Archive for August 19th, 2010
Sins of the world:
1) Christ was sore tormented in his mankind, nothing in his Godhead.
Marry, I will tell you how. We must consider our Savior Christ two ways, one way in his manhood, another in his Godhead. Some places of scripture must be referred to his Deity, and some to his humanity. In his Godhead he suffered nothing; but now he made himself void of his Deity, as scripture saith, Cum esset in forma Dei, exinanivit seipsum, “Whereas he was in the form of God, he emptied himself of it, he did hide it, and used himself as though he had not had it.”He would not help himself with his Godhead; “he humbled himself with all obedience unto death, even to the death of the cross” this was in that he was man.
Christ was
accounted
the greatest
sinner in the
world, because
he took upon
him our sins.
He took upon him our sins: not the work of sin; I mean not so: not to do it, not to commit it; but to purge it, to cleanse it, to bear the stipend of it: and that way he was the great sinner of the world. He bare all the sin of the world on his back; he would become debtor for it.
Christ is the only Purgation of our sin.
Now to sustain and suffer the dolours2 of death is not to sin: but he came into this world with his passion to purge our sins. Now this that he suffered in the garden is one of the bitterest pieces of all his passion: this fear of death was the bitterest pain that ever he abode, due to sin which he never did, but became debtor for us. All this he suffered for us; this he did to satisfy for our sins.
The notable
mercy of
Christ showing
to mankind.
It is much like as if I owed another man twenty thousand pounds, and should pay it out of hand, or else go to the dungeon of Ludgate; and when I am going to prison, one of my friends should come, and ask, “Whither goes this man?” and after he had heard the matter, should say, “Let me answer for him, I will become surety for him: yea, I will pay all for him.” Such a part played our Savior Christ with us. If he had not suffered this, I for my part should have suffered, according to the gravity and quantity of my sins, damnation.
The greater
the sin is, the
greater is
the pain.
For the greater the sin is, the greater is the punishment in hell. He suffered for you and me, in such a degree as is due to all the sins of the whole world. It was as if you would imagine that one man had committed all the sins since Adam: you may be sure he should be punished with the same horror of death, in such a sort as all men in the world should have suffered. Feign and put case, our Savior Christ had committed all the sins of the world; all that I for my part have done, all that you for your part have done, and that any man else hath done: if he had done all this himself, his agony that he suffered should have been no greater nor grievouser than it was.
His suffering
in the garden
was bitter
and painful.
This that he suffered in the garden was a portion, I say, of his passion, and one of the bitterest parts of it. And this he suffered for our sins, and not for any sins that he had committed himself: for all we should have suffered, every man according to his own deserts.
Why Christ
suffered such pains.