purposely rushed.

All Christendom has always believed that the death of Jesus was
_voluntarily_ incurred; and unless no man ever became a wilful martyr,
I cannot conceive why we are to doubt the fact concerning Jesus. When
he resolved to go up to Jerusalem, he was warned by his disciples
of the danger; but so far was he from being blind to it, that
he distinctly announced to them that he knew he should suffer in
Jerusalem the shameful death of a malefactor. On his arrival in the
suburbs, his first act was, ostentatiously to ride into the city on an
ass's colt in the midst of the acclamations of the multitude, in order
to exhibit himself as having a just right to the throne of David. Thus
he gave a handle to imputations of intended treason.--He next entered
the temple courts, where doves and lambs were sold for sacrifice,
and--(I must say it to my friend's amusement, and in defiance of his
kind but keen ridicule,) committed a breach of the peace by flogging
with a whip those who trafficked in the area. By such conduct he
undoubtedly made himself liable to legal punishment, and probably
might have been publicly scourged for it, had the rulers chosen to
moderate their vengeance. But he "meant to be prosecuted for treason,
not for felony," to use the words of a modern offender. He therefore
commenced the most exasperating attacks on all the powerful,
calling them hypocrites and whited sepulchres and vipers' brood; and
denouncing upon them the "condemnation of hell." He was successful. He
had both enraged the rulers up to the point of thirsting for his life,
and given colour to the charge of political rebellion. He resolved
to die; and he died. Had his enemies contemptuously let him live, he
would have been forced to act the part of Jewish Messiah, or renounce
Messiahship.

If any one holds Jesus to be not amenable to the laws of human
morality, I am not now reasoning with such a one. But if any one
claims for him a human perfection, then I say that his conduct on this
occasion was neither laudable nor justifiable; far otherwise. There
are cases in which life may be thrown away for a great cause; as when
a leader in battle rushes upon certain death, in order to animate
his own men; but the case before us has no similarity to that. If
our accounts are not wholly false, Jesus knowingly and purposely
exasperated the rulers into a great crime,--the crime of taking his
life from personal resentment. His inflammatory addresses