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XX.

JESUS CONDEMNED TO DEATH BY PILATE.

"AND SO Pilate willing to content the people," Mark xv. 15, "gave sentence that it should be as they required," Luke xxiii. 24. This was the end of all the efforts of a probity merely human, and of the resources of a worldly wisdom, which hoped to reconcile the interests of justice with its own. Pilate was, at length, brought to condemn Him, whom he had so frequently and so unequivocally declared before all the people to be innocent, to the punishment of the cross. He preferred dishonouring and sinning against his own conscience, rather than opposing the wishes of men, of whose wickedness he was well convinced. Such conduct may, alas! too often be witnessed.

XXI.

JESUS BEARING HIS CROSS.

WHAT an affecting, yet humiliating sight! The Son of God bowed down under the weight of a heavy cross, and yet carrying it without a murmur! thus fulfilling the prophecy, "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth," Isa. liii. Nevertheless, the barbarities which had been exercised against him, the cruel scourging which he had undergone, together with his previous agony in the garden, when his sweat fell as great drops of blood to the ground, appear to have so exhausted his strength, that he bore with difficulty the cumbrous and overpowering weight upon his shoulders, and moved but slowly forward.

It was necessary to relieve him of his burden. "And they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country," Luke xxiii. 26; him they compelled to bear his cross, Mark xv. 21. They use compulsion to make Simon carry it; but if it was given him, by the eye of faith, to discover that he had been permitted in any way to bring relief to his blessed Saviour, and to have been singled out to become a type of those who should afterwards take up the cross of Christ, and follow their Lord, if he afterwards became a spiritual crossbearer, we may imagine how honoured he must have felt, to have been entrusted with such an office.

"And there followed Jesus a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children," Luke xxiii. 27, 28.

The manner in which the various circumstances in the passion of our Lord are mingled together, though at times appearing contrary to one another, must always astonish us, however

prepared we may be for them. A short time before, he was bending under the weight of his cross; and he is now sufficiently strengthened to instruct those around Him, to prophesy, and to speak of future events, as being Master over them. It might have been expected, that had his strength permitted him to speak, it would have been in the language of lamentation, or to acknowledge the sympathy of those who lamented for Him. But no, he rejects even this mark of a just compassion. But wherefore should he seek to check those tears, which were the only tribute a weak people could pay to his suffering innocence Because, though their tears, shed as an homage to his undeserved punishment, were, without doubt, just; yet, as a proof that he was oppressed by his enemies, they dishonoured his voluntary sacrifice of himself. The people who wept over him, looked upon him as an unfortunate man, suffering a punishment he had not deserved; thus implying that he was powerless, and conquered, and had fallen under the power of his enemies; while, on the contrary, it was in his weakness that he was overcoming, and was, in fact, the Conqueror. And as for ourselves, we

may, and ought to feel deeply affected at the thoughts of all he suffered; but let us remember, that this disposition of mind is of less importance than many others. We must go to the source of all his sufferings; to the love of the Father, who gave his only-begotten Son to die for us; to the self-devotion of the Son, who consented to be made a sacrifice for us; to that Divine justice, which required such an expiatory sacrifice for our numberless transgressions; to the enormity of our sin, not to be remitted by any other means; to the miserable state of condemnation in which we must have remained, had not the incomprehensible mercy, joined to the wisdom, of God, found out this way of satisfying supreme justice, and blotting out all the transgressions of such utterly unworthy creatures. Yes, in our grief for the afflictions of Jesus, let us thus trace them back to their origin, and from this source let our tears flow. They will then be acceptable to our Saviour, and will not be considered as dishonouring to his sufferings. "Daughters of Jerusalem," said Jesus, "weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." This warning of our blessed Lord appeared of

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