Christ's address to the women who lamented him.
Luke xxiii. 27 — 31. And there followed him a great company of 'people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jeru- salem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the toombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us ; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry ?
ON a cursory view of the subject, it might be thought, that the enemies of Jesus, after having se- cured their chief object, began to relent; since, instead of obliging him in his debilitated state to bear his cross to the place of execution, (as was customary on such occasions,) they compelled another person to carry it for him. This however was only an addi- tional instance of their malignity. They saw that, in consequence of his watching, and fasting, and diver- sified sufferings, he was ready to faint ; and they began to fear, that he would die before he should reach the place ; and consequently that they would be deprived of the satisfaction of making him a public spectacle upon the cross. Hence they spared him this fatigue, that he might be the more capable of suffering all the other miseries which they were about to inflict upon him. Far different was the disposition of Jesus towards them. This short interval he im- proved for the good of those who were around him. He saw many, and especially some women, making bitter lamentation on his account : and these he ex- horted not to weep on his account, but on account of themselves and their children ; since the evils reserved for them were both in extent and duration far more terrible than those which he now experienced.
In discoursing upon his words to them, we shall, I. Explain his counsel —