selves. They know of nothing from which they can form a well-grounded charge against their delinquent, and think that the bold front they put on the affair will compensate for what is deficient in proof and testimony against Jesus.

Alas! they do not entirely fail in their object. Pilate suffers himself to be overawed by their determined appearance, and places the first foot on that slippery path on which we shall afterward see him carried forward, from one crime to another, against his will, and finally ending in the abyss of perdition, amid the derisive laughter of infernal spirits. "Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law." What worthless behavior in a judge who ought to administer law and justice in the land! We already see how little he cares whether Jesus lives or dies, only he would not willingly have the blood of a man upon his soul whom his conscience absolves as innocent.

More reckless than the Roman are those of our cotemporaries, who, like Pilate, would not personally lay hands on Jesus, because they can not divest themselves of a certain degree of reverence for him, but secretly suggest to bolder rebels than themselves, that which Pilate did openly, when he said, “Take him and judge him according to your law," and feel a malicious pleasure when the emissaries of Satan drag down the Holy One into the dust, pollute his Gospel with their infernal blasphemies, and reward his believing followers with the appellation of fools, or brand them as hypocrites. Compared with those who view with silent delight the anti-Christian proceedings and rebellious movements of the age, Pilate was an honorable man, while they are worthy of a double curse, and already bear the mark of it on their foreheads.

“Take ye him, and judge him according to your law." The heathen governor would gladly have escaped from sharing the guilt of murdering the Righteous One, whom the Jews had delivered up to him. But he will not succeed in his object on the path he is now pursuing. He must either decide for or against Jesus. He is compelled either to take the part of the Holy One, to the setting aside of all private considerations, or to afford his sanction to the most cruel and bloody deed the world ever witnessed.

There is just as

But, my readers, the case is similar with us. little room left us for a neutral position as was left him. The Holy One of Israel comes into too close a contact with us to be quietly passed by. If we refuse to do him homage, we are compelled to aid in crucifying him. We can not escape the alternative of rejecting him, if we will not decidedly devote ourselves to him. He testifies too loudly to our consciences that He is the Lord, to suffer us quietly to part with him with a mere passing compliment. If we wish to separate ourselves from him, nothing is left for us but to say, in positive opposition, “We will not have thee to reign over us; get thee behind us!" God grant that this may not be the case with any of us, but enable us to exclaim, with the apostle Thomas, "My Lord and my God!"

The Jews close the outlet before Pilate's face by which he hoped to escape from any participation in the dreadful crime of the murder of Jesus, by giving him a reply which ought to have made him feel deeply ashamed, "It is not lawful for us,” say they, "to put any man to death." Pilate knew this, and what confusion of ideas and increasing perplexity does the man betray, who, though he was the supreme judge, could recommend to the Jews themselves the execution of an act of justice to which they had no right, according to the existing laws. Or was Pilate induced to express himself thus foolishly, from having no idea that the accusers of Jesus were bent upon his death? This is also conceivable. But his miserable attempt at an escape is wholly frustrated, as it deserved. There is something really tragical in the fact that circumstances should so concur and be interwoven with each other that it would seem as if Pilate was to be drawn into the blood-guiltiness of the Jews. And this will assuredly be the case if he can not resolve to give his heart, and pay homage to Jesus, even as every one who obstinately resists the call to conversion must increasingly fill up the measure of his sins, and accelerate his ripeness for destruction.

"It is not lawful for us to put any one to death." They were not permitted to do so. If, on one occasion, they tumultuously stoned a supposed heretic to death, the Roman authorities

probably leniently overlooked it. But in order to a formal accusation, and death by crucifixion in particular, they could not do without superior consent. Hence they openly, though with stifled rage, confess their dependence on the Roman tribunal. Their thirst for revenge upon the Nazarene, however, this time outweighs their national pride. The man they hate is doomed to be crucified and to perish ignominiously. Such are their thoughts. But the Lord in heaven also exercises an influence in the affair. The evangelist remarks, “That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which he spake, signifying what death he should die." John has reference here to the words recorded in ch. xii. 32, of his Gospel, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me," adding the explanatory remark, “This he said, signifying what death he should die.”

In the tumultuous assemblage before the governor's palace at Jerusalem, we are, therefore, unexpectedly aware of a divine intimation respecting the Saviour. The counsel of the Eternal Father displays itself, and in its depths a cross is descried for his only-begotten Son, even as it was also in the plans of Satan. For the sake of the symbolical meaning included in it, the accursed tree was selected in the counsels of eternity, as the instrument of the Saviour's death. The brazen serpent in the wilderness, as well as the wave-offering of the tabernacle, early shadowed it forth to the people of God. The crowd which had assembled round Gabbatha, unconsciously aided in realizing it. It now stands erected in history, in the ministry of the Gospel, and in the minds of men, and manifests its wonder-working and attractive influence in an increasing measure, to this hour.

We conclude our meditation, strengthened afresh, as I hope, in the twofold conviction, that our forgiveness unconditionally demanded a vicarious sacrifice, and that the whole of our Lord's passion can only be properly understood when regarded from such a point of view. We are reasonably astonished at the wisdom of the Almighty, who has so wonderfully solved the greatest of all problems-that of the restoration of a race which had fallen under the curse, to the divine right of sonship, without thereby denying his holiness. This solution is found in the Saviour's obedience and death. Let us adoringly bow the knee to

him, and join with thankful hearts in the song of the Church triumphant, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by his blood, out of every kindred and tongue, and people, and nation!"

XXVII.

THE ACCUSATIONS.

AFTER the Jews had gained their first victory over the governor, for as such they might account it, in having succeeded, by their imposing attitude, in wresting from him the reply, "Take ye him and judge him according to your law," they proceed with increasing courage, and bring forward accusations against their prisoner, by which they hope completely to influence the Roman, and induce him to favor their murderous project. They are acquainted with his weak side-his pride of office, his ambition, and, in particular, his dependence on the favor of his imperial master; and toward this point they direct their assault. They abstain from repeating, before a heathen tribunal, accusations against Jesus which they could successfully bring forward against him in their Jewish Sanhedrim. Instead of an ecclesiastical, they make before Pilate a political charge. They accuse the Lord of a threefold crime, which, because it is imputed to him, in a certain sense, by his opponents and the enemies of his kingdom, even in the present day, is worthy of particular investigation.

This

"We have found this fellow perverting the nation." is the first of the three charges brought against him. They intend by it to say, "This man seeks to lessen the respect due to the constituted authorities." The worthless beings, who were themselves puffed up with revolutionary feelings, and incessantly intent upon inciting the people against the Roman sovereignty! But to bring forward against Jesus a charge like the one just mentioned, some shadow of truth was requisite, and

this they found in the position which the Lord had taken up with reference to the priests and scribes. For as regards the priests, our Lord certainly did not instruct his disciples to place their trust in them, as their real mediators with God, or to seek in their sacrifices the cause of their justification in his sight. If, by this, he detracted from the authority of the sons of Aaron, he did nothing more than reduce this authority to the correct measure intended by God, and thus purified the veneration which the people showed them, from the elements of a dangerous delusion and superstition, which had occasionally been attached to them in contradiction to the Word of God. But where had he denied to the priesthood of Israel the authority of a divine institution, and refused it the reverence and submission which belonged to it as such? His position as regards the priesthood was certainly peculiar and unique. The latter, as a prophetic shadow, had pointed to him, and in him, as its essential antitype, it was intended to reach its aim and termination. This was not to be accomplished by means of a violent overthrow of existing institutions, but on the even and hallowed path of a gradual development. Of itself, and in consequence of an internal necessity, the priesthood of the old tabernacle was to give way to that which is true and real, just as the blossom makes room for the fruit, or like the butterfly bursting from the chrysalis. Therefore, as long as Jesus had not fulfilled the entire requirements of his high-priestly calling, and as long as the great atoning sacrifice had not been offered on the cross, he gave all honor to the Levitical priesthood, for the sake of their divine appointment. Not only did he visit the temple as the house of God, and celebrate the festivals of Israel as sanctified by him, but he obediently submitted also to all the Levitical statutes enjoined by Moses, from the circumcision and presentation in the temple, to the eating of the paschal lamb. And not only so, but he did not fail to enjoin upon others the punctual fulfillment of their ecclesiastical duties; so that he did not even absolve the leper, whom he had healed, from presenting himself to the priests, and offering the sacrifices appointed by Moses in such a case. So little did the reproach apply to him of degrading what was divinely authorized, that the latter found in