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cast off the fear of that God whose ministers they were, and had devoted themselves to gain and ambition. They therefore felt no remorse, even when Judas trembled before them, and appeared almost distracted under the sense of a crime, in which they had been confederates with him. But their consciences were seared as with a red hot iron, and all their familiar converse with Divine things served only, in such a circumstance, to harden their hearts: as tempered steel gathers strength from the furnace and the hammer.

Judas repents; he confesses his crime; he throws away the reward of his guilt: yet was there nothing of godly sorrow in all this. Despairing, be becomes his own executioner; and flies to death, and to hell, as a refuge from the rage and fury of an awakened conscience. Fatal expedient! thus to seal his own damnation! But the righteous judgment of God erected him as a monument of wrath, and verified our Saviour's declaration, It had been good for that man if he had never been born. (Mat. xxvi. 24. and Mark xiv. 21.) Tremble, O our souls, at this thought! that Judas, even one of the twelve, should fall into such depths of sin and ruin! May we each of us be jealous over ourselves! and may we never presume to censure whole bodies of men for the fault of particular members, when we find their was a traitor and reprobate among the holy band of the apostles.

SECTION CVII.

JOHN XVIII. 28-40.

AND they themselves went not into the judgmenthall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What accusation bring ye against this man? They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up to thee. Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death: That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die. Then Pilate entered into the judgment-hall again, and called Jesus; And Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus

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answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the Passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.

How much exactness in the ceremonials of religion may be found in those who have even the most outrageous contempt for its vital principles and essential duties! Yea, how much of that exactness may be made subservient to the most mischievous and diabolical purposes! These wolves in sheep's clothing would not enter into the house of a heathen, lest they should be polluted, and become unfit to eat the passover; yet they contrive and urge an impious murder, which that very heathen, though he had much less evidence of Christ's innocence than they, could not be brought to permit without strong reluctance, and a solemn, though vain transferring of the guilt from himself to them.

Justly might our Lord say in the words of David, They laid to my charge things that I knew not; (Psal. xxxv. 11.) But what can defend the most innocent and excellent against malicious slanders and defamations! Or who can expect, or even wish, wholly to escape, when such accusations are brought against Christ, even by the rulers of his nation, who should have been men of distinguished generosity and honour! But instead of this they were all an assembly of

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murderers, and lay in wait for their prey, like so many devouring lions.

Pilate would renew the examination of the cause; and so far he acted a cautious and an honourable part. Yet, alas, how many that set out on such maxims want courage and resolution to pursue them! But the courage of Christ never failed. He witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession we have now been reading (1 Tim. vi. 13); and owned himself a King, though at the same time he declared (what it were to be wished all his followers had duly regarded) that his kingdom is not of this world. Greatly do we debase it, if we imagine it is; and most unworthy is it of those that call themselves the ministers of his kingdom to act as if they thought it was. such is the wickedness of some, and such the blindness of others, in the Roman church, that, though of all the churches in the world it is manifestly the most secular kingdom, it arrogates to itself the name not only of a part, but of the whole, of Christ's kingdom here below.

Yet

Christ came to bear witness to the truth; and a careful attendance to his testimony will be the best proof we can give that we love the truth, and the best method we can take to make ourselves acquainted with it. And of so great importance is the truth, that it surely deserves the attentive inquiry and the zealous patronage of the greatest and the busiest of mankind. Let us not therefore, when we begin to ask what it is like Pilate, hurry on to some other care before we can receive a satisfactory answer; but joyfully open our minds to the first dawnings of that celestial day, till it shine more and more to irradiate and adorn all our souls. On the whole, imperfect as the character of this unhappy governor was, let us learn from him candidly to confess the truth, so far as we have discovered it; let us learn more steadily than he to vindicate the innocent and worthy, and on no terms permit ourselves, in any degree, to do harm to those in whom, on a strict and impartial inquiry, we can find no fault.

SECTION CVIII.

JOHN XIX. 1-14.

THEN Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him ; and the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands.

Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto

them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him; for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.

When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; and went again into the judgmenthall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cæsar. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour.

Let us now, by a lively act of faith, bring forth the blessed Jesus to our imagination, as Pilate brought him forth to the people. Let us with affectionate sympathy survey the indignities, which were offered him, when he gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; and hid not his face from shame and spitting. (Isaiah 6.) Behold the man, wearing his purple robe and thorny crown, and bearing the reed which smote him in his right hand for a sceptre ! Behold, not merely the man, but the Son of God, thus vilely degraded, thus infamously abused! Shall we, as it were, in

crease his sufferings, and, while we condemn the fury and cruelty of the Jews, shall we crucify him to ourselves afresh, and put him to an open shame? (Heb. vi. 6.) Or shall we overlook him with slight and contempt, and hide our faces from him, who for our sake thus exposed his own? (Isa. liii. 3.)

Let the caution even of this heathen judge, who feared, when he heard he so much as pretended to be the Son of God, engage us to reverence him, especially considering in how powerful a manner he has since been declared to be so. (Rom. i. 4.) Let us in this sense have nothing to do with the blood of this Just Person. Let his example teach us patiently to submit to those sufferings which God shall appoint for us, remembering that no enemies, and no calamities we meet with, could have any power against us, except it were given them from above.

SECTION CIX.

MATT. XXVII. 11-14.

2-16.

MARK XV. 2-5. LUKE xxiii.
JOHN XIX. 15.

AND they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying, that he himself is Christ a King. And Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus answering said unto him, Thou sayest it.

And the chief priests and elders accused him of many things: but he answered nothing. And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they witness against thee. But Jesus yet answered him to never a word; insomuch that Pilate the governor marvelled greatly.

Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man. And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirred up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place. When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilean. And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was in Jerusalem at that time. And when Herod saw

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