like dogs, they seemed eager to devour the prey which they had ah'eady seized.
Had this ferocity been confined to soldiers, we might have supposed that it arose from their education and habits. But " the Chief Priests, with the Scribes and Elders, and even the Rulers," all concurred in devouring the Lamb of God ! They altogether forgot the demeanour which befitted their rank and office ; yea, they lost sight of all the feelings of humanity ; and encouraged by their example those atrocities, which policy, no less than humanity, should have led them to prevent. Even the malefactors caught the infernal flame ; and, unmindful of their own agonies, or shame, or approaching dissolution, united in vilifying the Son of God : accounting themselves so much his superiors, that they might justly make him an object of derision and contempt.
Whatever had been a ground of accusation against him, they now made a subject of profane ridicule. Three years before, he had, in reference to his own body, said, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." This had been alleged against him, though not substantiated, as an evidence of his hostility to the temple: and now they cast it in his teeth, challenging him, if he were able, to do a much smaller thing, namely, to come down from the cross. His relation to God as his Son, and his power over Israel as their King, he was also called upon to prove, by descending from the cross : and even his affiance in God was deemed so absurd, that God himself was challenged by them to his assistance. All this too was attended with such outward expressions of triumph as corresponded with the malignant feelings of their hearts. But who would have conceived that even his most benevolent mi- racles should now be made a matter of reproach against him? Yet were even these brought forward, to give the keener edge to their blasphemies: "He saved others; himself he cannot save."
Now view this whole mass of savage cruelty, of base ingra- titude, and of horrid impiety ; view it as the oflEspring, not of one superlatively wicked individual, or of any particular class, but of a whole nation ; and then you will be constrained to say, " Lord, what is man ? Lord, what is man?"]
The conduct of the Jews on this occasion is in- structive also,
n. As a trial of Christ's perfection —
[The sacrifices under the law being required to be without spot or blemish; they were examined with the greatest care, that their fitness to be offered might be clearly ascertained. Now as Jesus was to be a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, it pleased God, that, previous to his being offered, he
Q (3 f3