than any of the heroes of antiquity riding in their triumphal car, and dragging captive princes at their chariot' wheels! If then we would be truly great, let our first victory be over our own spirit. Let us "possess our souls in patience," that, " patience having its perfect work, we may be perfect and entire lacking nothing." "If our enemy hunger, let us feed him; if he thirst, let us give him drink; that by so doing we may heap coals of fire on his head" to melt him into love. Let us "not be overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Difficult, no doubt, this conduct is: but can we want an inducement to it, when we reflect. how Christ has loved us, and given himself for us? Should we think it much to forgive our fellow-servant a few pence, when we have been forgiven ten thousand talents? Let us remember that all our professions of faith, if we be destitute of this love, are vain and worthless." If we could speak with the tongues of men and angels, or had faith to remove mountains," or zeal to endure martyrdom, yet if we wanted the ornament of a meek, patient and forgiving spirit, we should be "only as sounding brass, or as tinkling cymbals." God has warned us, that, as the master seized his unforgiving servant, and cast him into "prison till he should pay the utmost farthing;" "so will HE also do unto us, if we for give not from our hearts every one his brother their trespasses." Let us then set Christ before our eyes: let us learn of him to forgive, not once, or seven times, but seventy times seven; or, to use the language of the apostle, let us be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us." Rom. xii. 20, 21. Matt. xviii. 35. Eph. iv. 32. CXC. OUR LORD'S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 1sai. liii. 8. He was taken from prison and from judg ment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgressions of my people was he stricken. IT has been generally thought, especially among heathen writers, that if virtue could be set before the eyes of men, and exhibited by some pattern of perfect excellence, it would conciliate the esteem of all, and be held in universal admiration. But Socrates entertained a very different option: he thought that if any person possessed of perfect virtue were to appear in the world, his conduct would form so striking a contrast to that of all around him, that he would be hated, despised, and persecuted, and at last be put to death; because the world could not endure the tacit, but keen reproofs, which such an example must continually administer. Experience proves that the opinion of this great philosopher was founded in a just estimate of human nature. Such a light did come into the world: "it shone in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not:" the workers of iniquity hated the light, and endeavoured to extinguish it, though their malicious attempts served but to make it burn with brighter lustre. The Lord Jesus was none other than virtue itself incarnate; and his enemies abundantly justified the opinion of Socrates; for they combined against him, and treated him with unexampled cruelty, and slew him. The extreme injustice of their conduct towards him is strongly marked in the words before us; which, on account of their intricacy, we shall explain, and as replete with useful instruction, we shall improve. I. To explain them. Commentators have differed much in their interpretation of the former clauses of the text; some referring them to the exaltation of Christ, and others to his humiliation. According to the former, they import that God would raise him from the dead, and give him an inexpressible weight of glory, together with an innumerable seed, who should, as it were, be born to him. But we very much prefer the interpretation that refers them to the trial and execution of our Lord: for, in this view, they form an evident connexion between his behaviour under the indignities offered him, (ver. 7.) and his burial in the grave of a rich man, (ver. 9.) A learned prelate translates them thus; "He was taken off by an oppressive judgment; and his manner of life who would declare ?" According to this view of the words, they particularly specify the injustice, which, under a legal form, should be exercised towards him, and the want of that, which was, in every court of justice, the privilege of prisoners, the liberty of calling witnesses to testify on his behalf. Our Lord himself refers to that custom in his answer to the high priest; "I spake openly to the world; and in secret have I said nothing: why askest thou me? ask them which heard me, what I have said to them: behold, they know what I said." St. Paul also, when before Festus and Agrippa, complained that his adversaries withheld from him the testimony, which their knowledge of him qualified them to give: "My manner of life from my youth know all the Jews, who knew me from the beginning (if they would testify) that after the straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee." A further confirmation of this sense of the words arises from the manner in which they are cited by an inspired writer: St. Luke, quoting the very passage before us, says, "In his humiliation his judgment was taken away;" and "who shall declare his generation?" Now though the latter words are the same as in the text, yet the former vary considerably from it; and seem to determine this to be the true scope of the whole; namely, that the most common rights of justice should be denied to our Lord at the time of his trial. The history of our Lord is but too just a comment on this 'prophecy for surely there never was a person treated with such flagrant injustice as he. His enemies, unable to lay any thing to his charge, suborned false witnesses, that they might take away his life by perjury: and when these agreed not in their testimony, they laid a Bp. Lowth. Acts xxvi. 4, 5. b John xviii. 20, 31, 1 hold of an expression used by him some years before, and put a different construction upon it from what he ever intended. They dragged him from one tribunal to another in hopes of obtaining sentence against him: and when the governor, after repeated examinations, declared that he could find no fault in him, they would not suffer him to pass such a sentence as law and equity demanded, but, in a tumultuous and threatening manner, compelled him to deliver him up into their hands, and to sanction their cruelties by his official mandate. The particular injustice, which we are more immediately called to notice, was, that they never once summoned any witnesses to speak on his behalf. If they had permitted the herald, as on other occasions, to invite all who knew the prisoner to give testimony to his character, how many thousands could have disproved the accusations of his enemies, and established his reputation on the firmest basis! What multitudes could have affirmed, that, instead of usurping the prerogatives of Cæsar, he had miraculously withdrawn himself from the people, when they had sought to invest him with royal authority; and had charged them to be as conscientious in giving to Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's, as unto God the things that were God's! And while these invalidated the charges of treason and sedition, how many myriads could have borne witness to his transcendent goodness! How might they have said, "I was blind, and he gave me sight; I was deaf, and he unstopped my ears; I was dumb, and he loosed my tongue; I was lame, and he restored my limbs; I was sick, and he healed me; I was possessed with devils, and he delivered me from their power; I was dead, and he raised me to life again." Possibly some might have been found, who had not lost all remembrance of kindness, provided they had been suffered to speak on his behalf: but, as on a former occasion, the chief priests had excommunicated the blind man for arguing in his defence, so now did they intimidate all, insomuch that none dared to open their lips in his favour. Even his own disciple, who had promised • John ix, 22, 34. the most faithful adherence to his cause, forsook him in this extremity, and, through fear of their threatened vengeance, denied, with oaths and curses, that he even knew the man. Having prevailed by dint of clamour, the Jews led him forth to execution, that he might be "cut off out of the land of the living." But no Jewish punishment was sufficiently cruel to satiate their malice: they therefore, notwithstanding their rooted hatred of a foreign yoke, voluntarily acknowledged their subjection to the Romans, that they might be gratified with seeing him die by the most lingering, painful, and ignominious of all deaths, a death which none but slaves were ever suffered to endure. Who that had seen the universal and invincible determination of the Jewish people to destroy him, must not have concluded, that he was one whose unparalleled iniquities had excited their just abhorrence? who, on being told that there was not one found upon the face of the whole earth to speak a word on his behalf, must not have been persuaded that he suffered for his own transgressions? But though the testimony of man was not formally given at the bar of judgment, there was abundant proof, that he suffered, not for his own sins, but for ours. There was a remarkable concurrence of circumstances to establish his innocence, not only in spite of their efforts to prove him guilty, but in a great measure, arising from them. The endeavours of the chief priests to bring false witnesses, clearly shewed that they had no just ground of accusation against him. Had any person been able to impute evil to him, it is most probable that Judas would have brought it forth in vindication of his own conduct: but he, so far from justifying his own treachery, restored to the chief priests the wages of iniquity, affirming that he had betrayed innocent blood: and they, unable to contradict him, tacitly acknowledged the truth of his assertion, bidding him look to that as his concern. Pilate not only declared repeatedly that he could find no fault in him, but that neither was Herod able to lay any thing to his charge. He even came forth before them all, and washed his hands, in token that the guilt of condemning that just person should lie |