of the twenty-fecond pfalm, where David speaks, as a type and representative both of his fufferings and his following glory, “My God, my God, why haft thou forfaken me? not in the leaft intending, as David before him did not, to fignify a diftruft

*Luke xxii. 44- + Pet. ii. 24. Gal. 13. § Mat. xxvi. 38,

of

f his love, in whom at the fame time he claimed an intereft, as his God'; but only to exprefs, that thofe comforts of the Divine Prefence, which he used to feel, were now, for myftetious reafons, with-held from him in that concluding hour of temptation, which himself fo emphatically called, the power of darkness. Then adding words of the firmest trust, Father, into thy hands I commend my fpirit, he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost +:

herved by the mouth of It was intimated in namely, that the feed

Thus did God fulfil what he before had all his prophets, that Chrift should fuffer. the first prediction, made upon the fall; of the woman should be bruifed §. It was prefigured, both in the facrifices of the Old Teftament, and several remarkable portions of its hiftory. He is mentioned by David, as having “his hands and feet pierced || :" He is largely described by Ifaiah, as a man of forrows, and acquainted with grief; wounded and bruised for our iniquities, and brought as a Lamb to the flaughter" He is exprefsly ftiled by Daniel, Meffiah the Prince, that fhould be cut off.

These prophecies, the Creed informs us, were fulfilled under Pontius Pilate for fo was the then governor of Judea under the Roman Emperor called. And he is named, because the moft ufual way of fignifying at what time any thing was done, anciently was by mentioning the perfon, under whose government it was done: there not being any other method of reckoning univerfally received, as that of counting by the year of our Lord is now among Chriftians. And it was very useful to preserve the memory of the date: partly, that in after-ages inquiry might be better made into the hiftories and records of that age, concerning thefe extraordinary events, faid to have then happened; and chiefly, that the Meffiah might appear to have come and died at that exact fulness of time, when it was foretold he should. One mark of it was, that the fceptre was then to be departed from Judah ‡‡ which evidently was departed, when it was reduced to be a Romant Province. Another was, that the fecond temple was to be yet ftanding; for the glory of it was to be greater than the glory VOL. IV.

*Luke xxii. 53. j. Gen. iii. 15.

of

Acts iii. 18.

*

Dan. ix. 25, 26.

IT Gen, xlix, 10.

† Luke xxiii. 46. John xix. 30. Pfal. xxii. 17. ¶ Ifa. liii. 3, 5, 7. Gak iv. 4

of the former and this could be true only by the fulfilling of another prophecy, "The Lord, whom ye feek, fhall come to his temple, even the meffenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in t." Accordingly he did come to it, and it stood but a few years longer. A third mark was, that, from "the reftoring of Jerusalem, to the Meffiah's being cut off," were to be fuch a number of weeks; each plainly confifting, not of feven days, but of feven years: which number was completed, while Pontius Pilate was Governor and therefore it was requifite to obferve, that under him our Saviour suffered.

Next to the mention of his death, in the Creed, follows that of his burial: a favour not allowed by the Romans to those who were crucified, unless fome confiderable perfon interceded for it. But the Jewish law requiring, that they should be taken down and buried before night §; and the next day being a great festival, when the violation of this law would give more than ordinary offence to the people; "Jofeph of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor, who also waited for the kingdom of God; craved the body of Jesus from Pilate:" who, after making due enquiry, "if he were already, and had been any while dead, gave the body to Jofeph;" who buried him respectfully in his own new tomb, a fepulchre hewn out of a rock ;" the entrance into which the Jews fealed up, and fet a guard over T. And thus were his own predictions fulfilled, that he fhould be crucified, the most unlikely of alk deaths and at the fame time that of Isaiah, that he should not only be buried, but with the most unlikely of all burials in such a cafe," making his grave with the rich +.”

The laft part of this article is, that "he defcended into hell:"" an affertion founded on pfalm xvi. 10. where David prophefies of Chrift, what St Peter in the Acts of the Apostles explains of him ‡‡, that "his foul fhould not be left in hell;" which imports, that once he was there. And hence, after fome time it was inferted into our Creed, which in the begin ning had it not. However, being taught in fcripture, the

truth

‡ Dan. ix. 25, 26.

Mat. xxvii. 57,-60. Mark xv. 43,—46.

Mat. xxvii. 62,66

*

Mat. xx. 19.

‡‡ Acts ii. 245—32