relating to terms of the law, the words occidere and interficere were never employed to express the act of passing sentence, or judgment of death, but simply to signify murder or assassination.*

This fraud, by the aid of which they were to get Jesus into their power, was nothing but the bargain made between the chief priests and Judas.

Judas, one of the twelve, goes to find the chief priests, and says to them, What

* As was that of Stephen, whom the same priests caused to be massacred by the populace, without a previous sentence of the law. OCCIDERE: Non occides, thou shalt not kill. Deut. v. 17. Veneno homines occidere. Cic. pro Roscio, 61. Virginiam filiam sua manu occidit Virginius. Cic. de Finib. 107. Non hominem occidi. Horat. I. Epist. 17, 10. Inermem occidere. Ovid. ii. Fast. 139. INTERFICERE: Feras interficere. Lucret. lib. v. 251. Interfectus in acie. Cic. de Finib. 103. Cæsaris interfectores. Brutus Ciceroni, 16, 8. Interfectorem Gracchi. Cic. de Claris Orrato. 66.

will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? Matt. xxvi. 14, 15. And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver! Jesus, who foresaw his treachery, warned him of it mildly, in the midst of the Last Supper, where the voice of his master, in the presence of his brethren, should have touched him and awakened his reflections! But not so; wholly absorbed in his reward, Judas placed himself at the head of a gang of servants, to whom he was to point out Jesus; and, then, by a kiss consummated his treachery ! *

* Will it be believed, that Tertullian and St. Irenæus were obliged to refute seriously some writers of their day, who considered the conduct of Judas not only excusable, but worthy of admiration and highly meritorious," because (as they said) of the immense service which he had rendered to the human race by preparing their redemption! In the same manner, at a certain period, we have seen plunderers of the public money make a merit of their conduct, because in that way they had weakened the usurpation and prepared the way for the triumph of legitimacy.

Is it thus that a judicial decree was to be executed, if there had really been one made for the arrest of Jesus?

SECTION III.

PERSONAL LIBERTY.

RESISTANCE TO AN

ARMED FORCE.

THE act was done in the night time. After having celebrated the Supper, Jesus had conducted his disciples to the Mount of Olives. He prayed fervently; but they fell asleep.

Jesus awakes them, with a gentle reproof for their weakness, and warns them that the moment is approaching.

Rise, let us be going; behold he is at

hand that doth betray me." Matt, xxvi. 46. Judas was not alone; in his suite there

was a kind of ruffian band, almost entirely composed of servants of the high priest, but whom Mr. Salvador honors with the title of the legal soldiery. If in the crowd there were any Roman soldiers, they were there as spectators, and without having been legally called on duty; for the Roman commanding officer, Pilate, had not yet heard the affair spoken of.

This personal seizure of Jesus had so much the appearance of a forcible arrest, an illegal act of violence, that his disciples made preparation to repel force by force.

Malchus, the insolent servant of the high priest, having shown himself the most eager to rush upon Jesus, Peter, not less zealous for his own master, cut off the servant's right ear.

This resistance might have been continued with success, if Jesus had not immediately interfered. But what proves that Peter, even while causing bloodshed, was

not resisting a legal order, a legal judgment or decree, (which would have made his resistance an act of rebellion by an armed force against a judicial order,) is this—that he was not arrested, either at the moment or afterwards, at the house of the high priest, to which he followed Jesus, and where he was most distinctly recognised by the maid servant of the high priest, and even by a relative of Malchus.

Jesus alone was arrested; and although he had not individually offered any active resistance, and had even restrained that of his disciples, they bound him as a malefactor; which was a criminal degree of rigor, since for the purpose of securing a single man by a numerous band of persons armed with swords and staves it was not necessary. "Be ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves?" Luke xxii. 52.