Having this glorious end in view, he exhibited,
e Crucifixion was not a Jewish, but a Roman punishment.
throughout the whole of his sufferings, the most won- derful magnanimity in,
II. His behaviour under them —
Nothing can exceed the beauty and propriety of the images, by which our Lord's patience is here illustrated. As a sheep, when the shearer is stripping it of its clothing, makes neither noise, nor resistance ; and as a lamb sports about even while being driven to the slaughter, yea, and licks the very hand that is lifted up to slay it, so our blessed Lord endured all his sufferings silently, willingly, and with expressions of love to his very murderers.
Twice is his silence noticed in the text, because it indicated a self-government, which, under his circum- stances, no created being could have exercised. The most eminent saints have opened their mouths in complaints both against God and man. Job, that distinguished pattern of patience, even cursed the day of his birth. Moses, the meekest of the sons of men, who had withstood numberless provocations, yet, at last, spake so unadvisedly with his lips, that he was excluded, on account of it, from the earthly Canaan. And even the Apostle Paul, than whom no human being ever attained a higher eminence in any grace, broke forth into " revilings against God's high-priest," who had ordered him to be smitten contrary to the law. But " there was no guile in the lips of Jesus ;" nor did he ever once open his mouth in a sinful or unbecoming manner. On one occasion indeed he expostulates with his God and Father, "My God, my God ! why hast thou forsaken me ?" But herein he did not express the smallest degree of impatience, or of murmuring against God. As a man, he could not but feel, and as a good man, he could not but bewail, the loss of the divine presence ; and in this complaint he has shewn us the intenseness of his own sufferings, and the manner in which every good man ought to plead with God in an hour of distress and trouble. Nor did he ever utter any vindictive threat- enings against his enemies. He foretold indeed the
970.1 Christ's behaviour under his sufferings. 371
destruction which they would bring upon themselves when they should have filled up the measure of their iniquities : but this he did with tears and sorrow of heart, not to intimidate them, but to express his affection for them. His silence before the tribunal of Pilate was not a stubborn or scornful silence, but a meek and dignified resignation of himself to the will of his blood-thirsty enemies. How easily could he have retorted all their charges upon them, and put both his judge and his accusers to shame ! But his time was come ; and he would not but that all the prophecies should be accomplished in him.. Moreover, when he was smitten unjustly before the very seat of justice, he made no other reply than this ; " If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil ; but if well, why smitest thou me ?" Thus, in the midst of all the cruel- ties and indignities that could be offered him, he never once uttered an angry, a vindictive, or an unadvised word.
Indeed there was not only a submission, but a per- fect willingness, on his part, to bear all that he was called to suffer. When first he became our surety, and it was proposed to him to assume our nature for that purpose, he replied, " Lo, I come, I delight to do thy will, O my God ; yea, thy law is within my heart f." When Peter would have dissuaded him from subjecting himself to the miseries which were coming upon him, our Lord rebuked him with a just severity, as the very first-born of Satan ; since none could more effectually do the part of Satan, than he, who should attempt to divert him from his purpose of suffering in the place of sinners. " With great earnestness did he desire to eat the last passover with his disciples," and " to be baptized with his bloody baptism ; " yea, and " was greatly straitened till it should be ac- complished." He might easily have escaped, when Judas with a band of soldiers came to apprehend him in the garden ; but, notwithstanding " he knew all things that were coming upon him," he voluntarily went up to them, and asked them, whom they sought :