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! O 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 a 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 near 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 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, the Flesh; yours are bodily usurpers and external peacebreakers: 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. O the unjust fears of vain men ! He 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.

soner.

:

The charge is so fully answered, that Pilate acquits the priThe 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 expectations; I find in him no fault at all. O noble testimony of Christ's Innocence from that mouth, which afterwards doomed him to death!

What 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 a general 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 thunderstricken, with so unexpected a word! His absolution was their death; his acquital, their conviction. "No 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 seven-fold more intended, with the sense of their repulse.

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 uncapable 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 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 waled 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 spat 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 Royal Inauguration, which now in scorn ye cast upon my despised Saviour. Go on; make yourselves merry with this jolly pastime.

Alas! long ago, ye now feel, whom ye scorned. Is he a King, think you, whom ye thus played upon? Look upon him with gnashing and horror, whom ye looked at with mockage and insultation. Was not that Head fit for your thorns, which you 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 spat upon, from the dreadful aspect whereof ye are ready to desire the mountains to cover you?

In the mean-time, whither, O whither dost thou stoop, O thou Co-eternal Son of thy 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 blue and black 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 whom ye envied for his greatness, whom ye feared for his usurpation: 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 in 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 sentence of death. All shifts have been tried, to free the