Whitefield on Christ’s Crucifixion
WHITEFIELD, preaching to a crowd that had assembled to witness an execution, observing that some turned their heads aside and wept, exclaimed: “Those tears are precious, and will be held in remembrance. How different it was when the Saviour of mankind was extended on the cross! The Jews, instead of sympathizing in his sorrows, triumphed in them. They reviled him with bitter expressions, with words more bitter than the gall and vinegar which they handed him to drink. Not one, of all that witnessed his pains, turned his head aside, even in the last pang. Yes, my friends, there was one. “That glorious luminary”—pointing to the sun—“veiled his brightness, and traveled on his course in tenfold night.”