of usurping the prerogatives of Caesar, he had mira- culously withdrawn himself from the people, when they sought to invest him with royal authority : and had charged them to be as conscientious in giving to Caesar the things that were Caesar's, as unto God the things that were God's ! And while these inva- lidated the charges of treason and sedition, how many myriads could have borne witness to his transcendent goodness ! How might they have said, " I was blind, and he gave me sight ; I was deaf, and he unstopped my ears ; I was dumb, and he loosed my tongue ; I was lame, and he invigorated my limbs ; I was sick, and he restored me to health ; I was possessed with devils, and he delivered me from their power ; I was dead, and he raised me to life again." Possibly some might have been found, who had not lost all re- membrance of his kindness, provided they had been suffered to speak on his behalf: but, as on a former occasion, the chief priests had excommunicated the blind man for arguing in his defence g, so now did they intimidate all, insomuch that none dared to open their lips in his favour. Even his own disciple, who had promised the most faithful adherence to his cause, forsook him in this extremity, and, through fear of their threatened vengeance, denied, with oaths and curses, that he even knew the man.
Having prevailed by dint of clamour, the Jews led him forth to execution, that he might be " cut off out of the land of the living." But no Jewish punishment was sufficiently cruel to satiate their malice : they therefore, notwithstanding their rooted hatred of a foreign yoke, voluntarily acknowledged their subjec- tion to the Romans, that they might be gratified with seeing him die by the most lingering, painful, and ignominious of all deaths, a death which none but slaves were ever suffered to endure.
Who that had seen the universal and invincible determination of the Jewish people to destroy him, must not have concluded, that he was one whose un- paralleled iniquities had excited their just abhorrence ?
« John ix. 22, 34.
971.1 OUR lord's trial and execution. 379
Who, on being told that there was not one found upon the face of the whole earth to speak a word on his behalf, must not have been persuaded that he suffered for his own transgressions ? But though the testimony of man was not formally and audibly given at the bar of judgment, there was abundant proof, that he suffered, not for his own sins, but for ours. There was a remarkable concurrence of circumstances to establish his innocence, not only in spite of their efforts to prove him guilty, but, in a great measure, arising from them. The endeavours of the chief priests to bring false witnesses, clearly shewed that they had no just ground of accusation against him. Had any person been able to impute evil to him, it is most probable that Judas would have done it, and would have brought it forth in vindication of his own conduct : but he, so far from justifying his own treachery, restored to the chief priests the wages of iniquity, affirming that he had betrayed innocent blood : and they, unable to contradict him, tacitly acknowledged the truth of his assertion, bidding him look to that as Ms concern. Pilate not only declared repeatedly that he could find no fault in him, but that neither was Herod able to lay any thing to his charge. He even came forth before them all, and washed his hands, in token that the guilt of condemn- ing that just person should lie on those who had demanded his execution, and not on him who had reluctantly consented to it. The thief upon the cross, reproving his contemptuous companion, attested the innocence of Jesus, saying, " We indeed suffer justly ; but this man hath done nothing amiss." If he be thought an incompetent witness, because he spake not from his own knowledge ; we affirm that his testimony was so much the stronger, because it was founded on common report, and therefore was not the testimony of a mere individual, but of the Jews in general. To these we may add the testimony of the Centurion, who had been stationed to superintend the execution. He had seen the dying behaviour of this persecuted man ; he had seen that, immediately