pired,
and the things of their peace now forever hid from their eyes, this is
in itself a most deplorable case, and much lamented by our Lord Jesus
Himself. That the case is in itself most deplorable, who sees not? A
soul lost! a creature capable of God! upon its way to Him! near to the
kingdom of God! shipwrecked in the port! Oh, sinner, from how high a
hope art thou fallen! into what depths of misery and we! And that it
was lamented by our Lord is in the text. He beheld the city (very
generally, we have reason to apprehend, inhabited by such wretched
creatures) and wept over it. This was a very affectionate lamentation.
We lament often, very heartily, many a sad case for which we do not
shed tears. But tears, such tears, falling from such eyes! the issues
of the purest and best-governed passion that ever was, showed the true
greatness of the cause. Here could be no exorbitancy or unjust excess,
nothing more than was proportional to the occasion. There needs no
other proof that this is a sad case than that our Lord lamented it
with tears, which that He did we are plainly told, so that, touching
that, there is no place for doubt. All that is liable to question is,
whether we are to conceive in Him any like resentments of such cases,
in His present glorified state? Indeed, we can not think heaven a
place or state of sadness or lamentation, and must take heed of
conceiving anything there, especially on the throne of glory,
unsuitable to the most perfect nature, and the most glorious state. We
are not to imagine tears there, which, in that happy region are wiped
away from inferior eyes--no grief, sorrow, or sighing, which are all
fled away, and shall be no more, as there can be no other turbid
passion of any kind. But when expressions that import anger or grief
are used, even concerning God Himself, we must sever in our conception
everything of imperfection, and ascribe everything of real perfection.
We are not to think such expressions signify nothing, that they have
no meaning, or that nothing at all is to be attributed to Him under
them. Nor are we again to think they signify the same thing with what
we find in ourselves, and are wont to express by those names. In the
divine nature there may be real, and yet most serene, complacency and
displacency--viz., that, unaccompanied by the least commotion, that
impart nothing of imperfection, but perfection rather, as it is a
perfection to apprehend things suitably to what in th