The

that made them, of the great Jesus who bought them with his blood, and they regard it not. Spirit of the Lord is, in a great degree, departed from among us, and we take it not to heart! We are sensible of lesser grievances, are grieved that men will not be more entirely. proselyted to our several parties and persuasions, rather than that they are so disinclined to become proselytes to real Christianity; and seem more deeply concerned to have Christian religion so or so modified, than whether there shall be any such thing; or whether men be saved by it, or lost!

This sad case, that so many were likely to be lost under the first sound of the gospel; and the most exemplary temper of our blessed Lord in reference to it, are represented in the following Treatise; with design to excite their care for their own souls, who need to be warned, and the compassions of others, for them, who are so little apt to take warning. The good Lord grant it may be, some way or other, useful for good!

JOHN HOWE.

3

THE

REDEEMER'S TEARS

WEPT OVER

LOST SOULS.

LUKE xix. 41, 42.

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

WE have here a compassionate lamentation in the midst of a solemn triumph. Our Lord's approach unto Jerusalem at this time, and his entrance into it, as the foregoing history shows, carried with them some face of regal and triumphal pomp, but with such allays, as discovered a mind most remote from ostentation; and led by judgment, not vain glory, to transmit through a dark umbrage, some glimmerings only of that excellent majesty which both his Sonship and his Mediatorship entitled him unto: a very modest and mean specimen of his true indubious royalty and kingly state. Such as might rather

intimate than plainly declare it, and rather afford an after instruction to teachable minds, than beget a present conviction and dread, in the stupidly obstinate and unteachable. And this effect we find it had, as is observed by another evangelical historian, who, relating the same matter, how in his passage to Jerusalem, the people met him with branches of palm-trees, and joyful hosannas, he riding upon an ass's colt, as princes or judges, to signify meekness as much as state, were wont to do, tells us, "These things his disciples understood not at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him." For great regard was had in this, as in all the other acts of his life and ministry, to that last and conclusive part, "his dying a sacrifice upon the cross for the sins of men;" to observe all along that mediocrity, and steer that middle course between obscurity and a terrifying over-powering glory, that this solemn oblation of himself might neither be prevented, nor disregarded. Agreeably to this design, and the rest of his course, he doth, in this solemnity, rather discover his royal state and dignity by a dark emblem, than by an express representation; and shows in it more of meekness and humility, than of awful majesty and magnificence, as was formerly predicted: " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, thy King come unto thee: he is just, and having salvation, lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass."

And how little he was taken with this piece of state, is sufficiently to be seen in this paragraph of the chapter. His mind is much more taken up in the foresight of Jerusalem's sad case; and therefore being come within view of it, (which he might very commodiously have in the descent of the higher opposite hill, Mount Olivet,) he beheld the city, it is said, and wept over it.

Two things concur to make up the cause of this

sorrow.

1. The greatness of the calamity: Jerusalem, once so dear to God, was to suffer, not a scar, but a ruin: "The days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another."

2. The lost opportunity of preventing it: "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes," ver. 42. And again, “Thou knowest not the time of thy visitation."

1st, The calamity was greater in his eyes than it can be in ours. His large and comprehensive mind could take the compass of this sad case. Our thoughts cannot reach far, yet we can apprehend what may make this case very deplorable; we can consider Jerusalem as the city of the great King, where was the palace and throne of the Majesty of Heaven, vouchsafing to dwell with men on earth. Here the divine light and glory had long shone.