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instant with loud voices, and cried out the more exceedingly, requiring him to release unto them Barabbas, and that JESUS should be crucified. The voices of the people and of the chief priests at length prevailed over the reluctance which Pilate showed, to comply with their demand: he therefore took JESUS, and Scourged him.

Was there ever any sorrow, blessed Redeemer, like unto thy sorrow! to be spit upon, to be mocked, to be buffeted, and now to be scourged, and that by the very judge who declared thy innocence ! But this was not all. JESUS having been thus inhumanly scourged, is now taken by the soldiers of the governor, who considering this act of scourging as a signal for his crucifixion, led him away into the common-hall called Pretorium, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. Then did they immediately strip him, wantonly clothe him with purple; and in derision put on him a scarlet robe: they platted also a crown of thorns which they put upon his head, and a reed in his right hand, and then began insultingly to salute him and bowing the knee before him, they in derision worshipped him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews: then did they smite him

with their hands, take the reed from him, and with it barbarously strike him on the head.

While these cruelties were carrying on, Pilate was on the judgment-seat trying some other prisoners, when a message was delivered to him from his wife, desiring him to have nothing to do with that just person, for she had suffered many things that day in a dream, because of him, which she could not but consider as a manifestation of his innocence*.

Pilate, alarmed at this intimation, went forth to the people again, and said unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. JESUS then came forth, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said unto them, Behold the man: I have given him all the punishment, which I think he has deservedt. Still the Jews were urgent against him, and said, By our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of GOD. Pilate's alarms were now more than ever increased: he went again into the judgment-hall, and demanded of him, Whence art thou? When JESUS, whose innocence was already very evident, returning

* Knowles. + Gilpin.

no answer, Pilate urged him to a reply, by declaring to him that he had power to crucify, and power to release him: this therefore he hinted, was a reason, why he should not treat his question with such contemptuous silence. You could have no power at all over me, mildly returned JESUS, unless GOD for his own wise purposes had allowed it: but the sin of those who delivered me into your hands is for that reason greater.

Here we see Pilate again seeking to release JESUS: but the Jews cried out, If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend; whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cæsar. Pilate could not resist this insinuation, because it threatened him with the dis- : pleasure of the Roman emperor; and as it was the preparation of the passover, and the time was fast advancing, he said unto the Jews, Behold your King: to which they cried out with great indignation, Away with him, away with him, crucify him; Pilate, at intervals, asking them, whether he should crucify their King, and they as eagerly demanding the sentence to be put in execution, for they had no king but Cæsar. The infatuated judge, falsely thinking that by these means he should quiet his own O

conscience, and preserve himself clear of the guilt of shedding innocent blood; because the tumult among the multitude increased more and more, and they became more outrageous by the delay of the execution; he called for water, and washed his hands before the multitude, and said, I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it: the act is yours, and so must be the guilt, and consequently the punishment. all the people instantly and vehemently cried out, His blood be on us and on our children. Dreadful imprecation! Dreadful, however, as it was, it was afterwards fulfilled in the ruin of the Jewish nation, and particularly in the calamities which the Jews suffered, during the siege of Jerusalem, not many years after, even before that very generation had passed

away.

Hereupon

But to return to the sufferings of our blessed LORD, and to the completion of this awful scene. Pilate, overawed by the remonstrances of the chief priests, and the clamours of the multitude, released him who for sedition and murder had been cast into prison, but delivered JESUS to their will.

And now behold the Saviour of the world, thus received from the hands of

his judge by the insulting soldiers, and led away between two malefactors, who with him had been tried and condemned to death-behold him bearing his own cross, and going forth towards Golgotha, the place of skulls-behold him sinking under the weight of it, and relieved from the burden by one, whom, as he was passing along, they laid hold of, and compelled to bear it after JESUS. Behold him followed by a company of women, bewailing and lamenting him, and hear him in a strain full of tenderness and pity for them, in the midst of his own multiplied distresses, address them under a most affectionate compellation, Daughters of Jerusalem, Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children; for behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs which never bare, and the paps which never gave suck for you must inevitably share in the calamities, which shall befall your nation, when they who have now contrived and are triumphing in my death, shall call unto the mountains to fall on them, and to the hills to cover them from the vengeance of GOD. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? If a green and fruit

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