h him for the benefit of his miracles and instructions,] and scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest." On another occasion also, when he saw much people he had compassion on them, and "began to teach them many things." He miraculously fed them in the desert from the same principle; and prompted by this amiable vir tue healed a leper, restored' the sight of two blind men near Jericho, and when a dead man was carried out of Nain, the only son of his mother and she a widow, generously overcome by her distress, he said to her, Weep not, and raised her son to life. k So justly may our Lord be " described in the language of the prophet Isaiah, as binding up the broken hearted, as feeding his flock like a shepherd, as gathering up the lambs in his arm, as carrying them in his bosom, and gently leading those that were with young. It must be further observed that our compassionate Lord was no stranger to the most sensible emotions of the human heart, and to the strongest outward expression of them. It is thrice recorded of him that he wept. Once indeed his own sufferings were the cause," when he offered up prayers and supplications, with a strong cry and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard" from the filial reverence with which he prayed, an P angel being sent from heaven to comfort him. Another occasion of his tears was his prophetic foresight of the destruction which impended over Jerusalem, and of the complicated and unexampled calamities which would attend it. "When he approached, he beheld the city and wept over it, saying: If even thou [who hast killed so many prophets] hadst known, at least [after so many calls to repentance] in this thy day [of merciful and final trial,] the things which belong unto thy peace. But now they are hidden from thine eyes." r It is also recorded of Jesus that he wept, in St. John's simple and beautiful account of his raising Lazarus from the dead. Some think it was not unworthy of our Lord to weep from a sympathy observable in the best minds, because he "saw Mary weeping and the Jews also weeping who came with her." Generous dispositions are overcome by the distress of others; and particularly by the anguish of friends. Others suppose that reflections on the P Luke xxii. 43. 9 ib. xix. 41, 2. Kypke and others say, that should here be translated utinam and Archbishop Secker says that we should rather render the passage, O that thou hadst known. Nine Sermons : 1758. p. 199. But I find that gag is used for site, and not si alone. I therefore prefer the aposiopesis, as a natural expression of grief. Est interrupta locutio dolore turbati. Servius En. ix. 427. Nimius affectus defectus orationis amat. Donatus. Ter. Eun. v. ix. 20. So in Homer's hymn to Apollo, after Αλλ' ει μοι τλαίης γε, Θεὰ, μέγαν όρκον ομόσσαι, κ. λ. Ernestus says that we should supply, tum ego utique te libenter acceperim. 1. 79, &c. John xi. 35. $. 33. malignant effects of sin, which introduced misery and death, might draw from him this expression of his grief for the calamities of human life. It has likewise been suggested that Christ might lament the inefficacy of his heavenly lessons in comforting his disciples under the temporary loss of those who were most dear to them. But the principal cause of his tears seems to have been, his experience of unbelief in the Jews and in his disciples. On other occasions he was grieved at hardness of heart; he sighed deeply in spirit when the Pharisees sought of him a sign from heaven, tempting him; and he expressed himself pathetically at want of rational faith in that power which he so wonderfully "displayed: "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you ?" alluding to the original want of faith which he immediately perceived in the father of the demoniac, and which the man soon expressed when he said, "But if thou canst do any thing, help us :" and also referring to the want of confidence in God's assistance betrayed by his disciples, who, not having attained that entire belief in God which was the result of prayer and fasting, were unable to cast out the demon. Thus in the passage before us, Jesus seems to have groaned in spirit, to have been troubled, and to have wept, chiefly because his former power, repeatedly evidenced in raising the dead, had so little effect on the Jews, on the sisters of Lazarus, and on his apostles. Mark iii. 5. viii. 12. ib. ix. 19, &c. and p. p. This is intimated to us by the evangelist. Some of the Jews said, "Could not he, who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that this man also should not have died? On which St. John observes, "Jesus "therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the grave." SECTION IV. OF OUR LORD'S JUSTICE. b с WHEN St. Peter calls our Lord the a Just One, and when that title is elsewhere attributed to him, it is meant that he was universally righteous and good. It is no where said of him that he was just in the usual sense of the word justice, as it consists in rendering to all men their due. Indeed justice, as defined by moral writers, is a virtue in our intercourse with others which is the lowest part of a great character. Our Lord was more than just ; w John xi. 37, 8. See also v. 16. v. 32. Matt. xxvii. 19, 24. Luke xxiii. 47. 1 Pet. iii. 18. 1 John ii. 1. Acts xxii. 14. See Matt. iii. 15. a Acts iii. 14. James v. 6. i. 19. ix. 13. xxv. 46. Luke xxiii. 50. and Rom v. 7. where the latter part of the verse is a correction of the former: "Yet I will allow that for a good or righteous man [the words fixas and dyads being equivalent] some will even dare to die." See also Eurip. Iph. in Aul. I. 1033. Εἰ δ ̓ εἰσὶ Θεοὶ, δίκαιος ὢν ἀνὴς συ γε, Εσθλών κυρήσεις. If there be Gods, you, as an upright man, Will gain a happy lot. d Rom. xiii. 7. he rendered to men more than their due, and overflowed to them in an unbounded degree of love. Nor has he delivered direct and special precepts on this subject: though he commended just servants and stewards; though judgment, which may well import a public and private dispensing of justice, is ranked by him with that primary duty the love of God; and the same & virtue and fidelity in our words and actions, are elsewhere mentioned by him among the weightier matters of the law and though he condemned the opposite vice, when he described an unjust judge who feared not God nor regarded man, when he taught that moral pollution was contracted by i theft and deceit, and when he denounced a wo on the Scribes and Pharisees for cleansing the outside of the cup and dish when within they were ful from rapine and injustice. h In the parable of the steward who was accused to the rich man his master as wasting his substance, our Lord selected a single circumstance from his conduct, which he proposed to the imitation of his disciples in prosecuting their great end, the attainment of an eternal reward. In the course of the narration the steward is expressly called "unjust; and his injustice was branded by his dismission. What his master praised was his wisdom and foresight, his subtle and ingenious management, in securing to himself friends. He punished his dishonesty, XXV. 21. Luke xii. 42. xix. 17. f Luke xi. 42. xii. 46. xvi. 10. Matt. xxiv. 45. Matt. xxiii 23. 'Mark vii. 22. See also John x. 1, 10. Matt. xix. 18. * Matt. xxiii. 25. The true reading is ἀδικίας, not ἀκρασίας. 1 Thess. v. 5. ! Luke xvi. mc. 8. |