also, he could no longer refrain, but had his own cheeks also suffused with tears b. To this principle the spectators ascribed his tears: they all exclaimed, " Behold, how he loved himc!"]
2. From compassion for their remaining infir- mities—
[After all that they had seen and known of him, they should have assigned no limits either to his power or grace. Yet behold, though they did believe that he could have pre- served their brother from death, they had no conception that he was able to restore him from the grave. Though he had intimated to them his intention to do so, they could not be- lieve him : and when he actually prepared to do so, they imagined that the period which had elapsed since his death, and which, according to the common course of things, would have caused the body to decay, was an insurmountable obstacle to his purpose d. Well might this give pain to his holy soul. And that it did so, we see from the reproof which he administered : " Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God ? " With his own Disciples, also, he was frequently grieved on the same account e.]
3. From grief for the obduracy of those, who, he knew, would be yet further hardened by this miracle —
[This, I doubt not, entered deeply into his feelings at this time. It was for their conviction that he had refrained from healing Lazarus at first, and had afterwards delayed coming to his friends till he had been four days deadf. It was for the very same end that, instead of exerting his own Almighty power in the way that he usually did, he prayed to his hea- venly Father to effect the miracle ; shewing thereby the Father's union with him in all that he did, and thus placing beyond all reasonable doubt the truth of his own Messiah- ship8. But " he knew what was in man :" he knew that this stupendous miracle would only enrage some of them the more, in proportion as it carried conviction to the minds of others ; and that, instead of converting their souls, it would only pre- cipitate them into more heinous guilt and wickedness. All this it eventually didh: and all this he foresaw. We wonder not, then, that he wept; seeing that the very means he was using for the salvation of men, would issue, with respect to many of them, in their more aggravated condemnation. Nor were these things of rare occurrence. They prevailed amongst
b ver. 33. , c ver. 36. d ver. 39.
e Matt. viii. 26. Mark xvi. 14. f ver. 6, 15.
g ver. 41 — 13. h ver. 46—50, 53, 57. with xii. 10, 11.