"the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds "of heaven :" an allusion to the well-known Prophecy of Daniel, ch. vii. 13, 14, upon which the Jews grounded their expectation of the Messiah's appearing with the signs of glory and majesty-" I saw in "the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of

man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to "the Ancient of days, and they brought him near "before him. And there was given him dominion, "and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, "and languages, should serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, "and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” "Then" (proceeds the Evangelist) "the High-priest "rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blas"phemy; what further need have we of witnesses? "behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What "think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty "of death:" (Matt. xxvi. 65, 66): or as in St. Luke-our Text-more briefly to the same effect, "Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? "And he said unto them, Ye say that I am. (Ye "say truly). And they said, What need we any "further witness? for we ourselves have heard of "his own mouth."

Thus ended the first Trial-the first charge and the verdict upon it: the charge, that "He made

himself the Son of God;" upon which He is pronounced guilty of "Blasphemy" and sentenced to death, as stated by the Jews again, John xix. 7, “We "have a law and by our law he ought to die because "he made himself THE SON OF GOD;" alluding to the law against blasphemy Lev. xxiv. 16. In other words-He was condemned for asserting His DIVINITY, as the council understood His confession and as He evidently wished them to understand it. For, though in the Jewish Scriptures both angels and men had been styled "sons of God" (e.g. Job xxviii. 7; Hos. i. 10, &c.), as are Christians now upon still higher grounds, the Jews rightly considered the title, "THE Son of God," as assumed by Christ, not only an assertion of the Messiah-ship, but of Divinity as we see from St. John v. 17, 18, where, on Jesus saying in reference to His healing on the Sabbath, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work,” it is added-" Therefore the Jews sought the more "to kill him, because he not only had broken the

Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, 'making himself equal with God." This, then, was conclusively proved by His Trial: for had not our Lord intended so much by the Title, this was the time to have disclaimed the pretension and corrected the mistake under which His Judges laboured. He did not so however: He acquiesced in the charge

and in the sense in which they preferred it; and therefore, as said the council with one accord"What need we any further witness? for we our"selves have heard of his own mouth"- -so say we, and with joy and gratitude, that we need no further witness: and that THE TRUTH is thus established which is the corner stone of Christianity and the foundation of the whole work of our Redemption; inasmuch as it is because He was "The Son of God" in such sense as was no creature whether man or angel, that He could volunteer to take "the form of a servant" and in that form to become "obedient unto death” for us, for the effecting of our justification and the remission of our sins: while it was in virtue of the same Title and Prerogative that He burst the bands of death and became in His resurrection the Author of "Life and Immortality:" "made of the seed of "David according to the flesh; and determined to "be the SON OF GOD with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the "dead." (Rom. i. 3, 4, Gr. and Marg.)

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II. But the Trial of Jesus was not yet ended, nor the whole testimony yet borne to "The Truth" to which he was a Martyr. "The whole multitude of them arose," (proceeds the narrative—Luke xxiii. 1,) "and led Him unto Pilate."

The question will occur here-Why the Jews, after this verdict had, did not at once proceed to put Jesus to death, as shortly afterwards we find them doing in the case of St. Stephen when tried and condemned by this same Council, and on the same charge that of blasphemy, though in a lesser degree? And expositors are for the most part agreed in receiving the reason assigned by the Jews themselves to Pilate as the true one, namely, that "it was not lawful for them to put any man to death," (John xviii. 31); in which view the death of St. Stephen must be regarded as an illegal, unpremeditated, and tumultuary proceeding. Independent, however, of other evidence which makes this their statement more than doubtful, I would say that the case of St. Stephen is decisive of the contrary, marked as it is by all the formalities of a most deliberate and, in the manner of his death, strictly legal proceeding: and I would suggest, therefore, that the real reason may be found in the fear of the people which we have already heard expressed on the part of the chief priests and scribes, taken in connexion with its being the time of the Feast, when the greatest number of those who had witnessed the works of Jesus were in Jerusalem, and with the demonstration the multitude had already made in His favour but a few days before. But, whatever

their policy in demanding another Trial, we know a cause which fully accounts for it—even that they might unwittingly fulfil the Scriptures and the prophecies of Christ himself, and so be "taken in their own craftiness." For our Lord (it will be remembered) had predicted that he should be delivered to the Gentiles to be put to death, (Matt. xx. 17-19); -"And Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the "twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto "them, Behold we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son "of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests, ❝and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him ። to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to "mock, and to scourge, and to crucify Him: and the "third day He shall rise again:" and, moreover, the death awarded by the Jewish Law to blasphemy (of which they accused him) was stoning; whereas it was needful that he should be crucified, and so, even in this particular," made a curse for us," as the Apostle says, Gal. iii. 13—" Christ hath redeemed us from "the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us;

as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth 66 on a tree;" and as He had also in express words predicted in the Prophecy just quoted: and crucifixion was not a Jewish but a Roman mode of execution. This is the true reason, and a reason why on this occasion the Jews disclaimed the power, (as indeed