with great political sagacity, Caiaphas uttered the momentous words, an unconscious prophecy, as St. John points out, at that meeting of the Sanhedrin when the death of Jesus was finally resolved upon. Thus the main historical causes of the Crucifixion were these three, prejudice on the part of the people, a dead religion on the part of the Pharisees, love of gain and political ambition on the part of the Sadducees. We may see then how absolutely true St. Peter was to the facts of the case. "Him . . . through the hand of lawless men, ye affixed to a cross and slew." God was not the cause of the death of Jesus Christ, as in popular and ditheistic theory, forgetting "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me." The real causes of His Death were the definite sins of lawless, of wicked men. God's part was a purely negative one. He held His hand, and allowed sin to work out to its fatal issue. The Resurrection, indeed, is the sublime act of God's interference, at the most critical point in all human history, at the one point supremely worthy of such Divine interposition, in order to finally and completely vindicate the cause of moral goodness. But up till then, sin was allowed to have its own way, to display fully its malign character, to reach its ultimate result in the Death of the Sinless One. But behind the historical causes of our Lord's death, were deeper and spiritual causes. "Him being by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God delivered up. . . ." God foreknew the result. There is no difficulty here. But in what sense can He be said to have "determined" it?