ing without God in the world, will deal more uprightly in judgment, and especially with Christians who are persecuted for the name of Christ, than they that take upon them the name of the Church. It is better for a Christian to fall into the hands of the Turk than of the Pope, or of the Inquisition of Spain, let them assay it who please. Well, brethren, there is no cruelty or wrong comparable to the cruelty of those who take upon them the name of the Church; experience hath proved this. Now he requires a verdict of the Jews, but what answer they?" If he had not been an evil-doer, we had not delivered him unto thee." They answer presumptuously, "What needest thou to doubt of his deserving, or of us? Thinkest thou that this man would have been condemned by us without a sufficient cause of death?" So ye see, it is not that he should sit down and try whether he were innocent or no, that they brought him to Pilate, but that, upon their words, he might give out the sentence. Yet there is some accusation here that "he is an evil-doer." Is that sufficient, when a man is delivered to the judge, to say, this man is an evil man? No, he must qualify it in particular wherein he is evil and hath failed; if they had found any, they would not have passed by it; in their own judgment-seat they could get nothing to say against him. Now, when they came to the judgment of Pilate, and striving to accuse him, they can say nothing, but in general, "This is an evil man." Then, this I mark through this whole process, that the Lord will these two things to be seen manifestly: First, the innocency of Christ; for look the whole process, yea, when he is slain and dead upon the cross, his very enemies themselves are constrained to testify that he is an innocent man, as the centurion did; the next is the wrongful dealing of the Jews against their consciences.

always have

Now, brethren, as it was in this matter of Jesus Christ, so it hath been since in all the martyrs. The Lord hath made both the innocency of the martyrs to appear clearly, and also he hath made the cruelty and tyranny of their enemies to appear. Read the books of the martyrs, and ye shall find these two. So, brethren, it is well for them that will suffer for a good cause, and chiefly for the

cause of Jesus Christ: yea, although it were but in this, that the Lord will have their innocency appearing. What and if all the world condemn thee, so the Lord Jesus justify thee? for albeit thou die, yet thine innocency dieth never. And this is our comfort indeed, that albeit this body should be burnt, yet the day shall come that our innocency shall appear; for at the glorious coming of the Lord Jesus, thou and thine innocency shall stand up to shame the tyrants of the world. Thus for their answer.

Pilate says again, "Ye have a law, take and judge him after your law." Albeit Pilate seems to speak these things tauntingly, to mock the Jews, speaking one thing, and thinking another, to repress their pride; yet the text following testifies that he spake it in earnestness, as he would say, "Before that I should condemn any man this way without an accusation, for your pleasure, I had rather renounce of my right, and permit judgment to you; condemn and do as ye will.” Well, then, it is to be marked, I see here, that ere Pilate had judged the Lord wrongously he had rather have given over his right, and the judgment of capital crimes; and well had it been for Pilate if he had stood to this sentence; and it had been better that he had given over his right that the Romans had, albeit that he should have immediately been taken and hanged by the emperor for it. Alas! the miserable man lost himself by the maliciousness of the Jews: yet, albeit he be an ethnic, he is a man of better conscience than the Jews were. The light of a natural conscience in this Pilate surpasses all the knowledge of the Jews; and the Lord at this time did set up that light of Pilate's on a scaffold, as a lantern and light to condemn these Jews that had no conscience. The very words of Pilate are a lantern to let the Jews see that they had no conscience. God, in his wisdom, from time to time used to do so; he will make the Pagans to stand up like light, to shame the professors of the gospel, whose conscience is, as it were, burnt up with a hot iron. Is it not a great shame to thee, when the Lord will raise him up to be a light unto thee, who should be a light to him? and as in this world. he will make men without God to stand before the professors in this world to shame them, so, in the world to come, he will raise

them up to shame and condemn them. Sodom and Gomorrah shall rise up to the judgment of many in this age who profess Christ. Ye shall see how Pilate, although he was a very evil man, yet he pities the Lord Jesus, and will not for their importunity consent to his death. "The ysay, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death;" they require not that power to be given them that the Romans had. For forty years before the destruction of the town and temple of Jerusalem, they lost all authority to judge on capital crimes; they spake truly, and here they would appear to gratify Pilate, when they would acknowledge him to judge in capital crimes; but in effect they take the power of a judge from Pilate, when, upon their sentence only, without accusation, trial, or verdict, they will have him to condemn Christ: but better had it been a thousand times for Pilate that they had taken that power to themselves, for they involved the man in their guiltiness by condemning Christ Jesus. And I say more; it had been better for the priests that they had taken the whole judgment unto themselves, because that blood of Pilate lies upon them. This is a true thing; the moe thou drawest to communicate with thy sin, thy damnation shall be the greater. It were better for the princes of this world, who are like as many slaves to the pope, the emperor, the King of Spain, &c., to renounce all the right they have of judgment to the pope, when he and his crew have condemned one innocent of heresy, to execute him, rather than to be the pope's burrio. It had been better for Sigismundus, the emperor, that he had resigned all authority to the pope in burning John Huss and Jerome of La Prage, than breaking promise and oath, to have executed the pope's malice upon them; it had been better he had never seen that council; and one day the princes of the earth shall curse the time that ever they were executors to the pope. And it were good for the pope also that he involved not these princes in the same guiltiness, for their blood lies upon him.

that deceiver!

Would to God their eyes could be opened, to see

To return again. It is not they that must condemn the Lord; no; but it must be Pilate, he must do all, that they may be clean;

and, when the Lord is slain, are they clean? No, brethren; let Pilate condemn him, and put him to execution, yet the priests and the Jews are greater murderers of Jesus Christ than Pilate was; indeed, Pilate hath his part in that woeful action, and woe unto him that ever he meddled with it; and now he findeth that he hath his part therein. But those high priests, and those Jews, are the greatest murderers of Jesus Christ. Ye know the Papists use to say, when a man is put to death, "It is not we that slay the man; it is the civil sword of the secular power. Who burnt John Huss and Jerome of Prage but the emperor? The pope is holy, and his hands are clean, and these sins hurt him not that are done by the hands of the emperor. Who executes them in the Inquisition? The king; the pope's holy hands are clean of all." Excuse as they will, I pronounce (and the Lord shall ratify it in that great day) that they are greater murderers than the secular power. Away with their vain excuses! When they have murdered the man, they will put the fault in the magistrate. Will God accept such excuses?

In the next verse John subjoins wherefore the Jews would not take upon them to judge of the life or death of Jesus Christ, and says, "That they answered so, that that might be fulfilled that the Lord spake, signifying what death he should die." When he was conversant with his disciples, he foretold them that he should die upon the cross. Now the Jews will not take upon them the right of judging him, that these words might be fulfilled. If the Jews had taken it upon them, they would not have crucified him, because it was not usual among the Jews; they used to stone a deceiver or blasphemer to the death, according to the law, as they did Stephen afterwards. This death of the cross was familiar and usual among the Romans. Then, brethren, we see here the God of heaven is the disposer of the whole action of the persecution and passion of Christ, whatever be man's part. There is not a word uttered, nor an action done, either by Pilate, or any of the Jews, which the Lord did not dispose. All that Pilate did, and all that the Jews did, as that spitting and buffeting of Christ,

were all disposed by the Lord. And this is it that ye read in that prayer in the Acts of the Apostles, chap. iv. verses 27, 28, "The princes of the earth are gathered against thine anointed, Herod, Pilate, and the Gentiles." Whereto? "That they should do that thing that thine hand and thy counsel hath ordained." Neither Herod, Pilate, nor any of the Jews or Gentiles, did any thing in this execution but that which God appointed. The understanding hereof serves to this, that there was nothing done to our Redeemer but that which his Father appointed; they were but persecutors appointed by God, even as the hangman; the Jews, and Pilate, and Herod, were like as many hangmen, to execute that decree of God. This would seem a very light word that the Jews say, "We have no power to sit over the life or death of men ;" yet this is a mean whereby the Lord brings to pass that form of cursed death. Brethren, we may speak as lightly of things as we please, and many times to little purpose, but there is nothing that passes God's decree. Look to that providence that God hath in his creatures. The Lord disposes the lightest words that thou speakest, and he rules thine hand so, that whatsoever thou doest, he makes all to effectuate and produce that which he hath decerned; the thing that thou wilt speak or do, it will serve for some purpose to him, howbeit little for thee. In the meantime, let no man think that when men speak or do evil, that they shall be the more excusable; for if there were no more but this, it shall make thee inexcusable, because, in speaking evil, and in doing evil, thou hast not the Lord before thine eyes. Thou doest it not for obedience to his will. Take this lesson, let every man and woman take good heed that they be well exercised; and if our God employ us, let us take good heed that we be in a good service, in speaking good and doing good. Lend not thine heart, thine hand, nor thy tongue, to the devil in unrighteousness. And seeing thou canst not sleep from morning to evening, but must be speaking and doing, pray that the Lord may employ thee to do well, and to speak well, and say, "Lord, let me be an instrument to do well." And more, in doing well be not content of the outward face of the action; but in doing,