his care to provide things honest in the sight of all men, and as he answered with a most graceful and courageous appeal to all that heard him, as to the innocence and usefulness of his doctrine, so it is well worthy our observation and reflection, that though God had been pleased to deliver up this awful hour unto the power of darkness, yet it was so far held in chains, and the rage and malice of hell restrained, that no such false witnesses arose against our blessed Lord as could, on the whole, asperse his character, or bring it under any brand of public infamy, though Judas, as well as others, might have sought a reward, or at least an indemnity for their own villainy, in accusing him.

"Such were the vile proceedings of this horrid and malignant night, and thus was Jesus condemned and treated as a malefactor. And as soon as morning was come, all the chief priests having put Jesus out of the room where the Sanhedrim met, consulted with the elders of the people and the whole Sanhedrim, what method they should take to execute this sentence they had passed against Jesus, and how they might put him to death in the most severe and contemptuous manner. And after he had been insulted by the servants of the council-chamber, when, for the greater security they had bound him again, the whole multitude of them arose

* 66 (When they had bound him again.) They bound him when he was first apprehended, but had perhaps loosed him while he was under examination; or else they now made his bands stricter than before, that so they might secure him from any danger of a rescue or escape, as he passed through the streets of Jerusalem.”

and led him away from thence to the prætorium, (as it was called,) or to the judgment-hall, in which the Roman magistrate was used to sit for the dispatch of public business; for the Jews being now a conquered people, and not having the power of life and death in their hands, they could not execute Jesus without a warrant from the Romans; and therefore to procure their order for his death, as well as to render it the more ignominious and painful, they determined immediately to carry him to them, and to ask not a confirmation of the sentence which they had passed upon him as a blasphemer, but a new sentence of crucifixion against him as a seditious enemy of Cæsar's government. Accordingly, having conducted him to the prætorium, they in a solemn way delivered him as a state prisoner of considerable importance to Pontius Pilate, the procurator or governor, whom Tiberius Cæsar had some years before this sent among them; and though by this time it was broad daylight, yet it was very early in the morning, and much sooner than the governor used to appear. He was therefore called upon on this extraordinary occasion; but they themselves went not into the palace, of which the judgmenthall was a part, because it was the house of a Gentile, and they were apprehensive lest they should be polluted, and so prevented from eating those sacrifices which were offered on the first day of unleavened bread, and were looked upon as a very considerable part of the Passover, of which the paschal lamb which they had eaten the even

ing before, was only the beginning. Pilate, therefore, willing in this instance to oblige the heads of the nation he governed, complied so far with their religious scruples, that leaving the pretorium he came out of his house to them, and finding it was an affair of solemnity, he erected his tribunal in an open place adjoining to it, as the Roman magistrates often did. And when Jesus was presented as a prisoner before him, Pilate said to them, What accusation do you bring against this man? They answered, and said unto him with some indecent smartness in the expression, (the consequence of a secret indignation to find themselves curbed by a superior power,) We could not but have hoped that you were so well acquainted with the sanctity of our court, and the integrity of our character, as to conclude, that if this man were not a notorious offender we would not have brought and delivered him to thee; for as we would be far from any thought of punishing an innocent man, so if his crime had not been very great, we might have dealt with him ourselves without thy concurrence.

"Then Pilate said to them, Take ye him back to your own court again, and judge him according to your law; for I am by no means desirous of interfering with you in the regular exercise of your judicial power; and this he said with a view of shifting off from himself an affair to which in the general he could be no stranger,* and which

"(With a view of shifting off from himself, &c.) Pilate could not be entirely ignorant of the case before him, for he

he easily saw would be attended with many perplexing circumstances. Then the Jews said to him again, You well know that it is not now lawful for us to put any man to death without your concurrence; but it is a capital crime of which the prisoner here before you is convicted, and as after a fair trial He has received such a sentence in the Sanhedrim, we only wait your warrant to proceed to the execution. And as Pilate could not but inquire of what crime He had been convicted, they resolved to mention that charge which might render him most obnoxious to the Roman power, and to represent the matter in its most malignant view; and accordingly they began with great violence to accuse him, saying, It is not merely on a religious account that we have brought him before you, but we have also found this seditious

began his government at Jerusalem before Jesus entered on his public ministry; and besides many other extraordinary things which he must formerly have heard concerning him, he had no doubt been informed at large of his public entrance into Jerusalem the beginning of the week, and also of his apprehension, in which the Jewish rulers were assisted by a Roman cohort, which could hardly be engaged in that service without the governor's express commission. It plainly appears by his whole conduct how unwilling he was to engage in this cause; he seems, therefore, cautious not to enter into the full sense of what the Jewish rulers intended when they called him a malefactor, and answers them in ambiguous language, which they might have interpreted as a warrant to execute Christ, if they found it necessary, and yet, which would have left them liable to be questioned for doing it; and might have given him some advantage against them, which a man of his character might have wished. Their reply shows they were more aware of this artifice than commentators have generally been."

fellow perverting the whole Jewish nation from one end of the country to the other, and, in effect, forbidding to pay tribute to Cæsar, by saying that He himself is Messiah a king, whom many of the Jews have expected, to rescue them from all subjection to a foreign power; and this claim He has had the assurance to avow in open court, so that it is but a necessary piece of respect to thee and the emperor whose lieutenant thou art, to bring him hither to be condemned: and indeed to leave him to be be executed by you. And though they aimed at nothing more by this, than to make sure of their murderous designs, and to add new circumstances of shame and agony to the execution; yet this was allowed with a wise intent, that the saying of Jesus, whose omniscience foresaw that thus it would be, might be fulfilled; and which He spake more than once, signifying or implying, by what death He should die, even by being lifted up from the earth, or by crucifixion, which was a Roman punishment whereas, according to the Jewish law, (Lev. xxiv. 16,) He would have been stoned, (as his servant Stephen afterwards was,) having been impiously adjudged by them to have deserved death as a blasphemer. And when He was thus accused by the chief priests and elders, who aggravated the matter by the addition of many other things, either entirely false or grossly misrepresented-reproaching him as a blasphemer, a Sabbath-breaker, and a magician, and, in a word, omitting nothing which they thought might blacken his character,-He made them no answer at all; at once demonstrating perfect forbearance,