The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 2 — Section 151

weep. Ho wae most powerfully affected by the thought that Jerusalem might have been so much to God and man, and was-what she was. Jesus Christ was not so much angered as ho was saddened by the presence and the sight of sin. He might have withered it up in hie wrath, but he rather wept over it in his pity. This is the Christian spirit to be cherished and to be manifested by ourselves. We must contemn the contemptible; but we rise to higher ground when we pity the erring because they are in error, when we mourn over the fallen because they are down so low, when we grieve for those who are afar off because they are astray from God and blessedness. But we must not only weep for those who are in the wrong because they are in the wrong. We must do our utmost to set them right. "How often" did Christ seek to gather those sons and daughters of Jerusalem under the wings of his love I How often and how earnestly should we seek to rech•im and to restore !-C. Vers. 41, 42.-Juda!a and England. Did Jesus Christ grieve over Jerusalem as 11 patriot over his own country? Was there an element of patriotic sorrow in that touching and tearful lament? Did he love that land any the more because, as concerning the flesh, he was the Son of David, was born at Bethlehem, and regarded the Jews as his fellow-citizens? The idea is open to one objection. To be a patriot seems to put a man under limitation. To love our own country more than others is to love others less than our own. We shrink from associating with him anything that even looks like partiality or partisanship. On the other hand, we must take care that we do not lose the human in our desire to preserve the Divine. Might not the same consideration be urged against our Lord cherishing a peculiar regard and affection for his mother, his sisters, his brothers, his personal friends? But who can doubt that there was especial love in his heart for these? There was then, probably, something of patriotic grief in those tears of Christ, an additional pang in his heart, as he thought that it was Jerusalem itself, the city round which so many associations gathered, whose guilt and doom stood in clear, sad vision before him. However that may be, he felt deep compassion as he looked forward to- I. THE FUTURE OF THE HoLY LAND. We speak of the land or country, though it was the city of Jerusalllm over which he wept. But in the sense in which" Paris is France" Jerusalem was Judma., was Israel itself. It was the strength, the light, the glory, of the land; it was the centre to which all the inhabitants looked and journeyed; it was the source of the people's ha.bits and beliefs. The capital ta.ken, everything was well-nigh gone, the fate of the country was settled. Concerning this people, thi.i nation, Jesus Christ felt, as he beheld the city: 1. That it had been enriched with :peculiar privilege. (1) Commencing with a signal and glorious deliverance from bondage ; (2) continued with the granting of a Law and a system admirably fitted to save them from surrounding superstitions and impurities ; (3) multiplied by the coming of psalmist and of prophet with inspiring song and elevating speech and life, uplifting their imagi- nation and cleansing their conscience; (4) enhanced by the strong and severe, but yet kind and merciful, discipline through which they were ma.de to pass; (5) culminating in the presence, the teaching, the life, of him, in whom One wiser than Solomon, mightier than David, devouter than Samuel, nobler than Elijah and John," was there." 2. That it was charged with a high and sacred mission. It was designed by God to be the depository and guardian of his Divine truth, to hold fast and to hold high those great verities which are the strength, the life, and the glory of our manhood. Just what part it was to have played, and what exact service it would have rendered our race had it been loyal and true, may be questioned by us. But it would undoubtedly have played o. very great pa.rt, and been, as a n.rtion, the great factor in the restitution of mankind. 3. That it had now missed its chance, and was hastening to its doom. (1) The Hebrew faith had become a hollow formality, a mere ritual, from which true reverence, love, charity, earnestness, were all absent; and (2) the nation was in the very act of rejecting and was about to slay its Messiah, thus going down into the darkest crime and then going on to the saddest disaster. We glance at- 11. THE FUTUBE OF OUR OWN COUNTRY. There is no little parallelism between Judroa and England. 1. God has enriched our land with peculiar privileges. We have (1) a large share of religious liberty; (2) a good measure of spiritual enlightenment, not indeed without some dark shadows of igt10rance and superstition; (3) numerous and ·158 THE GOSPEL .ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. [ea. x1x. 1-48.