2. Let us consider Christ's reply to them ; " weep not for me, " ye daughters of Jerusalem," fyc. Strange, that Christ should forbid them to weep for him, yea for him under such unparalleled sufferings and miseries. If ever there was a heart-melting object in the world, it was here. 0 who could hold, whose heart was not petrified, and more obdurate than the senseless rocks ? This reply of Christ undergoes a double sense and interpretation, suit- able to the different construction of their sorrows. Those that look upon their sorrows as merely natural, take Christ's reply in a ne- gative sense, prohibiting such tears as those. They that expound their sorrows as the fruit of faith, tell us, though the form of Christ's expression be negative, yet the sense is comparative, as Mat. ix. 13. "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice," i. e. mercy rather than sacrifice. So here, weep rather upon your your own ac- count, than mine ; reserve your sorrows for the calamities coming upon yourselves and your children. You are greatly affected, 1 see, with the misery that is upon me ; but mine will be quickly
* Dr. Thomas Goodwin, in his Triumph of Faith, p. 38.
f Videmus guosdnm non Juisse oblitns doctrince et miraculorum Christi. Sic in misera ilia dissipatione exiguas sibi rcliquias servavit Dexis. Quamvis autem imbecillajv.it istarum mulierum Jides, creiiibile tamen est, occultum Juisse pieUUu semen, unde po ilea terme* vrodiit, Calvin,
310 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE; SEItM. XXV.
over, yours Will lie long. In which he shews his merciful and compassionate disposition, who was still more mindful of the troubles and burdens of others than of his own.
And indeed, the days of calamity coming upon them and their children were doleful days. What direful and unprecedented miseries befel them at the breaking up and devastation of the city* who hath not read or heard ? And who can refrain from tears that hears or reads it ?
Now, if we take the words in the first sense, as a prohibition of then* merely natural and carnal affections, expressed in tears and lamentations for him, no otherwise than they would have been Upon any other like tragical story ; then the observation from it will be this,
Doct. 1. That melting affections and sorrows, even finm the sense and consideration of the sufferings of Christ, are no infallible signs of grace.
If you take it in the latter sensej as the fruit of their faith, as tears flowing from a gracious principle ; then the observation will be this,
Doct. 2. That the believing meditation of what Christ suffered for us, is of great force and efficacy to melt and break the heart.
I shall rather chuse to prosecute both these branches, than to decide the controversy ; especially since the notes gathered from either may be useful to us. And therefore I shall begin with the first, viz.
Doct. 1. That melting affections and sorrows, even from the senst of Christ's sufferings, are no infallible marks qf grace.
In this point I have two things to do, to prepare it for use.
First, To shew, what the melting of the affections by way of grief and sorrow is.
Secondly b That they may be so melted, even upon the account of Christ, and yet the heart remain unrenewed.
First, What the melting of the affections, by way of grief and sorrow, is.
Tears are nothing else but the juice of a mind oppressed, and squeezed with grief. Grief compresses the heart ; the heart so com- pressed and squeezed, vents itself sometimes into tears, sighs, groans, 4"C. and this is two-fold : gracious, and wholly supernatural ; or Common, and altogether natural. The gracious melting or sorrow
»E*M. XXV. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 311
of the soul, is likewise two-fold ; habitual or actual. Habitual bodily sorrow is that gracious disposition, inclination, or tendency of the renewed heart to mourn and melt, when any just occasion js presented to the soul that calls for such sorrow. It is expressed, Ezek. xxxvi. 26. " By taking away the heart of stone, and giving f6 a heart of flesh ;" i. e. a heart impressive, and yielding to such arguments and considerations as move it to mourning.
Actual sorrow is the expression and manifestation of that its in- clination upon just occasions ; and it is expressed two ways, either by the internal effects of it, which are the heaviness, shame, loathing, resolution, and holy revenge begotten in the soul upon the account of sin : or also by more external and visible effects, as sighs, groans, tears, fyc. the former is essential to godly sorrow, the latter contingent and accidental, much depending upon the natural temperature and constitution of the body.
Natural and common meltings are nothing else but the effects of # better temper, and the fruit of a more ingenuous spirit, and easier constitution, which shews itself on any other, as well as upon spiritual occasions : as Austin said, he could weep plentifully when lie read the story of Dido. The history of Christ is a very tragical and pathetical history, and may melt an ingenuous nature, where there is no renewed principles at all. So that,
Secondly r, Our affections may be melted, even upon the score and account of Christ ; and yet that is no infallible evidence of a gracious heart. And the reasons for it are,
1. Because we find all sorts of affections discovered by such as have been no better than temporary believers. The stony-ground hearers in Mat. xiii. 20. " received the word with joy ;" and so did Johns hearers also, who for " a season rejoiced in his light," John iii. 85. Now, if the affections of joy under the word may be exercised, why not of sorrow also ? If the comfortable things revealed in the gospel may stir up the one, by a parity of reason, the sad things it reveals may answerably work upon the other. Even those Israelites whom Moses told they should fall by the sword, and not prosper, for the Lord would not be with them, because they were turned away from him ; yet when Moses re- hearsed the message of the Lord in their ears, they mourned great- ly, Numb. xiv. 39. I know the Lord pardoned many of them their iniquities, though he took vengeance on their inventions; and yet it is as true, that with many of them God was not well- pleased, 1 Cor. x. 5. Many instances of their weeping and mourn- ing before the Lord we find in this sacred history ; and yet their hearts were not stedfast with God.
2. Because though the object about which our affections and passions are moved, may be spiritual ; yet the motives and prin-
313 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SERM. XXV,