CHAPTER XXV. TREACHERY-HYPOCRISY CHARGES AGAINST PAUL-VACILLATION THAN THE first account that we receive in the chapter I have read is, that after Festus had come into that province, of which he was the superintendent or the chief ruler, the high-priest and the leading members of the Jewish Sanhedrim brought accusation against Paul, and entreated him to bring Paul up, and assign him that punishment which, as they alleged, his crimes had justly provoked. And all the while, you will observe, this ecclesiastic, the high-priest, the ancient type of the King of glory, the chief ruler of an ecclesiastical council, who specially ought to have been actuated by motives of mercy, and justice, and truth,-entreated Festus to allow this lonely captive to be brought up to his judgment-seat, not that the cause might be pleaded and sentence might be pronounced, but that they traitorous assassins in disguise, pleading religion as the covert of their crimes-might waylay Paul, and murder him. You see to what extremes bigotry can impel men; you thus see that, under the garb of religion, the greatest enormities may be perpetrated; and never does crime look so dark, or assume so deep a dye, as when the glory of God and the promotion of truth are pleaded as excuses and reasons for committing it. When Festus heard this, he answered that Paul should be kept at Cæsarea, evidently suspecting the evil design that they had in view; and in the meantime, he said, "You can come to Cæsarea; instead of Paul being brought to you from Cæsarea"-evidently to screen Paul from their cunning and their wickedness ; "and then when you come there, you can accuse him, and bring forward satisfactory proof of those crimes which you say are so many and so flagrant as to deserve that the man should instantly be put to death.” Well, he tarried ten days, and went down to Cæsarea; and when he was come, these Jews-the chief priest, the chief of the Sanhedrim, the high-priest, and others— came "and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul;" but the complaints had this inconvenient accompaniment, that they could not be proved. Now nothing can be more damaging to a complaint than that no proof can be adduced to substantiate it; and to make charges which cannot be substantiated is not to injure the accused, but it is to fling weapons that recoil and damage only the accusers. When he answered for himself, Paul said," Neither against the law of the Jews, which I honour as much as the most zealous of them this day, nor against the temple, which I have never desecrated, nor yet against Cæsar, whose national laws and statutes I have not outraged, can they bring any charge proving me guilty, or implicate me in any respect as a profane man or as a disloyal subject." Festus, however, whilst he wished to protect Paul, wished at the same time to do the Jews a pleasure. He was one of those judges that occur in every age, and have, perhaps, existed in every country, who have not a very strong sense of obligation and of duty, and whose sense of duty often wavers in the direction of what they think their convenience and their advantage. He did not like to let Paul be murdered by assassins, but he he did not like to do a displeasure to the Jews; and he would try, therefore, and so balance conflicting interests that his popularity should not suffer, and yet substantial justice should be done to the criminal, or rather the accused, at the bar. And, therefore, he says to Paul, "Will you go up to Jerusalem and be tried there before the Jews?" Paul knew better; if he had gone to Jerusalem, he would have neither got law nor justice. We sometimes get law when it is not justice, and sometimes we get justice when it is not law. But Paul knew that he would have neither if he committed himself to the furious zealots that were met to condemn him first, and try him afterwards at Jerusalem. Then said Paul, "I stand at the bar of my country"—as if he had said, "at Cæsar's judgment-seat, the imperial seat; it is there that I ought to be judged. I have done no wrong; if I had committed an ecclesiastical offence against the customs of the Jews, it would be right that I should be allowed to vindicate myself in their hearing; or if I have committed any traitorous or treasonable act, then it is right that I should suffer for it. But if there be neither violence done to ecclesiastical law, nor an offence committed against political and national law, then I have no right to be delivered up to these Jews at all." You here see the magnanimity of a subject pleading his rights; and the rights of the meanest subject are just as definite in this land of ours as are the rights of the highest judge or peer of the land. And Paul shows here that the Christian's privileges, and his belonging to a better country and having an interest in brighter hopes, did not supersede or absorb his privileges and his duties as a subject of imperial Rome; and, therefore, he says, "I appeal to the highest civil tribunal of the land-I appeal unto Cæsar." Now this shows that, in the first place, it is not wrong for a Christian to feel and to act as a citizen; nay, I question if ever you may lawfully merge your duties as a citizen in your enjoyments as a Christian. If everybody were to leave society because a Christian, and refuse to take a part in the working of the social machine, then the world would go to ruin. But Paul shows a very different example; he appeals to a Roman court-he appeals to imperial Rome; and he expects-O degraded Judaism! O lost and forlorn Jerusalem !-to receive from a heathen court that fair play, that justice, that honourable treatment, which the ecclesiastical council that sat in the seat of Moses, and professed to administer the law of Moses, would not or could not bestow. "I appeal unto Cæsar." Now, it is a very remarkable fact, some people have always an impression that the Church has got nothing but injury from the State. It may have occasionally got damage from the State, as it has got damage from every secular element upon earth; but the singular fact, the historical fact is, that in the history of the Christian Church it has often got damage from the priest, and far more rarely got damage from the State. Very often was spread the wing of imperial Rome over the persecuted witnesses of Christ, when priests, and bishops, and popes persecuted them and proscribed them even unto the death. I do not believe that the Church has to fear the State; I do not think the Church has to fear the people: but the power that rises with impending and ominous influence is unquestionably that of the priest; and if she can defend herself from him, I think she will have less reason to protect herself from either of the two others. Then Festus, when he heard this, that he had appealed to the civil power, and had cast aside the ecclesiastical that assumed to be the best," Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, Hast thou appealed unto Cæsar? Unto Cæsar shalt thou go." This was not a favour, however. He seems to make it the grant of a favour; but if he had done otherwise, he would have lost his own position. Any Roman citizen might appeal to Cæsar, in every part of the world; and if Festus had refused to lodge that appeal, and to act upon it, he himself would have been deposed. It appears that at this time Agrippa, with Bernice, came to Cæsarea, in order to show some deference and pay some compliments to Festus, a brother ruler. And when he came, Festus mentioned to him the extraordinary fact of a man being left in bonds by Felix, about whom there had been a great deal of disturbance; "whom the Jews," he says, "wished to have put to death. To whom I said, that it was not the custom of the Romans to put men to death before they had been proved to be guilty of some crime. Therefore, when they were come hither, without any delay on the morrow I sat on the judgment-seat, and commanded the man to be brought forth. Against whom, when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusation of such things as I supposed; but"-here is |