But the mockers on Calvary had not a monopoly of their vindictive joy. Pilate, who from the first despised the promoters of the suit against Jesus, now felt an aggravation of his antipathy from their insolent violence to himself. In his celebrated inscription on the Saviour's cross, in which, to gratify his contempt of the Jews (if Ave may not add, to register the strange conviction of his own mind), he most ostentatiously set forth the style of the crucified as THE KING OF THE JEWS,' be seems to have had his revenge. The chief priests at once requested a modification of the irntating title ; but it was now the govenior's turn to be obstinate, and he angrily declined to withdmw or alter a syllable of the trilingual superscription (John xix. 20-22). The gross derision of the bystanders must have greatly increased the suffer. ing of the pure and gentle Jesus ; one consolation, however, he received in the conversion of the crucified penitent. At first, both his fellow. sufferers seem to have joined in the reproaches of the crowd (Matt., Mark), and the unbelief of the priests= If he were the Christ, why did he not save himself and them ?' But before the end came, the constancy and the lamblike endurance of the central sufferer wrought conviction in one of the malefactors. He proved his repentance by acknowledging the justice of his OWIl punishment, and rebuking the taunts which his companion in misery was still pouring forth ; and his _Pith, by proclaiming the innocence of Jesus, and, by a wonderful insight, which penetrated the glories of the future through the ignominy of the present, invoking his sovereign grace and mercy. To his prayer of unsurpassed faith—' Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom,' Jesus answered, in the second of his seven great utter ances—in terms thmugh which his divinity surely gleams= Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise' (Luke xxiii. 42-43). Thus the protracted agony of the cross fails to exhaust the mercy of the Redeemer ; it failed, moreover, to blunt the kindly affections of his human heart. Near the cross he observed his virgin mother now soul-pierced with the terrible sword of which the aged Simeon had spoken (Luke ii. 35) more than thirty years ago. She was accompanied by her sister and Mary Magdalene, and by the disciple of her son's special love, who seems to have been the only one that braved the dangers of approaching the fatal scene from which the constant-hearted women, who had followed him from the north, were repelled* possibly by the military guard (Mark xv. 4o). The sight of his afflicted mother drew from Jesus, who forgot nothing and neglected nothing amidst all his distracting pains, the third utterance from the cross, in which he commended Mary to the guardianship of the beloved John, who from that hour' [probably from that moment] withdrew his precious charge from the painful scene, and took her unto his own home' (John xix. 27). Nor did she withdraw too soon. Deeper depths of woe her son has yet to fathom, and she was probably spared the anguish of hearing the cries which too plainly expressed his unequalled sorrow. The sixth hour has arrived, and a moiety of the hours of dying are now passed. But nature at length begins to sympathise with her Lord—the powers of moral darkness are fast culminating for their triumph, and physical darkness for three hours is shed over the land as an emblem of their victory. When the Saviour was born 74.Tht be. came radiant with the glory of a heavenly host (Luke ii. 8-4) ; now when he is dying man is blackened, as if with the gloom of hell (comp. Luke xxii. 53). Eclipsed is the Sun of Righteous ness in the awful mystery of that removal of his divine Father's face, which wrung from him the disconsolate cry—the fourth utterance= My God, my God, why bast thou forsaken me ?' We may not attempt to penetrate this scene with a curious eye, nor rudely lift the veil which bides it from our view. The Saviour's suffering is not to be guaged by ordinary human experience, for the cause which produced it can never recur to any man. When St. Peter, in a beautiful passage where he reviews the Saviour's passion, refers expressly to him as bearing his own self [alone] our sins in his own body on the tree' (i Bet. 24), he discloses to us the secret of so transcendent a weight of woe. Of all besides of woman born not one could bear that burden= none of them could by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him' (Ps xlix. 7). And where even in the Redeemer's own cup can we find another drop so bitter as this de spair ? In Gethsemane the foretaste of it was sweetened with the grace of an angers help ; but on Calvary when he dmnk the full draught the heavens were black, and no helper came thence to strengthen' him. No wonder that under the scorching fever of this affliction the tortured Jesus, uttering his fifth sentence on the cross, said, I thirst' (John xix. 28), The evangelist sees in this plaint of the Saviour the accomplishment of a prophecy which centuries before the event drew an affecting portrait of the suffering Messiah (Ps. lxix. S-21). In the awful solitude of his unassuaged. grief he felt at last the fatal force of all his passion ; Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness : I looked for some to take pity, but there was no man—and for comforters, but I found. none' (ver. 2o). The last moment is at hand, and with it the last of those derisive taunts PIXfav ocaad otiros, Matt. xxvii. 47), which vexed his righteous soul, fell upon his ear. But just at that instant, amid the abounding cruelties of the pro tracted execution, one refreshing act of compassion is observed. One man dares to obey the instinct of a better feeling than his fellows (comp. Matt. xxvii. 49 with 48), 'runs and takes a spunge, fills it with vinegar [the soldiers' acid drink], raises it to the sufferer's parched lips by the help of a reed or stalk of the hyssop plant, and gives him to drink.' If a cup of cold water given to a disciple shall uot lose its reward, we may be sure that this drop of rough mercy presented to the master himself in his last extremity will not be forgotten. Now that the end is come, and the cup is drained, Jesus does not refuse (and it is the second instance) the proffered relief. He received the vinegar'—Did it symbo lise the last of the dregs of his sharp and bitter cup ?—uttered thc sixth and seventh of the cries of Calvary, simultaneously as it would seem (comp. John xix. 3o, and Luke xxiii. 46), but with a loud voice of consciously completed victory for man, and of most loving resignation unto God' (Bishop Elli cott, aftcr Drdseke and Stier), It is finished,' • Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,' then meekly bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Three o'clock, the hour of the evening sacrifice, was the moment of the Lord's death (St. Mark mentions the stages in the duration of the passion, see chap. xv. vers. 25, 33, 34) ; and again does external nature attest the great event by unusual convulsions. The veil of the Temple was rent (the moral force of which portent is explained in Heb. x. 19-22), the earth did quake, the rocks were rent, the graves opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and appeared unto many' (Matt. xxvii. 51-53). The effect of these portentous sights, as a commentary upon that agony and death, v,,as intensely great on all that saw and heard them. Who can tell how many hearts were now prepared for the subsequent con victions of Pentecost and its sequel ? All the people that came together to that sig,dit [of the dying Redeemer], beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts and ieturned' (Luke xxiii. 48) ; the aloes of their own frightful imprecations of innocent blood on their children and themselves had scarcely yet died upon the ear, and their hearts were uneasy. But not y'ews alone were stirred. Three of the evangelists mention as one of the most striking incidents of the moment the convic tion produced on the mind of the centurion in com mand of the military which were on the spot. The Gentile Magi did homage at the Saviour's birth, and now when the Temple veil is rent, and the way to the holiest place is opened to all, the chief of the Gentile functionaries honours his death with not only a declaration of the late sufferer's inno cence (Luke), but, anticipating the devout Cor nelius, with the very first expression of Gentile belief in the truth of a divine Messiah of which wc read (Matt., Mark). In the centurion's belief,
moreover, the whole troop seems to have con curred, for St. Matthew tells us that they who were with him watching Jesus . .. feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. This centurion and Pilate shortly afterwards had an interview (Mark xv. 44). One may well wonder w hat passed between them, for the alarms of the governor before the execution, and the impressions of the soldier after it, respecting the wonderful Man whose fate had moved Jerusalem so intensely, were of very similar character. The blood of the inno cent, so precious to the penitent in all ages, brought vengeance on two at least of those who imbrued their hands in shedding it. The fallen apostle, when he saw the fatal effect of his treachery, hastened to the Sanhedrim, returned the fee of his sin, was goaded to desperation by the harsh taunts with which they heard his remorse, and by a suicidal hand met death even before the execution of the friend whom he had betrayed (Matt. xxvii. 3- ro ; Acts i. tS, 19. See also JuDAs hum:10T). Upon the heathen Pilate the recoil of vengeance was much tardier. The emotions of his conscience were allayed, and he went on awhile in the routine of his government. Two deputations waited on him after the crucifixion, of very different character, though both emanating from members of the Sanhedrim. One of these was undertaken in friendly concern for the honour of the dead, that the body, which had providentially escaped the mutilation and crushing inflicted on the others ( John xix. 32-37), might be rescued from the felon's grave into which it would otherwise have been hurriedly cast after the execution.', Two Ambers of the council, who had vainly protested against the violence of the majority, undeterred by all the odium to which their singular but noble conduct exposed them, and no doubt quickened in their adherence to the cause of the outcast by the por tents which were prognosticating his innocence and mysterious greatness, hastened to the governor, secured the sacred body, and fulfilled a remarkable prophecy (Is. liii. 9, 12) by consigning it to a princely grave (Matt. xxvii. 6o ; John xix. 41. See also JOSEPH OF ARIMATIIEA and NICODEMUS). After the piety of these admirable persons had provided a sepulchre worthy of the dead, the faith ful group of holy women, who had witnessed the horrors of the cross at a distance, now draw near and mournfully inspect the tomb wherein their heart's treasure of love was deposited. After a lingering look they returned home, not utterly prostrated by their sorrow (` cast down but not destroyed,' as St. Paul would describe them, 2 Cor. iv. 9), but able in the midst of it to project fresh offices of ministry for him from whom they could not believe that death had severed them for ever. They prepared spices and ointments,' St. Luke informs us (xxiii. 56). The voice now stilled in death had, only a few days ago, bestowed the warmest praise on Mary of Bethany, when, as he said, she anointed his body for its burial.' We have no doubt that this ministry of love, so well designed but never wanted, was no less worthy of his emphatic commendation. This most eventful day, unrivalled in its issues by any other day through which the sun ever ran its course, now ends with an affecting incident, which Holy Scripture has rescued from oblivion (see Matt. xxvii. 61). When their companions returned to their homes Mary Magdalene and the Virgin's sister and namesake remained at their sacred watch and ward, sitting over against the sepulchre.' Among the sym• pathies of the human heart room has always been found for acts of pensive piety such as this, even when bestowed on far less interesting occasions. No one reads without soine emotion the loving vigils over her dead of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah (2 Sam. xxi. io). With still more elevated fellow-feeling do we honour the silent grief of these watchers in the garden of the sepulchre—a touch ing contrast to thc sleepers of Gethsemane ! We do not suppose, indeed, that, like the daughter of Aiah, our Marys spent days and nights at the tomb, although Friday closes and Sunday breaks upon their holy watch. Saturday brought to them ob ligations which their piety would not resist, and so we suppose that at its earliest dawn they rejoined their Galilean friends.
Saturday, 16th of Nisan (April 8).—What a contrast does the silence of this Sabbath-day afford to the long, minute, and heart-stirring events of yesterday. All, however, was not peaceful, how ever quiet. Two evangelists refer to what occurred. St. Matthew, in five verses (xxvii. 62-66), tells us of the anxiety and restlessness of the chief priests and Pharisees, while St. Luke, in few but graphic words (xxiii. 56), informs us of the resignation and obedience of the faithful followers of Christ. This Passover-Sabbath was specially sacred (John xix. 31) ; but the sanctions neither of the Law nor of their own traditions deterred the Sanhedrim front violating its holy character by a rancorous activity against the body of Jesus. Though they had slain him, they could not repress a vag,ue fear about the future. So they went in deputation to the governor and expressed their apprehensions ; they did not hesitate to allude, in their extravagant manner, to the Lord's own predictions of his resurrection. They ill disguise their fears under an opprobrious epithet (Matt. xxvii. 63), that deceiver,' &elves O .2rXcivos, in violation of the manly decency which has found expression in the maxim De mortuis nil nisi bonum.' Of him who had struck a death-blow to their traditional system they could think only evil. So the gospel-narrative up to its last notice of these enemies of Christ consistently records the rancour and impotence of their latest efforts against the object of their hatred. Impotent indeed they were ! Pilate, though receiving their deputation with characteristic civility, does not forget their recent violence to himself. They had taken the entire business into their own hands. They had insisted on the death of Jesus of Nazareth ; their demand had been complied with ; with themselves must rest the consequences. If they thought a military watch necessary as a sedative to their fears he would not object to their having one. Let them use it as diligently as they pleased. So they went,' says the evangelist, 'and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch' (ver. 66). With what result we shall soon see ! Re freshing it is to turn from these restless and anxi ous malignants to the peaceful sorrow of Jesus' mourners. Of his own blessedness In Paradise (Luke xxiii. 43) ; of the bliss, moreover, which his spirit caused, it would seem, among the spirits he found in safe keeping there (i Pet. iii. 18, 19) ; and of the rest in hope' which was now enjoyed by his recently tortured but now liberated and im mortal body (Acts ii. 26, 31), it is less suitable to speak in an historical sketch than in a theological dissertation. We cannot, however, refrain, in closing this history of the wonderful passion week, from one word of humble and adoring contempla tion of a thrilling and awful fact, that, while apos tate Israel was desecrating the holiest and most memorable of all Jewish Sabbaths, and forfeiting its claim to the continuance of that once holy and happy institution, the faithful few, who rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment,' were by their unobtrusive piety not only in nearest com munion with the soul of the Son of Man resting from all its sorrows, but in best training for the higher privilege of the Christian rest and festival, the new Sabbath of the Resurrection, which was to become itself the type of that eternal rest o-appartapbs) which remaineth in heaven, after life's toils are over, for the people of God (IIeb. iv. 9).