declared, "If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him," John xi. 48.

These then were the judges before whom Jesus Christ appeared; and this was their president by whom he was to be interrogated. It would indeed have been difficult to find a more eminently unjus council, though on this account it was fitted to make the innocence of our Saviour shine forth with the greater lustre. The witnesses who presented themselves were worthy of such judges. Their false accusations were not however deemed sufficient. "And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee? But he held his peace, and answered nothing," Mark xiv. 60, 61.

What majesty and dignity was there in the silence of our Lord! What indeed could Christ have answered to his angry judges, his declared enemies, who had already condemned without hearing him, who considered his miracles as crimes, and who were worked up to madness because they could find nothing against him?

To this first motive for his silence, which regarded himself, we must add others which con

cern us. Jesus wished to atone for the sinfulness of those excuses, by which men generally seek to hide their guilt, like our first parents, Adam and Eve, who aggravated their crime by attempting to justify themselves. And by uniting spotless innocence, to the humiliation of advancing no proof of it, our blessed Lord blotted out the sin that we have so often committed, that of wishing to appear righteous, though laden with guilt.

Again, suffering in our stead, and in our name, our Saviour appeared with the same dispositions which ought to have been ours, had we stood before Divine justice armed with all its rigours. We must have appeared confounded and speechless; nor could we have answered one among the thousand charges brought against us. Through his love and mercy, Jesus stood laden with all our iniquities, and therefore he was dumb before his false accusers.

The high priest, seeing that the testimony of the witnesses did not agree together, or that they were so palpably false as not to be worth answering, questioned Jesus Christ himself; and by passing over the first accusations brought against him, virtually owned that they were without

foundation. "I adjure thee by the living God,"

were the words which he addressed to Jesus, "that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ," Matt. xxvi. 63.

At the sacred name of his Father, the Lord no longer thought fit to keep silence. It behoved him also to declare publicly that he was the Christ, the Messiah so long promised to that nation; and at this solemn moment, he answered Caiaphas, "Thou hast said," Matt. xxvi. 64; "I am!" Mark xiv. 62. But his dignity required, that in replying to Caiaphas's question, he should speak not only as one interrogated, but as a master and a judge; and teach those who had put such a solemn question to him, more than they desired to know. He therefore added, "And ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven," Mark xiv. 62.

"How will your judgment then be judged! What dread will the presence of Him whom you have so shamefully treated then cause you! How will you stand in his sight? Whither will you flee from the wrath of the Lamb, whose patience and forbearance you have despised, and

whose blood you have not feared to shed?" All this is contained in those divine words of Jesus Christ, "Ye shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven." Thus he fully declared his future advent: less simple language might have suited the zeal of a prophet, but would have appeared to take from the majesty of the King of Glory. He simply announces what he is, in few words, and without disturbing the stedfast calmness of his manner; and in this way did he always speak of those wonderful things, which were neither new nor astonishing, but natural to him. At the answer of our Lord "the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses?" Matt. xxvi. 65, 66. He thus owns that they had in vain sought for a testimony against Jesus; that they had tried to do so, but had failed; and that if he had not himself confessed that he was the Christ, the Son of God, they would not have known under what pretence to have condemned him to death. Divine Wisdom had thus ordered all things, that the very tribunals which condemned Jesus Christ should always bear testimony to his innocence. The high priest continues,

"Behold now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death," Matt. xxvi. 65, 66. It appears astonishing that among so many who attended this fatal council, there should not have been found one who would at least suspend his judgment, or beg that they might further deliberate upon a subject of such vast importance; but that all should have been carried away by the violence of Caiaphas! The difference is striking between this hot-headed precipitation, and the conduct of Pilate, who, though a heathen, made use of every delay to retard the death of Christ-even took his part-devised many ways of escape, and at last consented with much reluctance to his condemnation.

But the conduct of the Jews brings to our remembrance those words of Jesus: "Ye are witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers," Matt. xxiii. 31, 32. And we tremble at the fury with which, filling up the measure of their crimes, they rush on to commit the very greatest of them all. 'Then," continues the evangelist, "did they