when they appeared in public assemblies, and to have the seats of honour allotted to them, and to be gazed at with mingled admiration, and reverence, and awe? But here was a person who was sharing, nay, rather threatening to engross the applause of the multitude.

This was not to be endured. His destruction must be procured at any price. And what was his conduct in regard to the chief priests, the scribes, and the pharisees themselves? Did he obsequiously pay his court to them? Did he implore their assistance and counsel for the purpose of levying an armed force to extirpate the Roman soldiers by whom their country was oppressed? Did he promise them great and glorious rewards? Did he teach the people to regard them as persons of unblemished integrity and immaculate purity, and represent them to be the chief favourites of heaven on account of their sanctity of life and manners, and their superiority to other men in point of sterling worth and genuine piety? No. He did not teach the people to view them in this light; he did not show them a high degree of deference. Had he done this, although it is not probable that he would have gained them over to his religion, because the meanness of his appearance stood in the way, still he might, if he could not escape their contempt, have disarmed to a considerable degree the hatred with which they viewed him. But when we reflect that he exposed their vices, and reproved them on account of them, and declared, that far from being the favourites of the Almighty, those who were esteemed the greatest sinners would enter the kingdom of heaven before them; and when we call to mind that he held them up to the contempt and detestation of the multitude in such language as the following, we see a sufficient

reason why they entertained the most rancorous feelings and implacable hatred and revenge against him. "Do not ye after the works of the scribes and pharisees, for they say," they make loud pretences to piety and holiness," and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, (i. e. pieces of parchment on which certain portions of the Mosaic law were written, and which were worn fastened on the forehead and left arm,) and enlarge the borders of their garments, (a part of their dress which was employed to distinguish the Jews from the Gentiles,) and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men Rabbi, Rabbi. But wo unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Wo unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers, therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. "Wo unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him tenfold more the child of hell than yourselves. Wo unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, and mercy, and faith. Ye blind guides which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Wo unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter,

fied pride and vanity, and revenge combined in working up a terrible tempest in their bosoms.

Having pointed out the sources from which the rage of the chief Priests, and Scribes, and Pharisees, against our Lord arose, we proceed to consider what line of conduct it led them to pursue.

but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. "Wo unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like unto whited sepulchres which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so also ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell ?"

Now, had the priests, the scribes, and the pharisees, been free from the vices with which they are here charged, and had they been fully satisfied that our Lord was an impostor, they might have overlooked the unfavourable representation which he gave of them, and viewed his reproaches as the railings of a miserable enthusiast. For it is well known, that when men are innocent, abuse and misrepresentation make but a slight impression on them, cause little pain, and are easily borne up against and despised; but when they are conscious of guilt, a charge brought against them inflicts a deep and lasting wound. The canker eats to the very heart's core, and produces the most violent inflammation. But notwithstanding their seeming contempt of our Saviour, his miracles could not fail to astonish them, and at least to produce a doubt in their minds whether he were the Messiah. This, joined to their disappointed hopes of worldly grandeur, and his drawing the applause of the people, and his holding up their characters in their true colours, and thus lowering them in the eyes of the world, accounts sufficiently for the violent state of exasperation into which they were thrown. Doubt and envy, and disappointment and morti

It is no very uncommon thing for men, when actuated by vicious principles, to search for, and lay hold of some motive which has the semblance of virtue, and from which they persuade themselves that their actions originate. They conceal the true springs of action from others, and are ashamed to avow them even to their own hearts. Some other principle, quite insufficient in itself to incite them to the conduct which they pursue, is fixed upon and considered as adequate to account for, and justify their actions. We see this exemplified in the behaviour of the chief Priests, the Scribes, and the Pharisees. The real motives from which they acted, as has been already shown, were of the most malignant and villanous nature; but those which they gave out to the world, those by which probably they represented themselves as influenced in the deliberations which they held for cutting off our Lord; nay those, perhaps, which they avowed to their own hearts were of a very different nature. These were a zeal for the honour of God-a high veneration for religious observances, and a regard for the safety of their country. When Christ performed a deed of necessity or mercy on the Sabbath day, murmurs were heard on all sides, that this man was an impious wretch by whom that holy day was profaned, and could not, therefore, be commissioned by God. When he associated with publicans and sinners, for the purpose of instructing them, every friend of virtue, they maintained, must abhor such

a miscreant. When he called himself the Son of God, they were so shocked that they rent their garments, and declared that his guilt was deserving of more than death. When he neglected any trifling ceremonial observance, the majesty and honour of God, they exclaimed, were insulted. Had they possessed the power of putting him to death, his impiety was a crime for which assuredly he would have suffered; but this power had been taken from them by the Romans, and they knew that there was little chance of their being able to prevail upon the Roman Governor to pass a capital sentence on account of religious differences: knowing this, their great aim was to convict our Saviour of a conspiracy, or of practices dangerous to the state. For this pur pose it was that he was asked, "If it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar." By this question they hoped to involve him in the guilt of treason, or to exasperate the populace against him, since, probably, although they were compelled to pay tribute to the Romans, they thought that by so doing they were acting unlawfully, and throwing off their allegiance to God, whom they considered as their king; but by the wisdom of his answer, "Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God, the things that are God's;" he, contrary to their expectation, escaped the snare which had been laid to convict him of treason, and their wish to alienate the affections of the people from him was disappointed. Baffled in every attempt to throw him off his guard, and involve him in treason by their insidious questions, "the chief Priests and the Scribes, and the Elders of the people, assembled together unto the palace of the High Priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted, that they might take Jesus by subtilty and kill him. But they said, not on the feast day, (the

Passover) lest there be an uproar among the people." As the pascal festival, which continued seven days, and during which the people flocked from all parts of the country to Jerusalem, was close at hand, commencing after two days, the Jewish rulers seem to have been alarmed at the ascendancy which our Lord might acquire over the assembled multitude, and, therefore, to have determined to make the utmost efforts to cut him off, before such a favourable scene for the display of his miracles occurred. After resolving to seize him, they were at a loss how to accomplish this. They dreaded the indignation of the people should they seize him in public and in open day. In the evening he commonly withdrew to a distance from Jerusalem, and they were ignorant of the place to which he resorted. Some means must be devised for ascertaining this, about which, as they deliberated, the traitor Judas presented himself, and offered to discover, at a fit season, the place where our Lord was, for a bribe of thirty pieces of silver. Having eaten the pascal supper with his disciples in Jerusalem on the third day after this, and on the first of the festival, our Lord retired to Gethsemane, a garden situated at a small distance to the east of Jerusalem, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, and separated from the city by a valley through which the brook Kedron flowed. This was deemed a fit opportunity by Judas for betraying his master, and accordingly, having guided the chief Priests, the Scribes, and the Elders hither, with a band of armed men, our Lord was apprehended in the darkness of night. He was first carried to Annas, the High Priest of the former year, who seems to have acted in the capacity of substitute for the High Priest then in office, and whose father-in-law he was.

Our Lord having, when interrogated by Annas, expressed a becoming indignation at the treatment which he had received, was brutally insulted, being struck by a servant worthy of the master by whom he was employed.

Annas being unable to lay any crime to his charge, he was conducted to Caiaphas the High Priest, where another infamous scene presents itself. "Now the chief Priests, and Elders, and also the council sought false witness to put him to death, but found none; yea though many false witnesses came, yet found they none." The charges which they brought forward were too frivolous, and such that they could not be urged against him before the Roman governor. "At the last came two false witnesses, and said, this fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days." According to another Evangelist, they said "We heard him say, I will destroy this temple which is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands," from which, perhaps, it may be inferred that the witnesses did not agree in their testimony. This, however, is a matter of little consequence, for the charge con. tained in either assertion is frivolous, and a wilful misrepresentation of an expression of our Saviour'sDestroy this temple," pointing to his body, "and I will raise it in three days." Caiaphas seems to have been aware of the frivolous nature of the charge, and probably used it only as a means to draw a declaration from our Lord, that he was the Messiah, the King of the Jews, having perhaps been informed by Annas that the prisoner refused to give an account before him of his disciples and doctrine.

No reply being made to the charge, "the High Priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, an

swerest thou nothing? What is it which these witness against thee? But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again, the High Priest asked him, and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Son of God. Jesus said unto him, thou hast said, i. e. thou hast said what I am. Nevertheless, I say unto you hereafter,”—not now, as you suppose, but hereafter, "shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the High Priest rent his clothes saying, he hath spoken blasphemy, what farther need have we of witnesses? Behold now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered, and said, he is guilty of death. Then did they spit in his face, and buffetted him, and others smote him with the palms of their hands, saying, prophesy unto us thou Christ, who is be that smote thee?"

Never was transaction more infamous than this. The same persons who had suborned false witnesses to bring about, if possible, the death of the prisoner, and who, therefore, were guilty of a most flagrant breach of the laws of God, no sooner heard Jesus declare that he was the Son of God, than, filled with horror at the impious expression, they rent their clothes, saying, he hath spoken blasphemy, and then, doubtless, the High Priest considered himself as highly meritorious in vindicating the honour of God with such zeal, and soothed his conscience with the reflection that he was bringing an impious malefactor to condign punishment, and rejoiced in having heard from the prisoner's own lips an expression which might serve as a ground of accusation against him before Fontius Pilate the Roman governor.

From what has been said, the villany and malice of the Priests,

and Elders, and Scribes, must be apparent to every one; let us now consider the behaviour of our Lord when placed at the tribunal of Annas and Caiaphas.

When brought before Annas, the High Priest asked him of his disciples and doctrine. Jesus answered him, "I spake openly to the world. I ever taught in the Synagogues, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort, and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me? Ask them which heard me what I have said unto them; behold they know what I have said." At first we may be at a loss to perceive the impropriety of the High Priest's question. Would it not, it may be said, have been becoming in our Lord to have given a direct reply to the interrogation, to have given an account of his doctrine, and told who his disciples were? But his conduct is fully vindicated, when we reflect on the manner in which he had been treated. A party of armed men had come against him, and seized him in the darkness of the night. They had treated him as a thief or a robber. Now it might have been expected, that those who had apprehended him in this manner had some heavy charge to bring against him. But was this the case? When brought before Annas, bound like the vilest malefactor, what is the crime with which he is charged? He is charged with none. He is asked to give an account of his disciples and his doctrine. He would not have possessed the feelings of a man if such treatment had not roused his indignation and prompted the reply which he gave. If any charge had been brought forward against him, he would not have been justifiable in making such a reply, neither would he have made it; but when we consider the circumstances of his arrest, and the absurd question which was put to

him, we do not feel as we ought, if we do not heartily approve of his conduct. Our Lord, on this occasion, did not transgress the bounds of propriety, but only displayed a becoming indignation at the vile treatment which he had received. This was not the light, however, in which it was viewed by a servant of the high priest, who apparently, without receiving any reproof from his master, struck our Lord, saying, "Answerest thou the high priest so?" On suffering which brutal outrage, Jesus displayed his spirit and sense of the injustice done him, without losing his dignity and selfcommand, by saying, "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil," (i. e. if I have spoken improperly, show in what the impropriety consists,)" but if well, why smitest thou me?"

Hitherto we see that our Saviour's conduct was guided by the strictest propriety; let us now see how he conducted himself when carried before Caiaphas.

Here, as we have seen, a number of charges were brought against him by false witnesses, which were all frivolous, and of such a nature that, as our Lord knew, his enemies could not accuse him of them before the Roman governor. He therefore regarded the efforts of their malice with silent contempt. At length Caiaphas, ashamed and enraged that he could get nothing criminal proved against him, and that he could draw no expressions from the prisoner which might be turned against him, arose and said unto him, "Answerest thou nothing? What is it which these witness against thee?" Nothing but false and frivolous charges as Caiaphas well knew. "But Jesus held his peace." There was no occasion for an answer, because there was no desire on the part of Caiaphas to arrive at the truth." And the high priest answered and said