SERMON II.*

LUKE xix. 41, 42, 43, 44.

And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee around, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

EVERY one who reads the Bible must know, that Jerusalem was, for very many years, the favoured city of God. The inhabitants of it, born from that righteous Abraham, whom He was pleased to call His friend,

* A few pages in this Sermon, are taken from one on the same subject, by Bishop Wilson.

had greater proofs of His love bestowed upon them, than all the nations of the world besides. By night and by day, in troubles and in dangers, in peace and in war, God had ever been to them a sure and constant friend listening to their cry, pitying their sorrows, delivering them from dangers, fighting their battles, and destroying their enemies, God was well known amongst them as a sure refuge.

Whilst all the other peoples of the world had their souls in darkness, and knew nothing of His ways, praying and bowing down to false gods which their own weak hand s had made, it was in Jerusalem, and in Jerusalem alone, that the true God was truly worshipped; it was there that His temple stood, and His holy laws were known; and it was to this His favoured city that He was pleased, from time to time, to send His prophets and His messengers, whose hearts and tongues He filled and guided with wisdom from heaven, to call those who had sinned back again to their duty, and to give the glad promise of better things to come.

With such favours and blessings bestowed upon them, what holiness and goodness. might we not suppose would have been found amongst the inhabitants of Jerusalem? but the Jews were then, what too many Christians are now, hard hearted, thoughtless, and ungrateful. Many a time had they altogether forsaken the true God, to worship false ones. The mercies which they had received from God were forgotten, or not thankfully remembered; they had given themselves up, not to keep His commandments, but to follow the wicked devices and desires of their own hearts. The prophets whom God had sent to teach them and to warn them, were either laughed at and despised, or put to a cruel death. Some few, indeed, there had been in every age, the righteous servants of a righteous Lord. We read of David, the man after God's own heart of Solomon, the wisest of the sons of men, at whose prayer fire came down from Heaven, and the glory of God was seen in His temple; though both these, generally righteous men gave sad proofs of what heavy guilt even the best of us may fall

into, if once we lose sight of God: we read also of good Hezekiah, whom God so loved, that, when he prayed and wept, He added fifteen years to his life; and others besides these but we see it written in the Bible, that it was a sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity.

It was upon coming near to this city of Jerusalem, where our Blessed Saviour knew that His enemies in a few days would murder Him, that, as we are told in my text, when He beheld it, He wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace! but now are they hid from thine eyes: that is, if thou, Jerusalem, wicked as thou hast been, hadst even now considered and laid to heart the mercies and the warnings which God has given thee; if even now thou hadst forsaken thy wickedness and turned thee to repentance; if thou hadst received and welcomed Me, the Prince of peace, of whom the scriptures have foretold, it had been well with thee but thou hast despised the mercies and the warnings of thy Heavenly King, thou hast neglected those whom He

sent to teach thee, thou hast loved wickedness and hated righteousness, thou hast scorned and cast out thy Saviour, therefore punishment shall overtake thee; the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and shall not leave in thee one stone upon another because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

My brethren, what our Saviour here foretold did exactly take place. The enemies of Jerusalem did compass her round about; the greater part of the inhabitants, men, women, and children, were put to death; the buildings were destroyed, even the temple of God, for God had deserted it; and from that time to this, little less than eighteen hundred years, the Jews, once the favoured people of the Almighty, have been scattered among the nations of the world, a living example, wherever they are met, of the anger, the justice, and the truth of God!

How much instruction is afforded to us all by these words of our Saviour, which we