this blood had not been shed. How palpably doth their tongue bewray their heart! "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death." Pilate talks of judgment, they talk of death. This was their own only aim: law was but a colour, judgment was but a ceremony; death was their drift, and without this nothing. Blood-thirsty priests and elders! it is well that this power of yours is restrained; no innocence could have been safe, if your lawless will had had no limits. It were pity this sword should be in any but just and sober hands. Your fury did not always consult with law: what law allowed your violence to Stephen, to Paul and Barnabas, and your deadly attempts against this blessed Jesus, whom ye now persecute? How lawful was it for you to procure that death which ye could not inflict! It is all the care of hypocrites to seek umbrages and pretences for their hateful purposes, and to make no other use of laws, whether divine or human, but to serve turns.

Where death is fore-resolved, there cannot want accusations. Malice is not so barren as not to yield crimes enough: "And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute unto Cæsar, saying, that himself is Christ and king."

What accusations, saidst thou, O Pilate? Heinous. and capital: thou mightest have believed our confident intimation; but, since thou wilt needs urge us to particulars, know that we come furnished with such an indictment as shall make thine ears glow to hear it. Besides that blasphemy whereof he hath been condemned by us, this man is a seducer of the people, a raiser of sedition, an usurper of sovereignty. O impudent suggestion! What marvel is it, O Saviour, if thine honest servants be loaded with slanders, when thy most innocent person escaped not so shameful crimination? Thou, a perverter of the nation, who taughtest the way of God truly? Thou, a forbidder of tribute, who payedst it, who prescribedst it, who

provedst it to be Cæsar's due? Thou a challenger of temporal sovereignty, who avoidedst it, renouncedst it, professedst to come to serve? Oh the forehead of malice! Go, ye shameless traducers, and swear that truth is guilty of all falsehood, justice of all wrong and that the sun is the only cause of darkness, fire of cold.

Now Pilate startles at the charge. The name of tribute, the name of Cæsar is in mention: these potent spells can. fetch him back to the common hall, and call Jesus to the bar. There, O Saviour, standest thou meekly to be judged, who shalt once come to judge the quick and the dead: then shall he, before whom thou stoodest guiltless and dejected, stand before thy dreadful majesty, guilty and trembling.

The name of a king, of Cæsar, is justly tender and awful the least whisper of an usurpation or disturbance is entertained with a jealous care. Pilate takes

:

this intimation at the first bound; "Art thou then the king of the Jews?" He felt his own freehold now touched; it was time for him to stir. Daniel's weeks were now famously known to be nearly expiring. Many arrogant and busy spirits, as Judas of Galilee, Theudas, and that Egyptian seducer, taking that advantage, had raised several conspiracies, set up new titles to the crown, gathered forces to maintain their false claims. Perhaps Pilate supposed some such business now on foot, and therefore asks so curiously," Art thou the king of the Jews?"

He, that was no less wisdom than truth, thought it not best either to affirm or deny at once. Sometimes it may be extremely prejudicial to speak all truths. To disclaim that title suddenly, which had been of old given him by the prophets at his birth, by the eastern sages, and now lately at his procession by the acclaiming multitude, had been injurious to himself; to profess and challenge it absolutely, had been unsafe, and needlessly provoking. By wise and just degrees, therefore, doth he so far affirm this truth,

that he both satisfies the inquirer, and takes off all peril and prejudice from his assertion. Pilate shall know him a king, but such a king as no king needs to fear, as all kings ought to acknowledge and adore: "My kingdom is not of this world" It is your mistaking, O ye earthly potentates, that is guilty of your fears. Herod hears of a king born, and is troubled; Pilate hears of a king of the Jews, and is incensed. Were ye not ignorant, ye could not be jealous; had ye learned to distinguish of kingdoms, these suspicions would vanish.

There are secular kingdoms, there are spiritual; neither of these trenches upon other: your kingdom is secular, Christ's is spiritual; both may, both must stand together. His laws are divine, yours civil: his reign is eternal, yours temporal: the glory of his rule is inward, and stands in the graces of sanctification, love, peace, righteousness, joy in the Holy Ghost; yours in outward pomp, riches, magnificence: his enemies are the devil, the world, and the flesh; yours are bodily usurpers, and external peace-breakers: his sword is the power of the word and Spirit, yours material; his rule is over the conscience, yours over bodies and lives: he punishes with hell, ye with temporal death or torture. Yea, so far is he from opposing your government, that "by him ye, kings, reign:" your sceptres are his; but to maintain, not to wield, not to resist. Oh the unjust fears of vain men! takes not away your earthly kingdoms, who gives you heavenly; he discrowns not the body, who crowns the soul; his intention is not to make you less great, but more happy.

He

The charge is so fully answered, that Pilate acquits the prisoner. The Jewish masters stand still without; their very malice dares not venture their pollution in going in to prosecute their accusation. Pilate hath examined him within, and now comes forth to these eager complainants, with a cold answer to their over-hot expectation; "I find in him no fault at all."

Oh noble testimony of Christ's innocence, from that mouth which afterwards doomed him to death! What a difference there is betwixt a man as he is himself, and as he is the servant of others' wills! It is Pilate's tongue that says, "I find in him no fault at all:" it is the Jews' tongue, in Pilate's mouth, that says, "Let him be crucified." That cruel sentence cannot blot him, whom this attestation cleareth. Neither doth he say, I find him not guilty in that whereof he is accused; but gives an universal acquittance of the whole carriage of Christ, "I find in him no fault at all." In spite of malice, innocence shall find abettors. Rather than Christ shall want witnesses, the mouth of Pilate shall be opened to his justification. How 'did these Jewish blood-suckers stand thunder-struck with so unexpected a word! His absolution was their death, his acquittal their conviction. fault," when we have found crimes; "No fault at all," when we have condemned him for capital offences: how palpably doth Pilate give us the lie! how shamefully doth he affront our authority, and disparage our justice! So ingenuous a testimony doubtless exasperated the fury of these Jews: the fire of their indignation was sevenfold more intended with the sense of their repulse.

"No

I tremble to think how just Pilate as yet was, and how soon after depraved, yea how merciful together with that justice. How fain would he have freed Jesus, whom he found faultless! Corrupt custom, in memory of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, allowed to gratify the Jews with the free delivery of some one prisoner. Tradition would be encroaching; the Paschal lamb was monument enough of that happy rescue; men affect to have something of their own. Pilate was willing to take this advantage of dismissing Jesus. That he might be the more likely to prevail, he proposeth him with the choice and nomination of so notorious a malefactor as he might justly think incapable of all mercy; Barabbas, a thief,

a murderer, a seditionary, infamous for all, odious to all. Had he propounded some other innocent prisoner, he might have feared the election would be doubtful; he cannot misdoubt the competition of so prodigious a malefactor. "Then they all cried again, Not him, but Barabbas."

O malice, beyond all example, shameless and bloody! Who can but blush to think that a heathen should see Jews so impetuously unjust, so savagely cruel? He knew there was no fault to be found in Jesus; he knew there was no crime that was not to be found in Barabbas; yet he hears, and blushes to hear them say, "Not him, but Barabbas.". Was not this, think we, out of similitude of condition? Every thing affects the like to itself; every thing affects the preservation of that it liketh. What wonder is it then, if ye Jews, who profess yourselves the murderers of that just One, favour a Barabbas? O Saviour, what a killing indignity was this for thee to hear from thine own nation! Hast thou refused all glory, to put on shame and misery for their sakes? hast thou disregarded thy blessed self to save them? and do they refuse thee for Barabbas? Hast thou said not heaven, but earth; not sovereignty, but service; not the Gentile, but the Jew? and do they say, "Not him, but Barabbas?" Do ye thus requite the Lord, O ye foolish people and unjust? Thus were thine ears and thine eyes first crucified, and through them was thy soul wounded even to death, before thy death, while thou sawest their rage, and heardest their noise of "Crucify, crucify."

Pilate would have chastised thee. Even that had been a cruel mercy for him; for what evil hadst thou done? But that cruelty had been true mercy to this of the Jews, whom no blood would satisfy but that of thy heart. He calls for thy fault, they call for thy punishment; as proclaiming thy crucifixion is not intended to satisfy justice, but malice, "They cried the more, Crucify him, crucify him."