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."

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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 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 from 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!"

As their clamour grew, so the president's justice declined. Those graces that lie loose and ungrounded, are easily washed away with the first tide of popularity. Thrice had that man proclaimed the innocence of

him whom he now inclines to condemn, "willing to content the people." O the foolish aims of ambition! Not God, not his conscience, come into any regard, but the people. What a base idol doth the proud man adore! even the vulgar, which a base man despiseth. What is their applause but an idle wind? what is their anger but a painted fire? O Pilate, where now is thyself and thy people? whereas a good conscience would have stuck by thee for ever, and have given thee boldness, before the face of that God which thou and thy people shall never have the happiness to behold.

The Jews have played their first part; the Gentiles must now act theirs. Cruel Pilate, who knew Jesus was "delivered for envy," accused falsely, maliciously pursued, hath turned his proffered chastisement into scourging: "Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him." Woe is me! dear Saviour! I feel thy lashes, I shrink under thy painful whippings, thy nakedness covers me with shame and confusion! That tender and precious body of thine is galled and torn with cords! Thou, that didst of late water the garden of Gethsemane with the drops of thy bloody sweat, dost now bedew the pavement of Pilate's hall with the showers of thy blood! How fully hast thou made good thy word, "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting!" How can I be enough sensible of my own stripes? These blows are mine; both my sins have given them, and they give remedies to my sins: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes are we healed." O blessed Jesu! why should I think strange to be scourged with tongue or hand, when I see thee bleeding? what lashes can I fear either from heaven or earth, since thy scourges have been borne for me, and have sanctified them to me? Now, dear Jesu, what a world of insolent reproaches, indignities, tortures, art thou entering into! To an ingenuous and tender disposition, scorns are torment enough; but here pain helps to perfect thy misery, their despite.

Who should be actors in this whole bloody execution but grim and barbarous soldiers, men inured to cruelty, in whose faces were written the characters of murder, whose very trade was killing, and whose looks were enough to prevent their hands! These, for the greater terror of their concourse, are called together, and whether by the connivance or the command of their

wicked governor, or by the instigation of the malicious Jews, conspire to anticipate his death with scorns, which they will after inflict with violence.

O my blessed Saviour! was it not enough that thy sacred body was stripped of thy garments, and torn with bloody stripes, but that thy person must be made the mocking-stock of thine insulting enemies, thy back disguised with purple robes, thy temples wounded with a thorny crown, thy face spit upon, thy cheeks buffeted, thy head smitten, thy hand sceptred with a reed, thyself derided with wry mouths, bended | knees, scoffing acclamations! Insolent soldiers! whence is all this jeering and sport, but to flout majesty? All these are the ornaments and ceremonies of a royal inauguration, which now in scorn ye cast upon my despised Saviour. Go on, make your selves merry with this jolly pastime. Alas! long ago ye now feel whom ye scorned. Is he a king, think you, whom you thus played upon? Look upon him with gnashug and horror, whom ye looked at with mockage and insultation. Was not that head fit for your thorns, which ye now see crowned with glory and majesty? was not that hand fit for a reed, whose iron sceptre crushes you to death? was not that face fit to be spit upon, from the dreadful aspect whereof ye are ready to desire the mountains to cover you?

In the meantime, whither, O whither dost thou stoop, O thou co-eternal Son of thine eternal Father! whither dost thou abase thyself for me! I have sinned, and thou art punished; I have exalted myself, and thou art dejected; I have clad myself with shame, and thou art stripped; I have made myself naked, and thou art clothed with robes of dishonour; my head hath devised evil, and thine is pierced with thorns; I have smitten thee, and thou art smitten for me; I have dishonoured thee, and thou, for my sake, art scorned; thou art made the sport of men, for me that have deserved to be insulted on by devils!

Thus disguised, thus bleeding, thus mangled, thus deformed, art thou brought forth, whether for compassion, or for a more universal derision to the furious multitude, with an Ecce homo, "Behold the man!" Look upon him, O ye merciless Jews! see him in his shame, in his wounds and blood, and now see whether ye think him miserable enough! Ye see his face black and blue with buffeting, his eyes swoln, his cheeks beslabbered with spittle, his skin torn with scourges, his whole body bathed in blood, and would ye yet have more? Behold

the man!" the man wnom ye envied for his greatness, whom ye feared for his usurpa. tion: doth he not look like a king? is he not royally dressed? See whether his magnificence do not command reverence from you. Would ye wish a finer king? are ye not afraid he will wrest the sceptre out of Cæsar's hand?" Behold the man!"

Yea, and behold him well, O thou proud Pilate! O ye cruel soldiers! O ye insatiable Jews! Ye see him base, whom ye shall see glorious: the time shall surely come wherein ye shall see him in another dress. He shall shine, whom ye now see to bleed; his crown cannot be now so ignominious and painful, as it shall be once majestical and precious. Ye, who now bend your knees to him in scorn, shall see all knees, both in heaven and earth, and under the earth, to bow before him in an awful adoration; ye, that now see him with contempt, shall behold him with horror.

What an inward war do I yet find in the breast of Pilate! His conscience bids him spare, his popularity bids him kill. His wife, warned by a dream, warns him to have no hand in the blood of that just man; the importunate multitude presses him for a sen tence of death. All shifts have been tried to free the man whom he hath pronounced innocent: all violent motives are urged to condemn that man whom malice pretends guilty.

In the height of this strife, when conscience and moral justice were ready to sway Pilate's distracted heart to a just dismission, I hear the Jews cry out, "If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend." There is the word that strikes it dead. It is now no time to demur any more. In vain shall we hope, that a carnal heart can prefer the care of his soul to the care of his safety and honour, God to Cæsar. Now Jesus must die: Pilate hastes into the judgment-hall; the sentence sticks no longer in his teeth: "Let him be crucified."

Yet how foul soever his soul shall be with this fact, his hands shall be clean: "He took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it." Now all is safe: I doubt not but this is expiation enough; water can wash off blood; the hands can cleanse the heart: protest thou art innocent, and thou canst not be guilty. Vain hypocrite! canst thou think to escape so? is

murder of no deeper dye? canst thou dream waking, thus to avoid the charge of thy wife's dream? is the guilt of the blood of the Son of God to be wiped off with such ease? What poor shifts do foolish sinners make to

It is not out of any compassion of thy misery, or care of thine ease, that Simon of Cyrene is forced to be the porter of thy cross; it was out of their own eagerness of thy dispatch; thy feeble paces were too slow for their purpose; their thirst after thy blood made them impatient of delay. If thou have wearily struggled with the burden of thy shame all along the streets of Jerusalem, when thou comest once past the gates, a helper shall be deputed to thee: the expedition of thy death was more sweet to them than the pain of a lingering passage. What thou saidst to Judas, they say to the executioner: "What thou doest, do quickly." While thou yet livest, they cannot be quiet, they cannot be safe: to hasten thine end, they lighten thy carriage.

Hadst thou done this out of choice, which thou didst out of constraint, how I should have envied thee, O Simon of Cyrene, as too happy in the honour to be the first man that bore that cross of thy Saviour, wherein millions of blessed martyrs have, since that time, been ambitious to succeed thee? Thus to bear thy cross for thee, O Saviour, was more than to bear a crown for thee. Could I be worthy to be thus graced by thee, I should pity all other glories.

While thou thus passest, O dear Jesu! the streets and ways resound not all with one note. If the malicious Jews and cruel soldiers insulted upon thee, and either haled or railed thee on with a bitter violence, thy faithful followers were no less loud in their moans and ejulations. neither would they endure, that the noise of their cries and lamentations should be drowned with the clamour of those reproaches: but especially thy blessed mother, and those other zealous associates of her own sex, were most passionate in their wailings. And why should I think that all that devout multitude which so lately cried Hosanna in the streets, did not also bear their part in these public condolings? Though it had not concerned thyself, O Saviour, thine ears had been still more open to the voice of grief than of malice; and so thy lips also are open to the one, snut to the other: " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." Who would not have thought, O Saviour, that thou shouldst have been wholly taken up with thine own sorrows? The expectation of so bitter

to pity them, who, insensible of their own ensuing condition, mourned for thine now present. They see thine extremity; thou foreseest theirs: they pour out their sorrow upon thee; thou divertest it upon themselves. We, silly creatures, walk blindfolded in this vale of tears, and little know what evil is towards us: only what we feel we know; and while we feel nothing, can find leisure to bestow our commiseration on those who need it, perhaps, less than ourselves. Even now, O Saviour, when thou wert within the view of thy Calvary, thou canst foresee and pity the vastation of thy Jerusalem, and givest a sad prophecy of the imminent destruction of that city, which lately had cost thee tears, and now shall cost thee blood. It is not all the indign cruelty of men that can rob thee of thy mercy.

Jerusalem could not want malefactors, though Barabbas was dismissed. That all this execution might seem to be done out of the zeal of justice, two capital offenders, adjudged to their gibbet, shall accompany thee, O Saviour, both to thy death and in it. They are led manacled after thee, as less criminal: no stripes had disabled them from bearing their own crosses. Long ago was this unmeet society foretold by thine evangelical seer: "He was taken from prison and from judgment; he was cut off out of the land of the living; he made his grave with the wicked." O blessed Jesu! it had been disparagement enough to thee to be sorted with the best of men, since there is much sin in the perfectest, and there could be no sin in thee; but to be matched with the scum of mankind, whom vengeance would not let live, is such an indignity as confounds my thoughts. Surely there is no angel in heaven, but would have been proud to attend thee; and what could the earth afford worthy of thy train? Yet malice hath suited thee with company next to hell, that their viciousness might reflect upon thee, and their sin might stain thine innocence. Ye are deceived, O ye fond judges! this is the way to grace your dying malefactors; this is not the way to disgrace him whose guiltlessness and perfection triumphed over your injustice: his presence was able to make your thieves happy: their presence could no more blemish him than your own. Thus guarded, thus attended, thus accompanied, art thou, blessed Jesu, led to that loathsome and infamous hill, which now thy last blood shall make sacred;