Part of our Saviour's Life had been SERM. spent; but He also acquitted him. Glad V. of Herod's concurring Judgment, Pilate addreffes himself again to the Jews, expoftulates with them upon their groundlefs Prosecution of Jesus, and labours to divert them from it. When they continued ftill deaf to all his Intreaties, he tried yet one Experiment more; gave our Saviour up to the Soldiers to be fcourged, hoping, that Sight would mitigate the Fury, and move the Compaffion of his Accufers; and then proposes him as the Man he was by Cuftom to releafe at the Paffover; and, that he might be fure to determine their Choice to Him, names Barabbas, a notorious Robber and Murderer, in Competition with him. Even this Infamous Perfon is thought a fitter Object of Mercy, than Jefus: And now, impatient of Delay, and unfoftned by all thefe Applications, they cry out, more vehemently than ever, Crucify him, crucify him. When he faw therefore that he could prevail nothing (fays the Evangelift) he took Water, and

washed

SERM. washed his Hands before the Multitude, V. faying, I am innocent of the Blood of this

Just Perfon; fee Ye to it. Then anfwered All the People, and faid, His Blood be on Us, and on our Children!

All the People! Not only thofe of mean and base Condition, who are usually the most forward in fuch Popular Clamours; but the Chief Priefts, the Scribes, and Eldersth emfelves, who then stood before the Tribunal of Pilate; not only the Inhabitants of Jerufalem, but the whole Nation of the Jews, who were then affembled to celebrate the Paschal Solemnity: All the People, in the utmost Force and Fulnefs of that Expreffion, anfwered and faid, His Blood be on Us, and on our Children!

Never fure was any Sinful Wifh expreffed with so much Solemnity, Unanimity, and Warmth; or attended every way with fuch high and horrid Circumftances of Aggravation; and no wonder, therefore, if it received its Accomplishment after fo remarkable a manner, as can, in no other Account of Men, or

Times, be parallelled. Which is what SERM. I, in the

Second place, propofed to confider and explain.

F V.

Blood (i. e. Innocent Blood) defileth Numb. the Land, (faith their Law) and the Land xxxv. 33. cannot be cleansed of the Blood that is fhed therein, but by the Blood of him that Shed it. This Rule held even of Common Blood, fpilt by a private Hand; and how then was the Land to be cleanfed of the Blood of the Messiah, the Son of God, which that whole Nation fpilt, and made themselves answerable for the Guilt of it? how, but by the Blood of that whole Nation, by their utter Ruin and Excision? which accordingly happened foon afterwards, when the Armies of Vefpafian encompaffed Ferufalem. The Calamities they underwent in that Siege, were fuch as never befell any other City or Nation: The Account we have of them is aftonishing, and would have furpaffed all Belief, had

SERM. it not been given us by One, who was V. himself an Eye-witness of them, and a Sharer in them; and who tells us, that no less than eleven hundred Thoufand Jews fell at that time, either by Sword, or Famine.

It may be worth our while to obferve from that Hiftorian fome Circumstances, which fhew, how ftrict a Correfpondence there was between their Crime and their Punishment; an Hiftorian that bad nothing lefs in his View, than to prove, that the One was adapted to the Other, and a juft Confequence of it.

The Nation, collected in a Body to celebrate that Paffover, had committed this crying Sin; and the Vengeance of God overtook them, at another Pafchal Seafon, when they were again thus embodied, when all the Jews were fhut up in Jerufalem, as Beafts in a Slaughterhoufe, and none could escape the Sword of the Romans.

The Rejection of the true Meffiah was their Crime, and their hearkening to many falle Meffiab's afterwards was the Source

Source of their Calamities; their fre- SERM. quent Revolts on that Account being the V. true Cause of the Refolution that was taken to extirpate and destroy them.

They pursued our Saviour to the Cross, that they might not be suspected of setting up a Rival Title to that of Cafar; left (faid they) the Romans come, Joh. xi. and take away our Place and Nation.48. What they endeavoured to avoid by this Wickedness, befell them on the Account of it: The Romans came, and took away their Place and Nation so entirely, that, after the fecond Attempt made upon them by Titus, they never had the least Shadow of Magiftracy and Government amongst them, and after their final Destruction by Adrian, they were not allowed, so much as to live in Jewry, no not upon Terms of the lowest, and most abje& Slavery.

Nor did the Vengeance of God stop here, but hath pursued, and doth still purfue them, into all the Corners of the Earth, whither they have been driven; in all which, their Circumftances are so fingular,