to waive, or not insist upon, his own most sacred, and so dearly acquired rights? to quit his claim to the greatest part of mankind? Why did he then issue out his commission as soon as he was risen from the dead, to teach all nations, to proselyte the world to himself, to baptize them into his name, (with that of the Father and the Holy Ghost? O the great and venerable names that are named upon professing Christians!) Could it be his intention, to leave it lawful to men to choose this, or any, or no religion, as their humours, or fancies, or lusts should prompt them; to disregard and deride his holy doctrines, violate and trample upon his just and equal laws, reject and contemn his offered favours and mercy, despise and profane his sacred institutions! When he actually makes his demand, and lays his claim, what amazing guilt, how swift destruction, must they incur, that dare adventure to deny the Lord that bought them! And they that shall do it, among a Christianized people, upon the pretended insufficiency of the revelation they have of him, do but heighten the affront and increase the provocation. 'Tis to charge the whole Christian institution with foolery, as pretending to oblige men, when they cannot know to what, how, or upon what ground they should be obliged; to pronounce the means and methods inept, and vain, which he hath thought sufficient (and only fit) for the propagating and continuing Christianity in the world; to render the rational reception of it from age to age impossible, in his appointed way; or unless men should be taught by angels, or voices from heaven, or that miracles should be so very frequent and common, as thereby also to become useless to their end; and so would be to make the whole frame of Christian religion an idle impertinency; and, in reference to its avowed design, a self-repugnant thing; and consequently were to impute folly to him who is the Wisdom of God.

And how are other things known, of common concernment, and whereof an immediate knowledge is as lit le possible? Can a man satisfy himself that he hath a title to an estate, conveyed down to him by very ancient writings, the witnesses whereof are long since dead and gone? or that he is obliged by laws made many an age ago? Or could any records be preserved with more care and concern, than those wherein our religion lies? or be more secure from designed or material depravation? But this is no place to reason these things. Enough is said by others,

referred to before. I only further say, if any that have the use of their understandings, living in a Christian nation, think to justify their infidelity and disobedience to the Son of God, by pretending they had no sufficient means to know him to be so, the excuse will avail them alike, as that did him, who insolently said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice? I know not the Lord, neither will I, &c. For have not we as good means to know who Christ is, as the Egyptians at that time had, to know who was the God of Israel, though afterwards he was more known by the judgments which he executed? Although the knowledge of the only true God be natural, and the obligation thereto common to them; yet the indisposition to use their understanding this way, is so great and general, and the express revelation that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, requires so much less labour to understand it, than there is in arguing out the existence and attributes of God, by an inhabile, sluggish mind, that the difference cannot be great, if any, on that side. This latter only needs the inquiry, whence the revelation comes; which as it is not difficult in itself, so this occasion, viz. of its being proposed, doth invite and urge to it; whereas the generality of the pagan world have little of external inducement, leading them into inquiries concerning the true God. Therefore, all circumstances considered, I see not how they that live under the Gospel can be thought to have less advantage and obligation to own Jesus of Nazareth to be the Son of God, than the rest of the world, to own the only living and true God; or that the former should be less liable to the revelation of the wrath of God from heaven for holding supernatural truth in unrighteousness, than the other, for doing so injurious violence to that which is merely natural. Unto what severities, then, of the Divine wrath and justice, even of the highest kind, do multitudes lie open in our days.

For besides those (much fewer) mental, or notional, infidels, that believe not the principles of the Christian religion, against the clearest evidence, how vastly greater is the number of them that are so in heart and practice, against their professed belief! that live in utter estrangement from God, as without him in the world, or in open enmity against him, and contrariety to the known rule of the religion they profess! How many that understand nothing of its principal and plainest doctrines! as if nothing were requisite to distinguish the Christian from

the pagan world, more than an empty name; or as if the Redeemer of sinners had died upon the cross, that men might more securely remain alienated from the life of God, not to reconcile and reduce them to him! or that they might with safety indulge appetite, mind earthly things, make the world their god, gratify the flesh, and make provision to fulfil the lusts of it, defy heaven, affront their Maker, live in malice, envy, hatred to one another! not to bless them, by turning them from these impieties and iniquities! As if it were so obscurely hinted, as that it could not be taken notice of, that the grace of God, which bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared, teaching them to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, so looking for the blessed hope. And that Christ gave himself for us, to redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify us to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works! How many, again, are Christians, they know not why! upon the same terms that others are Mahometans, because it is the religion of their country, by fate or by accident, not by their own choice and judgment! The same inconsideration makes them be Christians, that makes others be none.

And now, shall our Redeemer be left to weep alone over these perishing souls? have we no tears to spend upon this doleful subject? Oh that our heads were waters, and our eyes fountains! Is it nothing to us, that multitudes are sinking, going down into perdition, under the name of Christian, under the seal of baptism, from under the means of life and salvation! perishing! and can we do nothing to prevent it? We know they must perish that do not repent and turn to God, and love him above all, even with all their hearts and souls, and mind and might; that do not believe in his Son and pay him homage, as their rightful Lord, sincerely subjecting themselves to his laws and government. But this they will not understand, or not consider. Our endeavours to bring them to it, are ineffectual, 'tis but faint breath we utter. Our words drop and die between us and them! We speak to them in the name of the eternal God that made them, of the great Jesus who bought them with his blood, and they regard it not. The 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 that it may be, some way or other, useful for good!

JOHN HOWE.

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 Jerusa lem 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 palmtrees 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, Judges v. 10.) 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, John xii. 16. For great regard was had in this, as in