Ver. 1. Took Jesus and scourged him] So God scourgeth every son whom he receiveth, Hebrews 12:6. One Son he had that was sine corruptione et flagitio, without corruption and shame, but none that was sine corruptione et flagello, withouit corruption and scourging. In him therefore that rule held not, Flagitium et flagellum, sicut acus et filum, Punishment follows sin, as the thread follows the needle.
Ver. 2. And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns] Prickly and sharp as the point of a sword (so the word signifieth). Ακανθη videtur ortum a voce ακη, cuspis, acies, mucro. (Pasor.) And our Saviour being of the finest constitution, must needs be extremely sensible. The soldiers did this (it is thought) by the command of Pilate, to give content to the Jews, and to move them thereby (if it might be) either to condemn him or commiserate him. But nothing would do but his death; these blood hounds would not otherwise be satisfied. Godfrey of Boulogne, first king of Jerusalem, refused to be crowned with a crown of gold, saying that it became not a Christian there to wear a crown of gold, where Christ for our salvation had sometime worn a crown of thorns. Some report that he would not be otherwise crowned than with a crown of thorns, as he kneeled at our Saviour’s sepulchre; to testify (perhaps) that he did dedicate his head and life to Christ crucified, and despised not for his sake a crown of thorns here so he might wear a crown of glory with him in heaven. Tradunt coronam spineam ei esse impositam flexis genibus ad sepulchrum Dominicum procumbenti. (Bucholcer.) Canutus, for like purpose, set his crown upon the crucifix. It is not fit, since the head was crowned with thorns, that the members should be crowned with rosebuds, saith Zanchius.
Ver. 3. And said, Hail, King of the Jews] They scoff at him, as a ridiculous and stage player king, whom therefor e they clothed with purple, which was a colour affected by the emperors and nobility of Rome; as Herod, for like cause clothed him in white, εν εσθητι λαμπρα, a colour much worn by the nobility of the Jews, James 2:2. And they smote him with their hands] So do hypocrites still by their unchristian practice when they bend the knee to Christ with ludibrious devotion. They have the voice of Jacob, but the hands of Esau. Their words are God’s, their deeds the devil’s, as John Capocius told Pope Innocent III, preaching peace and sowing discord. Verba tua Dei plane sunt, facta vero diaboli videntur. Your words are clearly from God, truly your deeds seem to be of the devil.
Ver. 4. That ye may know that I find no fault] But why did he not then deliver him out of their hands? Pusillanimity (cowardliness) and popularity would not suffer him; but howsoever he shall give testimony to his innocence. So when Dr Weston was gone from Mr Bradford, martyr (with whom he previously had conference), the keeper told Bradford that the doctor spoke openly that he saw no cause why they should burn him. This Weston being prolocutor (spokesman) in the divinity schools at Oxford, when Cranmer was brought forth to dispute, thus began the disputation, Convenistis hodie, fratres, profligaturi detestandam illam haeresin de veritate corporis Christi in Sacramento, &c. You are assembled today brothren, to overthrow that destable heresy conceriing the body of Christ in the sacrament. At which various learned men burst out into a great laughter, as though even in the entrance of the disputation he had bewrayed himself and his religion. God will have such words fall sometimes from the mouths of persecutors, either wittingly, or by mistake, as shall one day rise up in judgment, and out of their own mouths condemn them.
Ver. 5. Pilate saith, Behold the man] q.d. If ye be men, take pity upon a man so miserably misused; and if ye be good men, let him go who is innocent. But these monsters, like those beasts at Ephesus, had put off manhood; and for good men among them, it fared with Pilate, pleading for Christ, as it did with him at Nola in the story, who when he was commanded by the Roman censor to go and call the good men of the city to appear before him, went to the churchyards, and there called at the graves of the dead, “O ye good men of Nola, come away, for the Roman censor calls for your appearance,” for he knew not where to call for a good man alive.
Ver. 6. Crucify him, crucify him] So afterwards the primitive persecutors cried out, Ad bestias, ad bestias, Christianos ad leones, To the beasts, to the beasts, Christians, to the lions, imputing the cause of all public calamities to them, as Tertullian testifieth. So they cried out at Geneva against Farellus, when the bishop first convented him, In Rhodanum, in Rhodanum, Into the Rhone River, into the Rhone, as the Papists still cry out against the professors of the truth, Ad ignem, ad ignem, to the fire with them, to the fire with them. Tollantur sacrilegi, tollantur. Let the wicked be destroyed, destroyed. Indeed in the form and style of their own sentence condemnatory, they pretend a petition to the secular power, In visceribus Iesu Christi ut rigor iuris mitigetur, atque ut parcatur vita; In the body of Jesus Christ so softened the rigour of the law and so that life was spared, so they will seem outwardly to be lambs, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Witness that chancellor of Salisbury, Dr Jeffery, who was not only contented to give sentence against certain martyrs, but also hunted after the high sheriff, not allowing him to spare them, though he would. So Harpsfield, archdeacon of Canterbury, being at London when Queen Mary lay dying, made all post-haste home to despatch those six whom he had then in his cruel custody; and those were the last that suffered for religion in Queen Mary’s reign. I find no fault in him] No wonder! For he was (as Peter saith) “A lamb without blemish” (of original sin), “and without spot” (of actual sin), 1 Peter 1:18. Neither was it without a sweet providence of God that he should be so often absolved from the desert of death, that thereby we might escape the manifold deaths that we had so well deserved.