Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger? Sermons
I. THE CONSCIOUSNESS SORROW, DESOLATION, AND SHAME. How extreme is the distress and humiliation here depicted is apparent from the fact that this language has been attributed to our Divine Saviour when hanging upon the cross of Calvary. If a city never endured sorrow like that of Jerusalem, certainly no human being ever experienced agonies so piercing as those which the Captain of our salvation willingly bore for our sake when he gave his life a ransom for many. "All ye that pass by, To the Saviour draw nigh; To you is it nothing that Jesus should die? For sins not his own He died to atone; Was pain or was sorrow like his ever known?" II. THE ADMISSION THAT AFFLICTION IS OF DIVINE APPOINTMENT, THAT IT IS CHASTISEMENT. When Jerusalem came to herself she could not fail to recognize a Divine hand in the miseries which befell her. The scourge was the army of the Chaldeans, but the hand was the righteous and retributive hand of the Eternal. It is too common for those who are in trouble to murmur against Providence, to exclaim against the injustice of providential appointments. Yet true wisdom points out that the path of submission and resignation is the right path. When once the mind is brought to acknowledge, "It is the Lord!" there is a prospect of spiritual improvement. III. THE CRY FOR SYMPATHY. By a striking figure of speech, Jerusalem is presented as calling upon surrounding nations for interest and compassion. "Is it nothing to you? ... Behold, and see!" Human sympathy is welcome in seasons of sorrow, Yet true help and deliverance must be from God, and from God alone, It is better to call upon the Lord than to call upon man; for he is both ready to sympathize and mighty to save. - T. 2. The appeal to all who pass by is most familiar to us in its later association with our Lord's sufferings on the Cross. But this is not in any sense a Messianic passage; it is confined in its purpose to the miseries of Jerusalem. Of course there can be no objection to illustrating the grief and pain of the Man of Sorrows by using the classic language of an ancient lament if we note that this is only an illustration. 3. In order to impress the magnitude of her miseries on the minds of the strangers whose attention she would arrest, the city, now personified as a sup. pliant, describes her dreadful condition in a series of brief, pointed metaphors. Thus the imagination is excited; and the imagination is one of the roads to the heart. Let us look at the various images under which the distress of Jerusalem is here presented.(1) It is like a fire in the bones (ver. 13). It burns, consumes, pains with intolerable torment; it is no skin-deep trouble, it penetrates to the very marrow.(2) It is like a net (ver. 13). We see a wild creature caught in the bush, or perhaps a fugitive arrested in his flight and flung down by hidden snares at his feet. Here is the shock of surprise, the humiliation of deceit, the vexation of being thwarted. The result is a baffled, bewildered, helpless condition.(3) It is like faintness. The desolate sufferer is ill. It is bad enough to have to bear calamities in the strength of health. Jerusalem is made sick and kept faint "all the day" — with a faintness that is not a momentary collapse, but a continuous condition of failure.(4) It is like a yoke (ver. 14) which is wreathed upon the neck — fixed on, as with twisted withes. The poet is here more definite. The yoke is made out of the transgressions of Jerusalem. As there is nothing so invigorating as the assurance that one is suffering for a righteous cause, so there is nothing so wretchedly depressing as the consciousness of guilt.(5) It is like a winepress (ver. 15). Wine is to be made, but the grapes crushed to produce it are the people who were accustomed to feast and drink of the fruits of God's bounty in the happy days of their prosperity. So the mighty men are set at nought, their prowess counting as nothing against the brutal rush of the enemy; and the young men are crushed, their spirit and vigour failing them in the great destruction. 4. The most terrible trait in these pictures, one that is common to all of them, is the Divine origin of the troubles. Yet there is no complaint of barbarity, no idea that the Judge of all the earth is not doing right. The miserable city does not bring any railing accusation against her Lord; she takes all the blame upon herself. The grief is all the greater because there is no thought of rebellion. The daring doubts that struggle into expression in Job never obtrude themselves here to check the even flow of tears. The melancholy is profound, but comparatively calm, since it does not once give place to anger. It is natural that the succession of images of misery conceived in this spirit should be followed by a burst of tears. Zion weeps because the comforter who should refresh her soul is far away, and she is left utterly desolate (ver. 16). 5. Here the supposed utterance of Jerusalem is broken for the poet to insert a description of the suppliant making her piteous appeal (ver. 17). He shows us Zion spreading out her hands, that is to say, in the well-known attitude of prayer. She is comfortless, oppressed by her neighbours in accordance with the will of her God, and treated as an unclean thing; she who had despised the idolatrous Gentiles in her pride of superior sanctity has now become foul and despicable in their eyes! 6. After the poet's brief interjection describing the suppliant, the personified city continues her plaintive appeal, but with a considerable enlargement of its scope. She makes the most distinct acknowledgment of the two vital elements of the case — God's righteousness and her own rebellion (ver. 18). These carry us beneath the visible scenes of trouble so graphically illustrated earlier, and fix our attention on deep seated principles. Although it cannot be said that all trouble is the direct punishment of sin, and although it is manifestly insincere to make confession of guilt one does not inwardly admit, to be firmly settled in the conviction that God is right in what He does even when it all looks most wrong, that if there is a fault it must be on man's side, is to have reached the centre of truth. 7. Enlarging the area of her appeal, no longer content to snatch at the casual pity of individual travellers on the road, Jerusalem now calls upon all the "peoples" — i.e., all neighbouring tribes — to hear the tale of her woes (ver. 18). The appeal to the nations contains three particulars. It deplores the captivity of the virgins and young men; the treachery of allies — "lovers" who have been called upon for assistance, but in vain; and the awful fact that men of such consequence as the elders and priests, the very aristocracy of Jerusalem, had died of starvation after an ineffectual search for food — a lurid picture of the horrors of the siege (vers. 18, 19). 8. In drawing to a close the appeal goes further, and, rising altogether above man, seeks the attention of God (vers. 20-22). This is an utterance of faith where faith is tried to the uttermost. It is distinctly recognised that the calamities bewailed have been sent by God; and yet the stricken city turns to God for consolation. Not only is there no complaint against the justice of His acts; in spite of them all, He is still regarded as the greatest Friend and Helper of the victims of His wrath. This apparently paradoxical position issues in what might otherwise be a contradiction of thought. The ruin of Jerusalem is attributed to the righteous judgment of God, against which no shadow of complaint is raised; and yet God is asked to pour vengeance on the heads of the human agents of His wrath! The vengeance here sought for cannot be brought into line with Christian principles; but the poet had never heard the Sermon on the Mount. It would not have occurred to him that the spirit of revenge was not right, any more than it occurred to the writers of maledictory Psalms. There is one more point in this final appeal to God which should be noticed, because it is very characteristic of the elegy throughout. Zion bewails her friendless condition, declaring, "there is none to comfort me." This is the fifth reference to the absence of a comforter (see Lamentations 1:2,9,16,17,21). The idea may be merely introduced in order to accentuate the description of utter desolation. And yet when we compare the several allusions to it, the conclusion seems to be forced upon us that the poet has a more specific intention. Our thoughts instinctively turn to the Paraclete of St. John's Gospel. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.) II. A SOLEMN QUESTION. The Lord Jesus Christ may be represented here as bidding men see if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow, which is done unto Him. 1. Truly the sufferings of Jesus were altogether unique; they stand alone. History or poetry can find no parallel. King of kings and Lord of lords was He, and the government was upon His shoulders, and His name was called Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. All the hallelujahs of eternity rolled up at HIS august feet. But He was despised and rejected of men, a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Never one so falsely accused. Oh! was ever grief like His! exonerated yet condemned! adjudged to be without fault, yet delivered up to His direst foes! treated as a felon, put to death as a traitor; immolated on a gibbet which bore triple testimony to His innocence by its inscription. With none to pity, no one to administer comfort, forsaken utterly, our Saviour died, with accessories of sorrow that were to be found in no other decease than that which was accomplished at Jerusalem. Still, the singularity of His death lies in another respect. 2. There was never sorrow like unto the sorrow which was done unto Christ, because all His sorrow was borne for others. His Godhead gave Him an infinite capacity, and infused a boundless degree of compensation into all the pangs He bore. You have no more idea of what Christ suffered in His soul than you have, when you take up in a shell a drop of sea-water, power to guess from that the area of the entire boundless, bottomless ocean. What Christ suffered is utterly inconceivable. Was ever grief like Thine? Needless question; needless question; all but shameful question; for were all griefs that ever were felt condensed into one, they were no more worthy to be compared therewith than the glowworm's tiny lamp with the ever-blazing sun. If Christ be thus alone in suffering, what then? 3. Why, let Him stand alone in our love. High, high, set up Christ high in your heart. Love Him; you cannot match His love to you; seek at least to let your little stream run side by side of the mighty river. If Christ be thus alone in suffering, let us seek to make Him, if we can, alone in our service. I wish we had more Marys who would break the alabaster box of precious ointment upon His dear head. Oh! for a little extravagance of love, a little fanaticism of affection for Him, for He deserves ten thousand times more than the most enthusiastic devotees ever dream of rendering. 4. If He be thus so far beyond all others in His sorrow, let Him also be first and foremost in our praise. If ye have poetic minds, weave no garlands except for His dear brow. If ye be men of eloquence, speak no glowing periods except to His honour. If ye be men of wit and scholarship, oh seek to lay your classic attainments at the foot of His Cross! Come hither with all your talents, and yield them to Him who bought you with His blood. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) (Newman Hall, D. D.) There is a most striking and close parallel between the sufferings of Jerusalem here impersonated as crying, "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?" and those endured by our Saviour, Jesus Christ.1. The city that was in ruins, was, of all earth's cities, the one most intimately associated with God. The suffering Saviour was "the only begotten Son of God"; He alone, of all living beings, could say, "I and the Father are one." 2. The misery of Jerusalem consisted largely in the wrongs and insults of foes. "Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?" And as His enemies passed by the suffering Saviour on Calvary, they wagged their heads, and said, "He saved others, etc. 3. The misfortunes of Jerusalem were greatly aggravated, because her friends dealt treacherously with her, and became her enemies. The suffering Saviour was betrayed by one disciple, denied by another, and at last "they all forsook Him and fled." 4. In her sorrows, Jerusalem cried unto God "who had left her, and delivered her into the hand of her enemies," The suffering Saviour too appealed to God in the profoundly awful cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" 5. Jerusalem was enduring the greatest misfortunes that history records of any city in any war. The suffering Saviour bore agony that no other being could endure. Every man has to "bear his own burden," but "the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all." I. THOSE WHO SORROW CLAIM OUR SPECIAL ATTENTION. 1. Because by sorrow sympathy is excited. Even those men who are most depraved are quickened to sympathise by any suffering that is placed before them in the peculiar phase they can understand. The best men will be quickened to sympathise with it in whatever form it appears. Christ was. No sort of sorrow was beneath His compassion, nor beyond the limits of HIS sympathy. 2. Because sorrow will generally teach us some lesson. The asking of "Why" this sorrow? How can it be destroyed? will often lead to the discovery of the profoundest and most necessary truths. Parents endure sorrow and suffering that their sons may learn lessons; neighbours, that their neighbours; nations, that surrounding nations may. But if the son will thoughtlessly "pass by" the sorrow of his parent; or the neighbour will "pass by" that of the neighbour; or the nation will "pass by" that of the nation — the son, the neighbour, the nation, must sorrow for themselves. II. OF ALL WHO EVER HAVE SORROWED, JESUS CHRIST PREEMINENTLY CLAIMS OUR ATTENTION. 1. He sorrowed more intensely than all others. He held Himself back from no grief, shrank from no abyss, refused no cross. Others have crowned themselves with royalty. He put the crown of sorrows upon HIS own brow. The solitariness of the Saviour's sufferings, moreover, gives Him preeminence in grief. Others have known the creeping shadows of loneliness; He its midnight. 2. As a sorrower, He taught infinitely more important lessons than all others.(1) The evil of sire If sin could cause that sorrow in a holy Being, what will it cause in us?(2) God's hatred of sin. He loved His Son, and yet He thus gave Him to bruising and to death for us.(3) God's love for man, and way of saving him. Comprehend God's mercy, by comprehending Christ's agony. (A. R. Thomas.) I. Let us, first, inquire into THE TRUE MEANING OF THESE WORDS; and, in order to that, examine the connection in which they stand. Jerusalem is here represented as speaking, in the character of a female person, and that of a widow, bitterly lamenting her desolate condition, and calling for compassion. Whether any sorrow was like unto her sorrow at this period, we cannot determine, nor is this material. It was, undoubtedly, very great; and it was not unnatural for them to suppose it peculiar and unexampled. This is a common ease, both with bodies of people and individuals. Persons, when exercised with heavy and complicated afflictions, are very apt to suppose no sufferings equal to their own, and no sorrow like theirs. It is also very common and very natural for persons under heavy afflictions to feel it as a high aggravation that they have none to sympathise with them under their troubles, or to show any disposition to afford them relief.1. This is a very grievous and pitiable condition for any to be in. 2. To exercise sympathy towards the afflicted is what may most reasonably be expected, and the neglect of it is highly culpable. II. HOW APPLICABLE THE DESCRIPTION IN THE TEXT IS TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. III. THERE ARE MANY WHO MAY BE SAID TO PASS BY WITH UNCONCERN, AS IF ALL THIS WAS NOTHING TO THEM AND THEY HAD NO CONCERN IN IT. 1. What think yon of the great number of those who are called by the name of Christ, who never set themselves seriously to contemplate His sufferings: who never, or but seldom, attend the preaching of Christ crucified; or who, though they may sometimes hear the doctrine of the Cross, never bestow a serious thought about the ends and designs of the Saviour's sufferings, or the concern which they themselves have in them? 2. And what shall we say of those persons, who even profess faith in Christ and love to His name, and attend the ordinary worship of His house with apparent decency, who yet neglect to fulfil His dying command to commemorate His sufferings and death in that peculiar ordinance, in which we have a visible representation of them, designed to perpetuate the memory of them in the world, and affect the heart with a sense of His love. (S. Palmer.) Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow The greatest natures are capable of the greatest sorrow. It is utterly inconceivable to man of how much sorrow a nature like that of Jesus is capable. What sorrow would be ours if, for a single day, we were endowed with a power of vision which enabled us to see underneath all the coverings of life, into the heart of things; if all persons were laid bare to us, and we saw the stern reality below the veneer and polish and dress and shows of things! Let us not forget that the sufferings of our Lord historically recorded, are but part of His sufferings. The apostle speaks of "filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ." There are sorrows for the Son of Man still, for He has identified Himself with us, and become one with us. Does not His Church cause Him sorrow? Is it not like raw material, so very hard to His hand as to be almost incapable of being moulded into any shape or form of beauty? Does He not sorrow over our ignorance? Our mental dulness? Our pride of knowledge which is often worse than ignorance? Our unloveliness of spirit and unlovableness? Our hard thoughts of others? Do not these things cause Him sorrow? Again, our want of patience in doing His work? Our expecting to reap on the very day we sow? Does not our Lord sorrow over our legalism — that old Jewish spirit of slavishness to mere forms and customs which are of human device — the letter which killeth; the rigidity which knows not how to bend or adapt itself to weakness and feebleness and infirmity? Must He not sorrow over our sectarianisms — our thinking more of mere sectional names than of the real unity which underlies all these? Yea, sometimes, must not our very prayers be a source of sorrow to Him? Yes, truly, our Lord may well say, as He looks into the hearts of the members of His professing Church, "Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow." When, in a court of justice, a man's own witnesses seem to damage his cause, the ease is indeed painful And yet, our Lord's deepest, profoundest, tenderest sorrow does not arise from any inconsistencies, or defects, or blunders, or ignorances, or wilfulnesses which He sees among those who believe in Him, trust Him and look to Him, many of whom do their feeble, blundering best, to serve Him. For, every man who names the name of Christ, and departs from iniquity, honours Christ. His chief sorrow is not over His Church, with all its multiplied inconsistencies, ignorances, and wilfulnesses, but over others; over you young man, to whom He has given a godly father and mother, who daily pray for you, though you hear it not, who love you with a love that, as far as a finite thing can represent an infinite thing, is like the love of God. Over you also, fathers and mothers, men and women bearing the holiest names that this world knows; into whose arms a gift has been placed than which this earth can furnish none so marvellous or wonderful — have you appreciated that gift at its true value? Have you realised that the flesh was only a platform for an immortal spirit to stand upon! Must there not be sorrow in the heart of Christ as He sees fathers and mothers treating children as though they were mere animal forms, or, at the most, mere children of this world, to be trained for this world, everything nurtured in them except that which is highest, that which is distinctive, that which makes them men? When our Lord looks from the height of His infinite knowledge upon the world of fathers and mothers, and sees how, by their example, they are bending their children's souls away from Him, how often must His feeling be like to that expressed in these words, "Is any sorrow like unto My sorrow?" Does not this line of reflection touch every one of us? What sorrow greater than that of being perpetually misunderstood? And who knows this sorrow as the Son of God knows it? Have we not misunderstood Him most egregiously? Have we not thought of Him as the condemner? Yet is He the Saviour. Have we not resisted the Holy Spirit's movements in our souls? Have we not almost forced ourselves into darkness? And all this has been so much of sorrow poured into the lot of the Son of Man. Yet still He broods over us, with a love that many waters cannot quench.(R. Thomas.) I. THE AFFLICTED ARE VERY APT TO IMAGINE THAT GOD AFFLICTS THEM TOO SEVERELY.1. There are many degrees and shades of difference in those evils which may be properly called afflictions. But those who suffer lighter troubles are very apt to let their imagination have its free scope, which can easily magnify light afflictions into great and heavy ones. So that mankind commonly afflict themselves more than God afflicts them. 2. There is another way, by which the afflicted are apt to magnify their afflictions. They compare their present afflictions, not only with their past prosperity, but with the afflictions of others; which leads them to imagine that their afflictions are not only great, but singular, and such as nobody else has suffered; at least, to such a great degree. II. THIS IS A GREAT AND UNHAPPY MISTAKE. 1. None that are afflicted ever know that God lays His hand heavier upon them than upon others. Mankind are extremely apt to judge erroneously, concerning the nature and weight of their own afflictions, and the nature and weight of the afflictions which others around them suffer. They have a high estimation of the good which they see others enjoy, but a low estimation of the evil they suffer. And, on the other hand, they cherish a low idea of their own prosperity, and a high idea of their own adversity. 2. The afflicted never have any reason to imagine that God afflicts them too severely, because He never afflicts them more than they know they deserve. Every person has sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every sin deserves punishment; and it belongs to God to inflict any punishment that sin deserves. 3. The afflicted have no reason to think that God afflicts them too severely, because He never afflicts them more than they need to be afflicted. God afflicts some to draw forth the corruption of their hearts, and make them sensible that they are under the entire dominion of a carnal mind, which is opposed to His character, His law, His government, and the Gospel of His grace, and of course exposed not only to His present, but His future and everlasting displeasure. This is suited to alarm their fears, and excite them to flee from the wrath to come. God afflicts others to try their hearts, and draw forth their right affections, and give them sensible evidence of their having the spirit of adoption, and belonging to the number of His family and friends, and thereby removing their past painful doubts and fears. And He afflicts others, to give them an opportunity to display the beauties of holiness, by patience, submission, and cordial obedience in the darkest and most trying seasons. 4. The afflicted have no reason to think that God afflicts them too severely, because He never afflicts them any more than His glory requires Him to afflict them.Improvement — 1. It is very unwise, as well as criminal, for the afflicted to brood over and aggravate the greatness of their affliction. 2. If the afflicted have no reason to think hard of God, or indulge the feeling that He corrects them too severely, then as long as they do indulge such a thought and feeling, they can receive no benefit from the afflictions they suffer. 3. If the afflicted have no reason to think that God afflicts them too severely, then they always have reason to submit to Him under His correcting hand. 4. It appears from what has been said, that men may derive more benefit from great than from light afflictions. They are suited to make deeper and better impressions on the mind. 5. It is as easy to submit to heavy as to light afflictions. As there are greater and stronger reasons to submit to heavy than to lighter evils, so these reasons render it mere easy to submit to heavy than light afflictions. 6. If men are apt to think that God afflicts them too severely, then their afflictions give them the best opportunity to know their own hearts. (N. Emmons, D. D.) 1. The godly in all their afflictions must look unto the Lord the striker, and not respect the rod wherewith He smiteth.2. Corrections laid upon others ought not to be neglected, but duly considered of, as the rest of God's works. (1) (2) 3. Man is not to be proud though God do many things by him and for him that seem both strange and commendable. 4. The wicked have no cause to rejoice when they prevail against the godly, though they do so usually. (1) (2) 5. The godly endure more trouble in this world, both inwardly and outwardly, than any other. (1) (2) (3) 6. It is a usual thing with us, to think our own troubles more heavy and intolerable than. any others suffer. (1) (2) 7. The afflictions that God layeth upon His servants are and ought to be grievous unto them for the present time (Hebrews 12:11). (1) (2) 8. Though our sins do always deserve it, and our foes do daily desire, yet can no punishment befall the godly till God see it meet to lay it upon them. 9. The anger of God is hot against sin, even in His dearest servants. (1) (2) 10. God doth not always afflict His servants, but at such special times as He seeth it meetest for them. (J. Udall.) 1. He endured bodily torture the most severe. 2. Jesus suffered still deeper sorrows of the soul. All that pierces our hearts with sorrow was heaped on Christ. What so grievous as the treachery of a friend? And Judas, His own familiar friend, betrayed Him. What so bitter as to be forsaken? Yet all His disciples forsook Him and fled. Mockery and scorn and reviling are more cruel than the pains of the body; and He suffered them all, though He had done no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Often man has much to soothe his dying moments; the eye of love watches by his pillow, and the hand of affection tries to lighten his pains. But this was denied to Jesus. When He died, malice and hatred were by, to pour fresh bitterness into His cup of death. 3. But will not God support Him? will not His Heavenly Father's presence and consolation supply the place of all others? No: Christ is in the sinner's stead; He is made sin for us, and His Father's countenance is turned away. II. HOW ARE WE TO THINK OF WHAT CHRIST HAS DONE AND SUFFERED? Why are we come together on this day, if it concerns us not? This day is our day of redemption. Hope, this day, has risen to a lost and sinful world. The things we hear and read of today are no vain story of years gone by: they are our very life. You who are passing by, as it were, in the carelessness and thoughtlessness of youth, young men and young women! you are called today to think of Jesus Christ. He speaks to you, and says, Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow, which I have borne for you. It is for your redemption. He will count all His sorrows as lightly borne, if you will let Him save your souls alive. Go to Him now in the first and best of your days. Give them to God, and not to sin; and so will He be with you in all your journey through this evil world, so shall you enjoy true peace of conscience. You who are passing by in manhood! to you also Jesus speaks. What are His sorrows to you? Do you find time and leisure to think of Him amidst the business, the labour, the burdens of life? Do you know anything of the power of His Cross? Has it led you to hate sin? Are you become new creatures in Christ Jesus? Do you pray for His Spirit to lead and sanctify you? You who are old, on the brink of the grave and of eternity! have you ever listened to the Saviour's call? Have you believed upon His name? How has your faith been shown? Has it appeared in a life devoted to His service, or have your years been spent in deadness to God? You who are living in the practice and love of any known sin, in profaneness, in the lusts of the flesh, in general carelessness about religion, trample not under your feet the precious blood as on this day shed. Oh, may you seek Him while He may be found, and call upon Him while He is near. Christian! is the death of Christ nothing to you? Nay; it is all in all. It is your hope, your life, the source of pardon and of peace. What is the voice that speaks to you from the Cross of Christ? It bids you die wholly unto sin, rise more truly unto righteousness. (E. Blencowe, M. A.) (Hartley Aspen.) (J. Trapp.) II. THE INTEREST THAT WE HAVE IN OUR SAVIOUR'S SUFFERINGS. 1. We were the occasion of them. 2. Their benefits redound unto us (Colossians 1:14; Hebrews 10:19, 20; Romans 3:15; Hebrews 10:20). III. THE REGARD AND CONSIDERATION WE SHOULD BESTOW ON THEM. Fix the eyes of your mind, and call up your most serious attention; reach hither the hand of your faith, and thrust it into your Saviour's side; put your fingers into the print of the nails; lay to heart all the passages of His lamentable story; and this cannot but melt your heart, unless it be harder than the rocks, and dealer than the bodies in the graves. (H. Scougal, M. A.) Epistle vi. To Narses, Patrician . "Come unto Me, all Ye that Labour, and are Wearied," &C. Meditations for one that is Like to Die. Concerning the Sacrament of Baptism Lamentations |
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