have interest enough to do it, if He were inclined to the attempt.

"Now it was usual at the feast of the Passover, and even was grown by custom in a manner necessary, * for the Roman governor, when such multitudes were assembled from all parts, to release to the people any one prisoner whom they desired to be set at liberty, whatever crime it was that he was charged with. And there was then in Pilate's custody a very infamous and notable prisoner, whose name was Barabbas, that lay bound with some other ruffians who had made an insurrection in the city in conjunction with him, and who had also committed murder in the insurrection; and besides the part he had acted in this seditious riot, he was a fellow of the most abandoned character, and known to be a robber who had infested the highways with his villainy; so that it was generally concluded he would receive sentence of death, and would be executed that day. And as the power of reversing or executing such sentences then lay in the Romans, the people therefore, when they were gathered together about the tribunal, began with a great noise and clamour to demand of Pilate that he would do at this Passover, as he had always

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(Usual, and in a manner necessary.) There was no law to oblige him to this, but as acts of grace are generally popular things, this seems to have been first freely used by the Romans to please their tributaries, and now by custom was in a manner established. I find no substantial reason to believe there was in the original of this custom any reference to he deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian bondage at this time."

done to them upon the like occasions, and would discharge a prisoner.

"And Pilate hoping that he might preserve the life of Jesus, whose innocence he so clearly saw, determined to attempt it by this method, and accordingly that he might induce them to choose him, he proposed no other alternative than that scandalous and outrageous criminal whom we have just now mentioned, and answered them, saying, You have indeed a custom that I should release to you one at the Passover, and I am ready now to oblige you in this affair: whom will you therefore choose that I should release unto you? Barabbas, that seditious and murderous robber, or this Jesus, who is called Christ, who, in I know not what strange sense, is pretended to be the king of the Jews, and whom you see before you in the fine robe in which Herod has thought fit to array him? For he knew that the chief priests and rulers had delivered him up into his hands, not from a regard to justice, but merely out of envy at his popularity; and therefore he was willing to make the proposal to the people in such a form as might be most likely to secure his life. But the chief priests and elders, who were exceedingly solicitous to obtain their end, lest this artifice of the governor should defeat all their laboured scheme, excited the most forward of the people, and effectually persuaded the mob they had brought with them, that they should ask the governor with a continual noise and clamour, that he would rather release Barabbas to them; that by this means the point they had in view might be secured, and they

might be sure to destroy Jesus. And therefore when the governor answered them in this manner, and said to them again, Take notice that your choice lies only between these, and therefore now determine for yourselves, which of the two do you desire I should release unto you? Then as their principles had prompted them, they all cried out again with one consent, in the same noisy and tumultuous way as before, saying, We will not have this man, but Barabbas; away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas. And thus when Pilate would have let him go, they denied the Holy One and the just; and desired a murderer to be granted unto them. (Acts iii. 14.)

"And Pilate, to divert them from the purpose they were so unreasonably set upon, again answered, and said to them, What, therefore, would you have me do with this Jesus who is called Christ, and whom, if I may believe your own rulers, so many of you are ready to call and own as the king of the Jews? And they all presently renewed their clamour, and cried out again, as before, and with one voice said to him, Let him immediately be crucified, for He is fit to be treated as the vilest slave, rather than to be called our king.* Pilate, therefore, being still desirous to

* " (Let him be crucified.) By this cry they declared the greatest degree of rage that can be imagined, for it was as if they had said, Let him whom you call your king be treated like one of the vilest of your slaves, who has committed the most enormous crime. To have inflicted such a punishment as this on any free Jew, would probably have been sufficient to have thrown the whole city and nation into an uproar. But now they

release Jesus, spake to them yet again, urging them seriously to consider what they did in thus preferring such an abandoned miscreant as Barabbas to so innocent a person. But they, without so much as offering any further reason, persisted in their importunity, and cried out as before, Crucify him! crucify him! And Pilate was so intent on delivering him, that he said to them the third time, Why will you be so cruel as to insist on it? What evil has He done? I declare to you all, as I told you but now, that I have found no capital crime in him; I will therefore, as I said, chastise him by scourging, and then I hope your rage will be moderated, and you will be prevailed upon to agree, that I should let him go without any further punishment. But they, without pretending to answer the argument he had alleged, overbore it with a wild fury, and were urgent in pressing him with loud and importunate voices; and the more he opposed them, they cried out the more abundantly and violently, demanding, that whatever was the consequence of it, He might be crucified. And on the whole, notwithstanding the further remonstrance of Pilate on the admonition of his wife, (which will be mentioned in the next section,) their voices, and those of the chief priests, (who, to encourage cry, had so little sense of common decency

the

were deaf to every thing but the clamour of passion, and in their madness forgot with how dangerous a precedent they might furnish the Roman governor. And indeed it turned dreadfully on themselves, when such vast numbers of them were crucified for this opposition to the Romans, during the time of their last war."

as themselves to join in it,) prevailed with the governor, though contrary to the convictions of his own conscience, to comply with their request.

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Behold, how all imaginable circumstances seem to conspire to increase the infamy thrown on that sacred head, which now most worthily wears a crown of everlasting glory. Of a truth, O Lord, against thy holy child Jesus, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the chief priests, and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do precisely what the foreknowledge of God had predicted they would do. In the foregoing scandalous relation, we behold the wisest person who ever lived on earth; him in whom was hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge, by Herod and his soldiers derided as a fool the most righteous, the very King of righteousness himself, condemned by the chief priests as a vile malefactor; and the most innocent treated as a criminal by Pilate, and furiously demanded as a public victim by the Jews. All the proofs of his innocence are overborne by a loud and a senseless cry; and those hosannas with which the streets and temple were so lately echoing, are exchanged into Crucify him! crucify him!' thus demonstrating the uncertainty of human applause, and how unrighteous human judgments may often be.

"But in the midst of all, the blessed Jesus stands collected in himself: firm as a rock, he bears the violence of the storm, and is not moved by all the furious waves that beat upon him, or internally rolled within him. And when he saw a