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 the cross, but bore no part of the weight of our iniquities; all which the heavenly Father laid upon his beloved Son, to be cancelled with his blood and death. O infinite goodness of the Father! O infinite charity of the Son! to do and suffer so much for wretched man. O my soul, see thou never more be ungrateful to so loving a God.

4. Consider how our Saviour being now arrived at Mount Calvary, quite wearied and spent, the ministers of hell still persecute him with unwearied cruelty; and whereas it was the custom to give to the criminals that were to die a strengthening draught of wine seasoned with myrrh, they contrived to mingle gall with the potion designed for him. After this they violently stripped him of his clothes, now cleaving fast to his sores, and thus opened again his wounds, and exposed him naked to shame and cold in the sight of an immense multitude. Draw nigh now, my soul, and see him bleeding afresh for the love of thee. Oh! see how, while the cross is preparing, he falls upon his knees, and offers himself to his eternal Father a bleeding victim to appease his wrath enkindled by thy sins.

5. Consider how the cross lying flat on the ground, they lay our dear Redeemer stretched out upon it, who like a meek lamb makes no resistance. And first drawing his right hand to the place designed to fix it on, they drive with their hammers a sharp gross nail through the palm of his hand, forcing its way with incredible torment through the sinews, veins, muscles and bones, of which the hand is composed, into the hard wood of the cross: in the meantime the whole body, to favour that wound and the pierced sinews, was naturally drawn towards the right side, but not long permitted to remain so; for immediately these cruel butchers laying hold of his other arm