"WHAT ACCUSATION BRING YE AGAINST THIS MAN?"
COMMENTING on this inquiry of Pilate to the Sanhedrin, Dr. Alexander McLaren, in the S. S. Times, gives us this good Christian doctrine, which those religionists who are now clamoring for State aid would do well to heed:— Whether or not Pilate knew that his question was embarrassing, the rulers felt it so. Why did they not wish to formulate a charge? Partly from pride. They hugged the delusion that their court was competent to condemn, and wanted, as we all often do, to shut their eyes to a plain fact, as if ignoring it annihilated it. Partly because the charge on which they had condemned Jesus—that of blasphemy in calling Himself the Son of God—was not a crime known to Roman law, and to allege it would probably have ended in the whole matter being scornfully dismissed. So they stood on their dignity, and tried to bluster. "We have condemned Him; that is enough. We look to you to carry out the sentence at our bidding." So the "ecclesiastical authority" has often said to the "secular arm" since then, and unfortunately the civil authority has not always been as wise as Pilate was. He saw an opening to get rid of the whole matter, and, with just a faint flavor of irony, suggests, that, as they have "a law,"—which he, no doubt, thought of as a very barbarous code,—they had better go by it, and punish as well as condemn. The sarcastic proposal compelled them to acknowledge their subjection. Pilate had given the reins the least touch, but enough to make them feel the bit; and, tho it went sore against the grain, they will own their master rather than lose their victim. So their reluctant lips say, "It is not lawful for us." Pilate has brought them on their knees at last, and they forget their dignity, and own the truth. Malicious hatred will eat any amount of dirt and humiliation to gain its ends, especially if it calls itself religious zeal. And in the same lesson, in Christ's answer to Pilate: "My kingdom is not of this world; if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is My kingdom not from hence," Dr. McLaren writes as follows:— Our Lord's double answer claims a kingdom, but first shows what it is not, and then what it is. It is "not of this world," tho it is in this world, being established and developed here, but having nothing in common with earthly dominions, nor being advanced by their weapons or methods. Pilate could convince himself that His "kingdom" bore no menace to Rome, from the fact that no resistance had been offered to Christ's capture. But the principle goes far beyond their immediate application. It forbids Christ's servants to assimilate His kingdom to the world or to use its powers as the means for the kingdom's advancement. The history of the church has sadly proved how hard it is for Christian men to learn the lesson, and how fatal to the energy and purity of the church the forgetfulness of it has been. The temptation to such organized assimilation besets all organized Christianity, and is as strong to-day as when Constantine gave the church the paralyzing gift of "establishing" it as a kingdom "of this world."