my misfortunes, with the reflection that thou, the Man of Sorrows, didst not walk upon roses, but didst rise from the cross to the crown;" and at this idea, his eyes overflow. O culpable delusion, as if he suffered guiltlessly, like Jesus, and as if God were obliged to show mercy to him because of his sufferings!

A third, who has thousands like him, ascribes to himself the tears of sympathy, which the sufferings of Christ draw from him, as a species of righteousness, and exalts them as testimonials of his goodness of heart, thus making them a ground of consolation and hope. O lamentable mistake! "Weep not for me," says our Lord. Do you hear it? He forbids the lamenting and condoling with him. He is not some unfortunate person of a common kind. He does not succumb to any superior power, either human, or the force of oppressive circumstances. If he pleased, he could in a moment stand before us in a crown, instead of with a cross. He freely gave himself up to his sufferings, in order to accomplish that which his Father had given him to do; and the idea of "a tragical end," in its usual acceptation, is by no means applicable to the passion of our Lord. The tears of sentimentality and pity are nowhere so much out of place as on Calvary. While resigning ourselves to such emotions, we mistake the Lord Jesus-nay, even degrade him, and as regards ourselves, miss the way of salvation marked out for us by God. Hence the Saviour exclaims, once for all, "Weep not for me!" thus placing himself entirely out of the ranks of the wretched and unfortunate of this world.

"Do tears, therefore, not belong to our devotions on this solemn occasion?" Doubtless they do; but their object must be a different one to the person of the Lord. Hear him say himself, "Weep not for me, but for yourselves and your children!" "Ourselves!" you exclaim. Yes, my readers. In the immolation of Christ, the measure of the world's iniquities was full. It was sinful from Paradise downward. That this was the case, was strikingly evident in the days of Noah, Nimrod, the judges and kings of Israel. But "The transgression of the Amorites was not yet full." That even the last pretense for excuse and leniency might disappear, and the hatred of holiness,

the base ingratitude and abominable self-seeking of the children of Adam might be manifested still more evidently, opportunity was afforded the human race to exhibit its real and inmost nature, when holiness in person was placed in contrast with it, and the Lord God poured upon it the fullness of his compassion. Both these took place in the mission of Christ, the only-begotten Son, the good Shepherd. And how did the world act? It loved darkness rather than light; was filled with animosity against him who came to redeem it from sin; and rejected him who hurt its pride by the call to regeneration and conversion. It nailed to the cross the herald and bearer of the grace of God.

"The world?" you ask. Yes, the world. Only look a little more closely, and you will find yourself amid the crowd which yonder conducts the Lord of Glory to the slaughter. In one or other of those individuals, you will see your own likeness. If not in Judas, yet in Annas; if not in Annas, in the hypocritical Caiaphas, or in the worldly-minded Pilate, or else in one of the unprincipled senators, or some other individual, you will somewhere meet with the mirror which reflects your own moral form. Look around, and say if the scenes on Gabbatha and Calvary are not incessantly renewed? If, even at present, a certain degree of courage is not required openly to confess the name of Jesus? If those who love Christ are not still reviled as pietists and hypocrites; and if those who wish to recommend the Prince of Peace to others, are not every where angrily repulsed? Nay, feel in your own bosom, and say if by nature you would gladly have to do with Jesus? What feelings are excited in you, when he places you among publicans and malefactors, or calls upon you to offer up to him your mammon, or some other idol? Or when he meets you, with a reproving gesture, on the path of sensual enjoyment, and requires that you should live to God and not to the world, and walk in God's ways and not in your own; what are you then wont to feel? any thing else than disinclination, repugnance, displeasure, and vexation? Do you not hear of any thing rather than of him; and does it ever occur to you to melt in gratitude at the Saviour's feet, when you hear it announced that "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever

believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life?" O my friends, to this hour Christ appears to stand among us, only that by his presence our corruption and depravity may be the more conspicuous! How is it, then, that you do not understand the words, "Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves?" Truly, all appropriate devotion, at this sacred season, begins with lamenting over ourselves, and judging, condemning, and acknowledging ourselves worthy of eternal death.

The daughters of Jerusalem hear terrible things said to them, but not that they may sink into hopeless despair. On the contrary, it is here the love that seeketh that which is lost, which speaks to them, and would gladly lead them, at the proper time, to repentance. "Weep for yourselves and your children." This is an unmistakable allusion to the dreadful malediction which the infatuated crowd at Gabbatha called down upon themselves, and with it, the indication of that sin, which was principally to be lamented as Israel's chief crime, and consequently as the chief source of all their subsequent misery.

The Lord Jesus says, in continuation, “For behold the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck." What an announcement! That which was previously mourned over in Israel as a great misfortune, and an equally great disgrace-the being barren and childless-will then be commended as an enviable privilege.

"Then," continues our Lord, obviously referring, both here and previously, to passages in the prophecies of Isaiah and Hosea, for he lived in his Father's word, as in the proper element of his holy soul-" Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us." The Saviour's sphere of vision evidently extends itself here beyond the terrible days of the destruction of Jerusalem. His words manifestly generalize themselves, and point to the judgment of the last day. Those who will then be found rejecting, through obstinate unbelief and persevering impenitence, their truest friend and only Saviour, will find themselves in a position in which they will prefer annihilation to a continuance of existence. They will call upon the hills to crush them and bury

them forever beneath their mass of ruins. But the mountains stand and fall at God's command, and he, who will then be their enemy, has decreed for them another fate than that of annihilation. They will then implore the rocks to hide them from the face of the angry Judge; but no outlet of escape will be found on the whole earth or under it, which will remove them from the searching look of him, "whose eyes are as a flame of fire." What a horrible prospect! And only consider, that he who thus lifts the vail, is not some wild zealot, to whose threats no great importance need be attached; but it is he who is at the same time the truth and loving-kindness itself. How does this strengthen the emphasis of that address, by which we are called to repentance in a more powerful and impressive manner, than was ever before heard upon earth.

Our Lord concludes his speech to the daughters of Jerusalem with the words, "For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" We can not misunderstand these words. In them the great cross-bearer represents himself as a mirror of the wrath of God. Since he is the Just One and the Life, he calls himself "the Green Tree." Glory and happiness became him individually, and not suffering; yet he endured unparalleled disgrace and torture. But that which he experiences, must be of the same nature and description with that which is threatened, and which awaits the ungodly. Had it been otherwise, the inference which the Lord bids us draw from his sufferings, with regard to the future fate of the impenitent sinner, would not be true, and the comparison he makes inappropriate. If they were only merciful sufferings which befell the Saviour, how could they serve as a criterion for the future lot of those with whom divine grace had nothing more to do? But Christ's sufferings were vicariously endured punishments; and his words have now a meaning, which is this: "I, the Green Tree, bear imputatively only the sins of others; and the thrice holy God is not angry with me personally. how horrible is the cup which is given me to drink! Judge from this what will eventually be the fate of those, who, as dry wood and unfruitful trees, will have to suffer for their own niquities, and at whose judicial visitation, the wrath of a holy

Yet

God will by no means conflict with his love and tenderness." Therefore let us not overlook the danger in which we are, so long as we are found carnally-minded, estranged from God, and unthankful despisers of the delivering grace of him, whom the Almighty tore from his paternal bosom, in order that by him he might deliver us unworthy creatures from destruction, and bring us back to himself. Let us be conscious of our enormous guilt, and no longer delay, with the holy grief of a publican or a Magdalen, sincerely and heartily to weep over ourselves.

It is thus, I repeat it, that our devotions should begin, when commencing the solemnities of the passion-week. But should they begin with it only, and not end in the same manner? Look at the Saviour. Why does he travel the path of suffering? Because he intends to pay our debt, and blot out our iniquities. Let us follow him in spirit; for how much are we interested in this his passage to Calvary! He goes to nail the handwriting that was against us to his cross. The Green Tree gives itself

up to the flames, which ought to consume the dry. The path he treads is a sacrificial one, a path of satisfaction and mediation. Had he not trodden it, we should have been the heirs of eternal death, or else the throne of God must have sunk into ruin, and the justice of God would have degenerated into injustice. But he did pass through it, and now deliverance is secured, however heinous our guilt. Let us approach his cross in spite of Satan and the world, open before him the tear-bedewed pages of our book of transgressions, implore mercy upon our knees, lay hold of the great absolution in the blood of the Lamb, and resign ourselves entirely and unconditionally to the thorn-crowned King, that, along with the bands of the curse, he may also loose us from those of the world and the flesh. After this has been done, we may say with propriety, that we have celebrated the passion of our Lord.

May he grant us all such a celebration! We implore it the more fervently now that we are about to enter the Most Holy Place of the history of our great High Priest's sufferings. Let us prepare ourselves for this solemn approach by calling to mind the infinite blessings which Christ has purchased for his people by his death on the cross, and by loving him, who thus loved us, and gave himself for us!