and perfect wisdom: perfect forbearance when He might with the blast of his mouth have awfully silenced his impious traducers-perfect wisdom, it being totally useless to reply to those who were obstinately determined to persist in their blasphemous falsehoods. Then Pilate said to him, Dost thou answer nothing to all this? Hearest thou not the several charges they produce against thee, or hast thou no concern to vindicate thyself from what they have alleged ? Behold, and consider how many and how great things they witness against thee. But still as Jesus knew how little all his apologies would signify, He continued his magnanimous silence, and did not answer him to any one word; so that Pilate the governor was greatly astonished, and knew not how to account for so uncommon a behaviour.

“ But yet, as the governor had heard an honourable report of Jesus, and observed in this silence an air of meek majesty and greatness of spirit, rather than any consciousness of guilt, or any indication of a fierce contempt, he was willing to discourse with him more privately, before he proceeded farther. Pilate, therefore, entered again into the prætorium, which he had quitted to oblige the Jews, and called Jesus in; and as Jesus stood before the governor there, Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou indeed King of the Jews, and dost thou really pretend to any right to govern them? Jesus answered him, Dost thou say this of thyself from the knowledge of any seditious practices which thou hast ever observed in me? or is it only what thou hast gathered from

the present clamour made against me? Pilate immediately replied, Am I a Jew? or do I know any thing of your peculiarities farther than I am informed by others? I do not at all pretend to it. But thou knowest that thine own nation, and those that are esteemed the most sacred persons in it, even the chief priests themselves, have delivered thee to me as a malefactor, and have charged thee, among other crimes, with treason against Cæsar, in setting up for king of the country tell me, therefore, freely, what hast thou done to deserve such a charge? for the more frank thou art in thine acknowledgment, the greater favour mayest thou expect. Jesus answered him, My kingdom is not of this world, nor is it my business or design to erect a temporal dominion, or to establish any claim which should at all interfere with that of Cæsar's, or of which any prince has reason to be jealous. Indeed, if I would have entertained such views, I might have found support and encouragement from the very persons who are now my accusers; and if I had asserted that my kingdom was of this world, and had favoured such methods of defence, my servants, who professed of late so great and so public a regard to me, would resolutely have fought that I might not have been delivered to the Jews, or would attempt even now to rescue me out of their hands. But now my kingdom is not from hence, nor to be erected here; and therefore I have been so far from arming my followers with secular weapons, that the guard who came to apprehend me know 1

forbade their making use of those they had. Pilate therefore said to him, Thou speakest, however, of thy kingdom and thy subjects, art thou then really a king? And Jesus answered and said, therein courageously witnessing a good confession, (1 Tim. vi. 13,) Thou sayest right, I am indeed, as thou hast said, a king, the appointed head and governor of the whole Israel of God; nor will I ever basely seek my safety, by renouncing my divine claim to the most excellent majesty, and extensive dominion; nay, for this purpose was I born, and for this end I came into the world from another and much better abode, that I might 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, as Jesus made a pause, and did not immediately make him any answer, his hurry would not allow him to wait for it. So he went out again to the Jews, and said to the chief priests, and the people assembled with them abroad, I have examined the prisoner you brought me in private, and I must freely declare, that I find no fault at all in this man; nor can I perceive that He is any enemy either to the rights of

*The foregoing relation clearly explains what was the truth Christ died to attest; namely, that He was in very deed the only begotten Son of Almighty God most high, coeval with the Father, (Mark xiv. 61, 62,) and that hereafter he should behold the Son of man sitting on the right-hand of the power of God, and coming in the cloud of heaven, (Luke xxii. 6,9,) the mighty judge and ruler of the whole Israel of God, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. (Micah v. 2.)

VOL. III.

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Cæsar, or the tranquillity and happiness of the Jews; and therefore do not see how I can with any justice condemn him to die. * But his accusers refused to acquiesce in this, and advanced a

"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 sheeps' 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 which I knew not. (Ps. xxxv. 11.) But what can defend the most innocent 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 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, 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 who call themselves the ministers of his kingdom to act as if they thought it was. 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 import

more circumstantial charge against him, and became still more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee, and gathering up followers everywhere by the way, to the apparent danger and damage of the state.

"And when Pilate heard them speak of Galilee, he presently inquired if the man whom they had brought before him was a Galilean. And finding that he was of that country, and therefore that he properly belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, who was the tetrarch of Galilee, he willingly embraced this opportunity to clear himself of so perplexing an affair, and immediately sent him away to Herod,*

ance 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 auswer, 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."

* 60

(He sent him to Herod.) It may not be improper, for the sake of those who are less acquainted with the Jewish history, to observe that this was Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, by whom John the Baptist had been beheaded, and whom Christ had justly represented as a fox. (Luke xii. 32.) He was son to Herod the Great, under whom Christ was born; and uncle to Herod Agrippa, (by whom James was beheaded, and Peter imprisoned,) who was eaten by worms, (Acts xii. 2, 3. 23,) D 2