Divine love, in which justice and mercy have kissed each other, and joined in the most amiable harmony. Justice is satisfied; since the sentence of death which it had pronounced is executed, though not on the sinner, but on the surety. Mercy may receive the sinner into favour, and set him at liberty; since the surety permitted the sentence of death to be vicariously executed on himself. O miracle of love, which it becomes us humbly to admire, and gratefully to adore! How can we sufficiently praise our merciful Saviour, for thus standing as a victim in our stead, and submitting to be sentenced to death, against the hideous outcries of an outrageous multitude!

But let us be very careful that we do not act over again this tragedy, which the impious Jews acted here. We have within us a Barabbas, namely, the old man, who is a rebel against the Divine Majesty, and a transgressor of his commands, and consequently deserves to be crucified. Far be it from us, that by suffering him to live, we should crucify the Son of God afresh by our sins. Far be it from us, to fulfil the wicked lusts of the flesh, and to suppress the good motions of the Holy Spirit. Far be it from us, by continuance in sin, to spare the old, and do violence to the new man. Lastly, far be it from us to deliver a criminal, out of an abject fear of, or complaisance to man, and to injure a true member and faithful servant of Christ. May the Lord of all mercy ever preserve us from treading in these footsteps of Pilate and the Jews! Amen.

THE PRAYER.

O FAITHFUL and ever-living Saviour! blessed be thy holy name for thy goodness in standing as a victim in our stead, and submitting to be condemned to die, that we might be happily acquitted We adore this thy stupendous love, and humbly beseech thee to make us partakers of all the salutary fruits of it, Make a deep and lasting impression in our minds of

this astonishing exchange, and thereby powerfully unite us the more cordially to love thee, the great purchaser of our freedom, and to order our whole lives according to thy good pleasure May we on the other hand, by godly sorrow and repentance, mortify our old man as already condemned in thy condemnation; and so deprive him of all his power, that he may never recover his dominion over us, but that thy holy spirit may live and dwell in us. Thus for the great travail of thy soul, which thou didst undergo for our sake, thou mayest have pleasure in us as thy redeemed, and receive us into the mansions of bliss and glory. Amen.

CONSIDERATION XII.

THE INDIGNITIES WHICH THE LORD JESUS SUFFERED IN PILATE'S JUDGMENT-HALL, THEN Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers of the governor led Jesus away into the common-hall, and they called together the whole band. And they stripped him, and clothed him in a purple robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it about his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they mocked him, and began to salute him, saying hail king of the Jews! And they did spit upon him, and took the reed and smote him on the head, and bowing the knee, worshipped him: And they smote him with their hands,' (Matt. xxvii. 27, 30. Mark xv. 16-19. John xix. 1, 2, 3.)

In these words we have an account of the shocking indignities, which the Lord Jesus suffered in Pilate's judgment-hall.

Hitherto our blessed Saviour, had been since in the governor's house, was free from any rude insults. Pilate had zealously laboured to deliver him out of, the hands of his blood-thirsty enemies. He had

successively given them several testimonies of his innocence by repeated declarations; and though he had proposed to chastise Jesus and then let him go, no violence had as yet been offered to him. But a more cruel, bloody, and moving scene now presents itself, where the Son of God, as he himself had foretold, is delivered up into the hands of sinners, and left to the discretion of the savage and merciless soldiers. Let us therefore, with an attentive and sorrowful mind, consider these base indignities offered to the Lord of Glory. Let us see what good effect the consideration of these execrable doings will produce in a soul, possessed with a real love and affection for his crucified Saviour.

These indignities, which our blessed Lord here. endured, may be considered in three different lights. First, As they were painful.

Secondly, As they were ludicrous.

Thirdly, As they shewed the utmost contempt. I. The painful indignities which our Saviour endured, were, the scourging, the crowning him with thorns, and the rude blows of the soldiers.

The scourging is thus described by St. John (John xix. 1.), Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.' He had before said to the Jews,

Take ye him, and judge him according to your law (Chap. xviii. 31.); but as the Jews had declined this, it is afterwards said, Then Pilate took Jesus.' Alas! Pilate would never have taken away our Redeemer, had it not been for our sins, and that inexpressible love which his heavenly Father bore to the human race, who sent him down from his own bosom; for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, and delivered him up for us all,' (John iii. 16. Rom. viii. 32.) One is here taken as a ransom for all; and suffers death, that all the rest may be pardoned.

Thanks be to thee, O heavenly Father, who, for my salvation, hast sent thy beloved Son, and given.

him up to be reviled, insulted and put to death Thanks be to thee, O Son of the Father, who didst permit thyself to be led away, which, by the least exertion of thy Almighty power, thou couldest have easily prevented. O thou most precious gift of heaven! preserve me, that I may never treat thee with such levity and contempt as Pilate did; but rather that in humble faith and pure love, I may stretch out my hand and lay hold on thee as my salvation. Grant also that all, who have laid hold of thee in true faith, may diligently keep thy commandments, and walk worthy of thy gospel, (Col. iì. 6.)

When Pilate had taken our blessed Saviour, and carried him into his Judgment-hall, the Evangelists tell us that he scourged him. It is not to be supposed, that Pilate scourged Jesus with his own hands, since this would have been an action much beneath his dignity. He only ordered the soldiers to scourge him; for what one person causes to be done by another, is justly imputed to him that commands it, as if he himself had done it (Acts ii. 23., iii. 15. xxi. 24, 25.) Let all those who seduce others to sin, and either by their command, advice, or evil example, promote wicked and unjust proceedings, take notice of this; and be well assured, that every act of injustice, every sin which has been committed by their persuasion or authority, shall be placed to their account, and that they shall one day be punished for those sins by the righteous Judge of all flesh.

But the Lord Jesus was not only beaten with rods, which was reckoned the least ignominious by the Romans; but with thongs or cords, a punishment peculiar to the meanest slaves; especially those who were sentenced to be crucified. For this end, the criminal was not laid on the ground, and stretched out as among the Jews (Deut. xxv. 2.) but he stood with his hands bound, and fastened to a post or pillar; so that both the breast and back were exposed. Then the soldiers appointed to execute this punishment

usually scourged him on the naked back with thongs, to the ends of which pieces of iron-wire were sometimes tacked.

God had expressly ordered the Jews (Deut. xxv.3.) that they should not give a malefactor more than forty stripes; but among the Romans, the number of stripes was not limited, but given according to the crime of which the male factor had been guilty, and the dis cretion of the judge. It is not to be doubted, but that these cruel and impious soldiers now inflicted this punishment with the utmost severity; for they had no orders to spare the sacred body of the Lord Jesus. On the contrary, Pilate by thus scourging our blessed Lord, which usually preceded crucifixion, might possibly direct that Jesus should be severely scourged, with this view, viz. that the sight of his lacerated body, covered with sanguine torrents, might move the hard hearted Jews to pity the prisoner, and to desist from their obstinacy in opposing his releasement. Hence it may be easily conceived, with what inhuman fury this scourging was executed. The soldiers probably had their thongs interwoven with iron-wire so that they not only fetched blood, but even tore the flesh from the bones. This appears the more probable, as our blessed Saviour was so infeebled by this Scourging, that afterwards he had not strength enough to drag his cross to the place of execution.

Thus, O my Saviour, thine own prophecy, namely, "They shall scourge the man, (Luke xviii, 32.) was fulfilled and written in letters of blood on thy sacred back. Thus was accomplished what thou didst foretel by the mouth of the prophet, namely, 'I gave my back to the smiters,' (Isaiah 1. 6.) But, O blessed Redeemer, why must Thou thus present thy sacred back? It was I that have turned my back on my Creator, and consequently was to have received these stripés; it was I that deserved to have felt the scourge of the Divine wrath to all eternity. But thou, Q merciful Son of the Father, didst stand in the stead