Tlie conduct of Bisliop Bonner, in the reign of bloody Mary, to- wards some of our martyred Reformers, is a melauclioly proof of this.
The " officers " here mentioned were the attendants, and ser- vants, and immediate followers of the priests, who would nat- urally take up any cry raised by their masters.
The word rendered " cried out," means a loud shout or clam- orous cry, and is peculiar to John's account of this part of the passion. It is the same word that is used of our Lord at the grave of Lazarus : " He cried, Lazarus, come forth." (John si. 43.) It is the same that is u?ed of the multitude at Jerusalem, when they would no longer listen to Paul speaking to them on the stairs : " They cried out, and cast ofE their clothes, and threw dust into the air." (Acts xxii, 23.)
The cry " Crucify " was equivalent to a demand that our Lord might be put to death after the Roman manner.
Cyril remarks, " When the multitude would perhaps have blushed with shame at the sight of what had been done, re- membering Christ's miracles, the priests are the first to cry out, and so inflame and stir up the mob."
He who would know to what an extraordinary degree of blood-thirstiness a mob may be stirred up when once excited, should study the history of the Reign of Terror at Paris, dur- ing the first French revolution.
[Pilate saith...Take ye... in Him.'] This, as Cyril justly ar- gues, is the language of one vexed, and irritated,' and made im- patient by the pertinacity with which the priests stuck to their point. " Do your bloody work yourselves, if you must needs have it done. Take your prisoner away, and do not trouble me with the case. I find no fault in Him, and I dislike being made, your tool in this matter." It seems impossible to put any other construction on Pilate's words. He could not have meant gravely and seriously that he would allow the Jews to put the prisoner to death, and thus admit the precedent of let- ting them inflict capital punishment. Temper, vexation, and irony, seem to lie at the bottom of his words ; and the chief priests seem to have taken his words in this sense. We cannot doubt that they would gladly have taken away our liord and crucified Him at once, if they had thought Pilate really meant they should do so.
For the third time we should notice Pilate's emphatic decla- ration : " I find no fault in Him." Three times he vainly tried to evade condemning our Lord, or to make the Jews desist from their bloody design : once by asking the Jews to choose between Christ and Barabbas, — once by sending Him to Herod, —once by scourging Him, and exhibiting Him in a contempti- ble light before the people. Three times he failed utterly.