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struck him with it on the head, and so, as it were, nailed down the thorns into his forehead and temples, and occasioned thereby exquisite pain, (in addition to the agony He was enduring from the stripes laid upon him by the Roman soldiers,) as well as a great effusion of blood; all which this holy Sufferer bore with the utmost meekness and composure, neither reviling nor threatening them, but silently committing himself to the righteous invisible Judge," (1 Pet. ii. 23 ;) who, that He might be perfectly glorified in his beloved Son, allowed the powers of darkness to pursue their malignant rage against him; thereby at once illustrating their wickedness and impotence, together with the infinite perfection of his almighty Son, whose transcendent righteousness could never have been fully demonstrated, or the constellation of mercies purchased, which now are purchased by his unspeakable merits, had He not, unto the uttermost, endured all the tortures which the malice of devils and men could possibly devise wherewith to try his constancy and virtue.

"In the mean time, Pilate was taken up with trying and condemning some other prisoners, who were to be executed that day; and while he thus was sitting on the tribunal he had erected, his wife having by this time been informed that Jesus had been brought before him, and was going to be given up to death, sent a very importunate

of canes; and it is most probable this was a walking-staff, which they put into his hand as a sceptre; for a blow with a slight reed would scarce have been felt or have deserved a mention in a detail of such dreadful sufferings.

message to him,* saying, I beseech thee see to it, that thou have nothing to do with the blood of that righteous one, against whom the Jews are now demanding judgment; for I have suffered many things this day on his account in a dream,† and have had such terrible views represented to my imagination in my sleep this very morning, that I cannot but look upon it as something divine, and conclude, that if thou dost upon any terms consent to his death, it will be attended

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(His wife sent to him.) While Rome was governed by a commonwealth, it was unusual for the governors of provinces to take their wives with them; but afterwards it grew customary, and the motion made against it in the fourth year of Tiberius, was rejected with some indignation.-See Tacit. Annal. lib. iii. cap. 33, 44."

+ "(I have suffered many things to day on his account in a dream.) Perhaps the word onμepov, to-day, may imply, that she had dreamt these things that morning since Pilate rose; and as the heathens imagined those dreams most significant which came about break of day, she might on that account lay the greater stress on them. Jansenius thinks she had now a representation of those calamities which afterwards befell Pilate and his family. Josephus expressly assures us, that Pilate having slain a considerable number of seditious Samaritans, was deposed from his government by Vitellius, and sent to Tiberius at Rome, who died before he arrived there. And Eusebius tells us, (Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 7.) that quickly after, (having, as others say, been banished to Vienne in Gaul,) he laid violent hands upon himself, falling on his own sword. Agrippa, who was an eye witness to many of his enormities, speaks of him in his oration to Caius Cæsar, as one who had been a man of a most infamous character. (Philo. Jud. in Leg. p. 1034;) and by that manner of speaking as Valesius well observes, it is plainly intimated he was then dead probably, the accusations of other Jews following him, had before that proved his destruction."

with dreadful consequences to thyself and thy family.

"Pilate therefore alarmed by such a message as this, went into the common hall himself, to see what they were doing with the prisoner; and when he beheld with strong emotion all those indignities and torments which Jesus had borne, and saw how severely the soldiers had scourged him, thinking that the sight of him in so sad a condition might move the Jews to compassion, he determined to make one trial more. And accordingly he came out again to the public tribunal where the Jews were assembled, and having ordered Jesus to be led thither, he said to them just before He appeared, Behold, I am bringing him out to you again, that you may know and observe it, that I can find no fault in him; though the tortures He has now undergone are such, as must surely have brought him to confession, if He were indeed guilty.

"Then as he spake these words, Jesus came out of the prætorium, wearing the thorny crown and the purple robe, now also dyed in his own blood, which streamed forth from all parts of his body; and Pilate said to them, Behold the man; view him attentively, and when you see what dreadful things the poor unhappy creature has suffered, let that content you; for surely, considering his innocence, He has suffered already much more than enough. When therefore the chief priests and their attending officers saw him, fearing lest the people should relent, they presently renewed their exclamations, and eagerly

cried out as before, saying, We know the man sufficiently away with him to the cross! crucify him, crucify him!—and immediately order the wretch to be executed. Pilate on this said to them, If ye are thus resolute and inexorable, I leave him in your hands, to dispose of him as you think fit; take ye him therefore, if it must be so, and crucify him yourselves; but I desire to discharge myself from having any thing to do in it, either by myself or by my Roman guards; for as I have told you again and again, I find no fault in him worthy of any such punishment.

"The Jews then answered him, There is no room to represent him as a faultless person; nor any reason to be backward to condemn him; but these objections you have made oblige us to mention one circumstance, which for the horror of it we would willingly have concealed: we have a divine law which we received from heaven, by which blasphemy is forbidden on the highest penalties; and by this our law he ought to die, though He were not chargeable with sedition and treason, because He has made himself the Son of the most high God, in such a sense as no creature can be; and this He declared but this morning in open court.

"When Pilate therefore heard this expression, he was still more afraid than before;* for the Romans

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(He was still more afraid than before.) Though I think with Mr. Cradock and several others, the interpretation given in the paraphrase is the most natural; yet, I cannot forbear mentioning that of Dr. Lardner, who thinks he was afraid of a sedition among the Jews, from his knowledge of their great ob

VOL. III.

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believed many poetical stories of men begotten by their deities, and thought them a kind of demigods, who could not be injured without engaging their divine parents in the quarrel; and therefore apprehending that his wife's dream might also take its rise from such a cause, he entered again into the palace, and taking him aside, he said to Jesus, Tell me plainly from whence thou camest, and from whom art thou descended, and what is this divine original which thou art charged with claiming?* But Jesus knowing that his innocence was already apparent, even to the conviction of Pilate's conscience, gave him no answer to that question.

"Then Pilate in surprise, said to him, What, dost thou make me no reply, and not so much as speak to me in such a circumstance as this,

stinacy in any thing in which religion might seem to be concerned. And he adds, he might be the more reasonably alarmed on this head, as since the beginning of his government, he had met with two remarkable instances of their stiffness; one, in an attempt he made to bring the image of Cæsar into Jerusalem; the other, in a design he had formed of supplying the city with water, at the expense of the sacred treasury of the Temple."-See Lardner.

* "(Whence art thou ?) It is strange Mr. Locke should think, as he does in his Reasonableness of Christianity, vol. i. p. 133, that Christ declined giving him an answer, lest when he heard He was born at Bethlehem, he should have any such apprehensions as Herod had entertained. Pilate probably knew nothing at all of that prophecy; as Herod himself indeed did not, until he had learned it from the Jewish scribes, whom he consulted on Christ's birth. (Matt. ii. 4-6.) The answer which our Lord hath made to his former inquiries, showed how far He was from declining any danger; and the true reason of his present silence was, that Pilate's unsteady conduct, rendered him unworthy of any farther information."

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