dily joined with Caiaphas in declaring him guilty of death; that is, that he had committed a crime, for which by their law he ought to die. In consequence of this decision they immediately, as far as their power would extend, condemned him to death.

Such was the resolution of the council which then broke up at a late hour, and left the condemned, though innocent prisoner, in the custody of the officers and servants; who, knowing that he had been declared guilty by the Sanhedrim, the great council of the nation, offered him the vilest indignities: for the men who held JESUS began to spit upon him, and to cover his face and to buffet him; and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, thou CHRIST, who is it that smote thee? And many other things did they blasphemously speak against him.

With what admiration, my Brethren, do we contemplate our Saviour's patience under this injurious treatment! And do not our hearts burn within us in abhorrence of the injustice and cruelty of the high priest, the chief priests and elders, against such meekness, such innocence, and such abstinence from revenge, which he might in an instant have executed

upon his enemies? And what an example is set us in this, and in a former instance when he was struck by the officer, that we are not to be our own avengers; but to leave it to the magistrate to avenge our wrongs, whose duty it is, as he has the power, to restrain evil-doers; both which, we here see, were most unfaithfully neglected?

But what our LORD said to the women who bewailed and lamented his misery when he was led away to be crucified, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children, let us apply to ourselves, in contemplating the miserics which he endured. A time indeed is this of sorrow and mourning; but not for his sake, who, crowned with glory and honour, is set down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; but for our own, whose sins brought down this load of woe and misery upon our blessed Redeemer*.

The concluding scenes of this eventful week will fall under our consideration tomorrow, the day of its annual commemoration, a devout and solemn observance of which I recommended in my introductory lecture on the morning of Palm

*Sherlock's Discourses. vol. 3, page 199.

Sunday* this I now repeat, intreating. you to suffer no avocations either of business or pleasure, to prevent you from attending the service of the Church; that you may both join in the prescribed prayers, and hear the recital of your Saviour's bitter sufferings, and return from thence to meditate on them privately.

Nor

think the time that may then be occupied, too much to be given either to the service of the desk, or to the instructions and admonitions from the pulpit. If in other places you can sit long, without weariness, at the representation of fictitious woes, unprofitable too, and perhaps of immoral tendency, do not grudge the time you are required to spend in meditations, both publick and private, on the occurrences which attended those real sufferings in which you are most materially concerned; and which, if duly applied to yourselves, will be productive of inestimable blessings, not only temporal, but eternal.

GOD grant, that we may all meet in devout affection towards our Saviour; and, for his sake, in brotherly love towards each other. Amen.

* See Lecture i. page 15.

LECTURE VII.

Isaiah liii. 8, 9.

HE WAS TAKEN FROM PRISON AND FROM JUDGEMENT; AND WHO SHALL DECLARE HIS GENERATION? FOR HE WAS CUT OFF OUT OF THE LAND OF THE LIVING: FOR THE TRANSGRESSION OF MY PEOPLE WAS HE SMITTEN.

AND HE MADE HIS GRAVE WITH THE WICKED, AND WITH THE RICH IN HIS DEATH; BECAUSE HE HAD DONE NO VIOLENCE, NEITHER WAS ANY DECEIT IN HIS MOUTH.

IN contemplating the occurrences and transactions of this Great and Holy Week, we are at length drawing towards the concluding scene of a life, which, as it had been most innocent, so must we own it to have been most miserable. At the conclusion of our last meditations we left the LORD of life in the hands of an insulting rabble, who treated him with every possible indignity, after the Sanhedrim, the great council of the Jewish nation, had, as they decided, heard him out of his own mouth convict himself of blas

phemy, in declaring himself to be CHRIST the Son of GOD: and for this crime, as they called it, they all condemned him to be guilty of death, or of a capital offence, for which he ought to die. Thus far have we proceeded in what we may call the introduction of the sufferings of CHRIST, as in what remains we have the completion of them.

The Jewish rulers had passed the sentence of condemnation on our LORD, but they could not execute it; for that power had been taken from them by the Romans they therefore were to devise means, how they might get him put to death. For which purpose, when the morning was come; all the chief priests and elders of the people consulted together for the effectual prosecution of their prisoner and him, whom they had the night before suffered to be wantonly insulted, to be mocked, spit upon, buffeted, and smitten, and who, perhaps, after all these indignities, had no place wherein to rest his tormented body,--him they now bound again, probably with stricter bouds; and he, who a few days before had passed through the streets of Jerusalem in triumph, was now conducted through them, exposed to the contempt of the people, and thus led away to the