Thus did our Blessed Saviour endure the cross, despising the shame; despising the shame, that is not simply disregarding it, or (with a Stoical haughtiness, with a Cynical immodesty, with a stupid carelessness) slighting it as no evil; but not eschewing it, or not rating it for so great an evil, that to decline it he would neglect the prosecution of his great and glorious designs.
There is innate to man an aversation and abhorrency from disgraceful abuse, no less strong, then are the like antipathies to pain; whence cruel mockings and scourgings are coupled as ingredients of the sore persecutions sustained by God's faithful Martyrs; And generally men with more readiness will embrace, with more contentedness will endure the cruelty of the latter, than of the former; pain not so smartly affecting the lower sense, as being insolently contemned doth grate upon the fancy, and wound even the mind itself; for the wounds of infamy do (as the wise man telleth us) go down into the innermost parts of the belly, reaching the very heart, and touching the soul to the quick.
We therefore need not doubt, but that our Saviour as a man, endowed with humane passions, was sensible of this natural evil; and that such indignities did add somewhat of loathsomeness to his cup of affliction; especially considering, that his great charity disposed him to grieve, observing men to act so indecently, so unworthily, so unjustly toward him; yet in consideration of the glory that would thence accrue to God, of the benefit that would redound to us, of the joy that was set before him, when he should see of the travel of his soul and be satisfied, he most willingly did accept, and most gladly did comport with it. He became a curse for us, exposed to malediction and reviling; He endured the contradiction (or obloquy) of sinful men; He was despised, rejected, and dis-esteemed of men; He in common apprehension was deserted by God, according to that of the Prophet, We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; himself even seeming to concur in that opinion; So was he made a curse for us, that we, as the Apostle teacheth, might be redeemed from the curse of the Law, that is, that we might be freed from the exemplary punishment, due to our transgressions of the Law, with the displeasure of God appearing therein, and the disgrace before the world attending it: He chose thus to make himself of no reputation, vouchsafing to be dealt with as a wretched slave, and a wicked miscreant, that we might be exempted not only from the torment, but also from the ignominy which we had merited; that together with our life, our safety, our liberty, we might even recover that honour which we had forfeited.
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