Indeed, we yet walk up and down in the world; but the world is only a great prison to us: a prison, full of condemned wretches, who, although they are yet reprieved by God's arbitrary patience, some for a longer and others for a shorter time, yet all drag their chains and fetters about with them; and, if they were but sensible of their condition, might still dreadfully expect when the divine justice would hale them, one after another, to their execution. The Law sentenceth us for violating its commands: the truth and veracity of God plead against us the threatenings of the Law, and will not recede from the rigour of those plagues and curses that are therein denounced: the holiness and purity of God loaths us, for defacing his image, and deforming our souls with vile and filthy lusts: the justice of God brandishes its sword against us, and demands satisfaction for all the injuries we have done against it: the Devil pleads his right to us, and impatiently expects a commission to drag us away to torments: not an angel in heaven, nor any creature on earth, dare stand our friend. God frowns: Conscience accuses: the Law thunders: the Devil menaces: Vengeance is ready; and the Hand of Justice lifted up to fetch its stroke.

And, can there any, in this forlorn and desperate case, interpose, to shelter the trembling sinner from so great, so deserved, so imminent a destruction? Must all mankind, then, remedilessly perish? Is there no way of escape, no door of hope opened? Must we all fall a common and lamentable sacrifice to the wrath of God, and justice triumph in our eternal ruin?

Hear, O Sinners! and, if the consideration of your dreadful and present danger hath left you capable of comfort; if you can yet believe there is a possibility that you may be happy, after such clear and full convictions that you are wretched and accursed; behold! I this day bring unto all penitent and humble souls the glad tidings of great joy: joy, which, if excess of fear and horror have not altogether stupified and made us insensible, must needs fill us with the highest raptures of triumph and exultations. A Saviour, a Redeemer: O! sweet and precious names, for lost and undone sinners! Names, full of mercy, full of life! Justice is answered: the Law is satisfied: the Curse removed; and we restored to the hopes of eternal life and salvation. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.

These words are the very pith and marrow of the Gospel; the most comfortable news, that ever heaven sent to sinners. And in them we have,

First. Our Redemption asserted. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law.

Secondly. The Means how this redemption was effected. Being made a curse for us.

Thirdly. An irrefragable Proof, that this means, which was alone proper and effectual for our redemption, was likewise made use of by our Redeemer: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. Which cruel and accursed death because our Saviour underwent, he thereby became accursed; and a fit Redeemer, to deliver us from the curse and death threatened in the Law.

In each of these, there are many things, which we might fix our observations upon. But I shall, first, speak somewhat briefly to the third particular: and, then, return to consider the general scope and design of the Apostle in these words; without weakening such an excellent portion of Scripture so much, as to take it in pieces.

Whereas, therefore, the Apostle tells us, It is written, Cursed is he that hangeth on a tree: this he cites out of Deut. xxi. 23. where it is said, He, that is hanged, is accursed of God.

Here we must know,

First. That this kind of death, of hanging on a tree, was variously inflicted.

Whilst the Jews had the government of their own commonwealth, whensoever they sentenced any to undergo this death *, it was inflicted upon the offenders by strangling, as it is with us. But when, some time before Christ's birth, they became subject

* Some have thought, that the Jews had not the power of life and death, when they were under the Roman Dominion, in our Saviour's time: and they ground their opinion upon that saying of the Jews, John xviii. 31. It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. But St. Chrysostom well interprets them, Ει δε λεγεσιν εκ εξεσιν ἡμιν εδένα, κατα τον καιρον εκείνον φασιν, because it was the preparation of the Passover, v. 28. ETH тi ye anar, xal αλλῳ τροπῳ ανηρών, δεικνυσιν ὁ Στεφανος λιθαζομενος. Chrysost. in Joan. xviii. 31. Which instance doth indeed prove his position: unless, perhaps, it may be asserted, that the Jews stoned St. Stephen tumultuously, without due order of law. However, this appears from Acts xxiv. 6. where Tertullus saith, that the Jews would have judged St. Paul according to their law, for being seditious, and a profaner of the Temple; and the punishment due to such, was death. Vide Bp. Pearson on the Creed. p. 196.

to the Roman jurisdiction, and the supreme power was devolved into their hands, they brought in another more cruel and barbarous kind of this death, very seldom (that we read of) known or used among the Jews*: and that was, crucifixion; by nailing their hands and feet to a tree erected cross-wise, and so leaving them to languish in unexpressible dolors; hanging upon the soreness of those wounds, which were made in the most sinewy, and therefore, also, the most tender and sensible parts of their bodies. Now, both these kinds of hanging are accursed deaths: both that, which the Jews inflicted, by strangling; and that, which the Romans inflicted, by crucifying.

Secondly. Whereas many other kinds of death, either were or might be made, as painful as this; yet none of them is accounted an accursed death, but only this.

We frequently read of persons sentenced to be stoned, and to be burnt alive; wherein, certainly, they suffered as much or more pain and torment, than in the Jews' way of hanging: yet neither is he, whose body is consumed in the flames, nor he, whose soul is battered out of him with stones, said to be accursed; but only he, who is hanged on a tree. It was not, therefore, the torture and painfulness of that death, which made it to be accursed. But,

Thirdly. He, that was hanged, was said to be accursed, only because, in undergoing that kind of death, he was made a type of Christ.

Who, as he was by the determinate counsel of God's will appointed to that cruel death; so, likewise, were all the curses of the Law, and all the vengeance of divine justice, to meet together upon him in suffering it. And because the EverBlessed Son of God was to become a wonderful and stupendous curse, when he should hang upon the cross, a woeful spectacle to men and angels; therefore, all those, who underwent such a kind of death, are said to be accursed, because resembled in that particular unto him, who was then made a curse for all mankind.

Fourthly. We must observe, that there is a twofold curse; a ceremonial or typical curse, and a moral and real one.

Except by Alexander, who, at once, crucified 800 captive Jews, his countrymen, in Jerusalem itself: as Josephus relates it, lib. i. de Bello. cap. 4. And Philo lib. de Specialib. Leg. that the Jews used to crucify those, who were guilty of murder.

Not all those, who died this kind of death, were morally and really accursed: for we find, that, to one of those two thieves who were crucified with our Saviour, the same cross, which proved to him an Instrument of Death, proved likewise a Tree of Life; and his being lifted up upon the Cross, was in the way to his being lifted up to Paradise. But, yet, before the death of Christ had sanctified all kinds of death to those who believe in him, this death was ceremonially and typically accursed; because it was to be the death of him, on whom the wrath and curse of God were to light, in their greatest acrimony and extremity. And, this curse being really borne by him, there is now no death that is ceremonially or typically accursed; for all types are abolished, by being fulfilled in their antitype. But, indeed, the deaths of all that die impenitently in their sins, whether they be violent or natural, of what kind soever they be, are accursed worse than typically: they are accursed morally and really. And,

Fifthly. Observe another circumstance, in that fore-mentioned place of Deuteronomy: that God takes a special care concerning the dead bodies of those, that die this kind of dead; which yet he doth not for those, that die any other kind of death. His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day.

This likewise was a ceremonial and typical observation, fulfilled in our Saviour. For all the Four Evangelists record, that he was taken from the cross the very day of his sufferings, and committed to his sepulchre: that, according to the predictions which were before concerning him, he might be in the power and possession of the grave three days; that is, part of three; being interred on the Friday evening, and rising again on the morning of the First Day of the Week, which is Sunday, and our Christian Sabbath.

And thus you see in what sense those are said to be accursed, that are hanged on a tree: not morally nor really, unless their crimes, and impenitency in them, bring upon them the wrath of God, and the curse of the Law: but they are typically accursed, in that their death was of the same kind and after the same manner, with that, which Christ was to suffer.

Now if they were accursed typically, certainly the antitype must needs be accursed really.

And, in treating of this subject, I must speak of the profoundest mysteries which the Gospel exhibits, or our religion owns.

I shall propound them to you in these Two Propositions.
That JESUS CHRIST, THE EVER-BLESSED GOD, WAS MADE A
CURSE FOR US.

That, BEING MADE A CURSE FOR US, HE HATH REDEEMED
US FROM THE CURSE AND CONDEMNATION OF THE LAW.

These are the express words of my text.

Į. As to the FIRST, we must enquire into Two Things.
What it is to be made a curse.

How Jesus Christ, who is God blessed for ever, could be
made a curse.

i. WHAT IT IS, TO BE MADE A CURSE.

I answer: Although the word be here used in the abstract, to express the greatness and vehemency of that wrath, which lay npon our Saviour; yet it must be understood in the concrete. He was made a curse, that is, he was accursed.

Now to be accursed, in its proper notion signifies, to be devoted to miseries and punishments: for we are said to curse another, when we devote, and, so far as in us lies, appoint him to plagues and miseries. And God is said to curse men, when he doth devote and appoint them to punishments. Men curse by imprecation; but God curseth, more effectually, by ordination and infliction.

But yet, notwithstanding, every one, whom God afflicts, must not be esteemed as cursed by him. Heavy calamities do, oftentimes, befal the best of men; and those, who are redeemed from the wrath of God and the curse of the Law, yet lie under the same, yea and often under far greater, temporal sorrows and sufferings, than those, who are wretched and accursed sinners. Every one, therefore, that is afflicted, is not presently accursed.

For God hath two ends, for which he brings any affliction upon us. The one, is the manifestation of his holiness: the other, is the satisfaction of his justice. And, accordingly as any affliction or suffering tends to the promoting of these ends, may be said to be a curse, or not.

so it

If God afflicts us, only that his holiness might be manifested; that it might be known what a holy God we have to deal with, who so perfectly hates sin, that he will follow it with corrections wheresoever it be found: if he afflicts us, only to rectify our exorbitancy, to prune off our luxuriances, to remind us of himself and of ourselves; both which perhaps, in a continued