as if it were already done, saying in the Psalms, “They pierced My hands and My feet, they
told all My bones.”1689 Lo! how He was made a spectacle, for His bones to be told! and this
spectacle He expresseth more plainly, “they observed and looked upon Me.” He was made
a spectacle and an object of derision, made a spectacle by them who were to show Him no
favour indeed in that spectacle, but who were to be furious against Him, just as at first He
made His martyrs spectacles; as saith the Apostle, “We are made a spectacle unto the world,
and to angels, and to men.” 1690 Now two sorts of men are spectators of such spectacles; the
one, carnal, the other, spiritual men. The carnal look on, as thinking those martyrs who are
thrown to the beasts, or beheaded, or burnt in the flames, to be wretched men, and they
detest and abhor them; but others look on, like the holy Angels, not regarding the laceration
of their bodies, but admiring the unimpaired purity of their faith. A grand spectacle to the
eyes of the heart doth a whole mind in a mangled body exhibit! When these things are read
of in the church, you behold them with pleasure with these eyes of the heart, for if you were
to behold nothing, you would hear nothing; so you see you have not neglected the spectacles
to-day, but have made a choice of spectacles. May God then be with you, and give you grace
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with gentle persuasiveness to report your spectacles to your friends, whom you have been
pained to see this day running to the amphitheatre, and unwilling to come to the church;
that so they too may begin to contemn those things, by the love of which themselves have
become contemptible, and may, with you, love God, of whom none who love Him can ever
be ashamed, for that they love Him who cannot be overcome: let them, as you do, love
Christ, who by that very thing wherein He seemed to be overcome, overcame the whole
world. For He hath overcome the whole world as we see, my brethren; He hath subjected
all powers, He hath subjugated kings, not with the pride of soldiery, but by the ignominy
of the Cross: not by the fury of the sword, but by hanging on the Wood, by suffering in the
body, by working in the Spirit.1691 His body was lifted up on the Cross, and so He subdued
souls to the Cross; and now what jewel in their diadem is more precious than the Cross of
Christ on the foreheads of kings? In loving Him you will never be ashamed. Whereas from
the amphitheatre how many return conquered, because those are conquered, for whom they
are so madly interested! still more would they be conquered were they to conquer. For so
would they be enslaved to the vain joy, to the exultation of a depraved desire, who are
conquered by the very circumstance of running to these shows. For how many, my brethren,
do you think have this day been in hesitation whether they would go here or there? And
they who in this hesitation, turning their thoughts to Christ, have run to the church, have
overcome, not any man, but the devil himself, him that hunteth1692 after the souls of the
1689 Ps. xxii. 16, 17.
1690 1 Cor. iv. 9.
1691 Spiritaliter.
1692 Venatorem.
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Of the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations…