This essay is excerpted from the introduction of John Howe, The Redeemer’s Tears Wept Over Lost Souls (Glasgow: William Collins, 1839), v-x., on Luke 19:41-42.
It can hardly have escaped the observation of anyone who has read the Bible with attention, that in all the communications which the Almighty has been pleased to make to his rebellious subjects, he has employed language the best calculated to make its way to the heart and affections of mankind—that, while his remonstrances with the impenitent present a lamentable picture of the most unreasonable hostility, and unprovoked aggression on their part, they bear testimony, at the same time, to the most compassionate forbearance on his—and that, as often as he directly addresses the penitent and believing, whether it be in the way of reproof or of consolation, it is still in terms that breathe all the affectionate tenderness of a father’s love. That such is the language of Scripture nobody can for a moment dispute, and that the sign of such language is to remove those unworthy suspicions of the Divine character which go to array the feelings and affections of the human heart in hostility to its Maker, and perpetuate the enmity of the carnal mind against God, is equally obvious and incontrovertible. It will readily be admitted, too, that if anything approaching to such generosity and unmerited forbearance could be manifested by one human being towards another, it could not fail to extort a universal tribute of admiration and respect; and that the common consent of mankind would pronounce that man to have reached the very last stage of moral insensibility, who could remain unaffected by such treatment on the part of one whom he had injured, or whose hostility that treatment would fail to disarm. And yet, is not such, in point of fact, the reception that the compassion of God has met with on the part of not a few of his offending creatures? Are there not multitudes who are conscious that they have never been deeply or permanently affected by all the tenderness of that commiseration which God has mingled with the very severest of his denunciations against the workers of iniquity—that if, at any time, their conscience is alarmed on contemplating the rigorous requirements and inviolable sanctions of his law, as necessarily demanding a full and perfect satisfaction, they receive, at such a moment, with suspicion and distrust, the solemn declarations of his word, that he has no pleasure in the death of the sinner—and that even when they succeed in suppressing that anxiety, and take refuge in those views of the Divine mercy which represent him as looking on sin with too indulgent an eye ever to carry into effect against it the award of a righteous retribution, instead of feeling their heart captivated by such an idea of the Divine goodness, they acknowledge it (if indeed they acknowledge it at all) with a heartlessness and an indifference which they would be ashamed to offer in return for the slightest expressions of kindness and goodwill on the part of a fellow-creature? And what is the necessary inference that we are compelled to draw from such a fact? Is it not just virtually saying that they attached no credit at all to any part of the Divine testimony—that they are obstinately and systematically labouring to exclude anything like a sober and serious conviction of its reality and truth—that the solemn declarations of Scripture, regarding the inevitable ruin which awaits an impenitent rebel against the holy and righteous government of God, have never produced any more permanent or salutary impressions on their minds than if they were so many idle threats that are never seriously intended to be carried into execution—and that all the expressions of pity and compassion which the Almighty has condescended to employ in urging upon them their infatuation and guilt, have affected their hearts just as little as if there were no sincerity and no meaning in such expressions? They must be conscious, in fact, though they might not be very willing to acknowledge it, that they would be better pleased to be let altogether alone, and permitted to enjoy a state of undisturbed indifference regarding spiritual things, than to be assailed by any entreaty, however earnest, or any remonstrance, however tender—and that they feel towards the effusions of Divine pity and commiseration which the Scriptures pour out over the impenitence and unbelief of an ungodly world very much as an alienated and disobedient child would feel towards the tears and entreaties of an affectionate but virtuous father, who should seek to detach him from his profligate associates, and win him over from the paths of folly and of shame.
There is no difficulty then in accounting for the indifference with which one class of men peruse the language of compassion and pity in which God has vouchsafed to address sinners in the Bible. That indifference is the consequence of their having no serious conviction of the reality of any such compassion on the part of God as that language would seem to imply—and they doubt or question it, because they are unwilling to believe that the Gospel method of extending mercy to sinners is the only one that is consistent with the unalterable principles of the Divine government. But there is reason to believe, even with respect to such as have felt the winning influence of the love of Christ, and who can testify, from what they have experienced, that nothing but this influence could ever have dislodged the spirit of aversion to God and holiness which they once cherished, and which, in the days of their unbelief, gathered strength from the very representations of the Divine character which were intended to overthrow it, there is reason, we say, to believe, even with regard to such persons, that they do not always surrender themselves so unreservedly as they are both warranted and required to do, to those feelings of love and gratitude and confidence which the affectionate tenderness of Scripture language, as addressed to them, is we conceive both fitted and intended to awaken. To the condescension of that language, they cannot indeed be insensible, nor can they fail to draw consolation and encouragement from it as often as they peruse it in the simplicity of faith, and with the firm persuasion that it promises nothing that will not be fulfilled far beyond what it is possible for them to conceive. But there are many, we are persuaded, who will be ready to acknowledge, that they have sometimes attached to such expressions of Scripture as we now allude to, a vagueness of meaning which has marred not a little the comfort that they might otherwise have derived from them— that they have felt as if it were an encroachment on the majesty and dignity of the Divine character, to understand that language in any sense approaching to a literal interpretation—and that though they are persuaded it is the only language that could convey to the understanding a distinct idea of the compassion and mercy of God toward sinners, yet they have often regarded it as referring rather to the effects of the Divine procedure, than to anything corresponding to it as actually existing in the Divine mind. Now it is certainly true, that it never was the design of Revelation to lower the character of God in the conceptions of his intelligent creatures; and it would be a most impious perversion of the language of Scripture, to understand it in such a sense as to invest the Divine nature with any of the weaknesses of created and imperfect beings, or to ascribe to him those emotions and feelings that are inconsistent with unchangeable excellence and felicity, and which necessarily imply something painful and imperfect on the part of those in whom they exist. But is it not equally true, that when God himself vouchsafes to address his people in language of affection and tenderness, and does so without one qualifying clause to forbid them understanding him in the plain and obvious sense of the expressions which he employs, it is not for them to weigh that language with the hesitancy, and to put upon it the cautious and measured interpretation, that would go to divest it of almost all its meaning, and rob it of not a little of its practical energy and force; for when he is pleased to call himself their Father, and to clothe his communications to them in all the attractions of a father’s love, is it not for the plain and obvious purpose of calling forth, on their part, the affectionate submission and the unsuspecting confidence of children? The Christian, indeed, can never cease to contemplate the majesty and perfections of God with holy and reverential awe; and in every approach that he makes to the throne of grace he cannot but feel and acknowledge his unworthiness to appear there. But such sentiments were never designed to interfere with that confidence towards God, as his reconciled Father, which it is the design of the Spirit of adoption to impart to the believer; nor can they furnish any grounds to doubt, that there is in the Divine mind towards him all that complacency and kindness which the simple and impressive language of Scripture appears obviously to imply; and so often, therefore, as he indulges in metaphysical speculations on the precise sense in which that language is to be understood, when applied to the Divine nature, he withdraws himself from the salutary influence which it is designed to exercise over him, and relinquishes not a little of the comfort which it is fitted to impart.
But clearly and emphatically as the Scriptures every where express the compassion of God towards sinners, it is not in this way alone that he has graciously accommodated his procedure to the weaknesses of our nature. The reality of that compassion has been demonstrated by the manner in which he has vouchsafed his communications to the children of men, as well as by the language in which these communications are clothed—and among many other passages to which we might appeal in proof of this remark, we would refer to that in which our Lord is represented as weeping over the approaching ruin of Jerusalem, and which has been so clearly illustrated and powerfully enforced by the author of the following treatise. Not only has the Almighty declared, and repeated that declaration in every possible variety of expression, “As I live I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked;” but, as if to remove all that indistinctness of conception which might cleave to our limited understanding, and all that faithless distrust which a guilty conscience is so ready to awaken, he has furnished, in the passage to which we allude, as distinct and unequivocal proofs of his pity, even for those who obstinately rejected all his counsel, and would none of his reproof, as one human being could give, in token of his compassion for the misfortunes or miseries of another. This indeed is the tendency of the whole scheme of the Gospel; for we cannot doubt that one of the purposes for which God was manifested in the flesh was to exhibit to sinners, by addressing them through the medium of the sympathies and feelings of our common nature, a more palpable and impressive demonstration of Divine mercy than could have been given by the statement of any abstract truth or doctrine which inspired men might have been commissioned to reveal. But the observation is especially applicable, we conceive, to the fact stated in the verses referred to; and were we required to single out any one passage of Scripture, in confirmation of the remarks that have now been offered, we know not any to which we should sooner appear, than that which presents to us the Son of God weeping over the coming desolation of that infatuated city, on which the day of grace had for ever closed—whose hour of retribution could no longer, in consistency with the rectitude and wisdom of the Divine administration, be delayed—and the measure of whose iniquity was to be filled up by consigning the compassionate Redeemer of the world to all the tortures of a cruel and ignominious death. For a full exposition of the passage itself, we would refer to the following able and eloquent treatise; but we may be permitted to offer a few remarks on it as strikingly illustrative of the subject to which we have been adverting. And in doing so, it will not be necessary to enter at great length on the consideration of the fact stated by the evangelist, as referring to the persons who were the immediate subjects of our Lord’s interesting and impressive lamentation. To those who are disposed to peruse the passage1Luke 19:41-42, “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.” with that simplicity of view and docility of mind with which it becomes a fallen creature to receive a message from the God whom he has offended, and a message too which conveys to him a tender of pardon and reconciliation, the narrative of the inspired writer will scarcely require any explanation; and with regard to such as may be inclined to make it a subject of idle speculation, and to draw from it materials on which to exercise a perverted ingenuity, we would observe, that it is not consistent with our present purpose, and would minister but little to their profit, to attempt meeting and combating every cavil that they might advance, or allow such cavils to divert our attention from the practical lesson which the subject so obviously and powerfully inculcates.
In the course of our Lord’s personal ministry, he had exhibited in Jerusalem, as well as in every other quarter of Judea, manifold and indisputable evidences of his Messiahship—he had proved, that in his person were fulfilled the predictions of ancient prophecy concerning the frequently-promised and long-expected Deliverer—he had urged the Jews to believe on him, by all the motives that could be supposed to influence immortal creatures, and warned them at the same time, of the fatal and inevitable consequences of rejecting him—and he had given, in a series of miracles, as beneficent in their tendency as they were striking in their nature, every conceivable attestation to his divine authority by which a communication from God to the children of men can be authenticated. This work of mercy and grace he continued for years to prosecute, in the face of ingratitude and unbelief—he patiently endured the calumnies and contradiction of sinners against himself—he manifested, on all occasions, a heart feelingly alive to the bodily sufferings and spiritual destitution of mankind—his beneficence suffered no relaxation, and his compassion refused to be wearied out with all the indignities and insults with which he had been loaded; and when he found that nothing would avail to remove the blindness of their understandings, or soften the obduracy of their hearts—when he contemplated the fearful extremity to which they were about to carry their enmity and unbelief, and foresaw their obstinate resistance to the testimony that was yet to be borne to his divinity, by his resurrection from the dead and the effusion of the Holy Ghost on his disciples; even then he shed tears of compassion over the subjects of his own holy and righteous retribution. That, in the lamentation which our Lord uttered over Jerusalem, he contemplated the spiritual desolation that was coming on the finally impenitent, as well as the destruction of the city itself, cannot, we apprehend, admit of a moment’s dispute. The very ground of that lamentation was obviously their rejection of him as the promised Messiah—a rejection so obstinate and invincible that the Spirit of God had ceased to strive with them, and had already abandoned them to all the blindness and obduracy of a reprobate mind; and we cannot doubt, therefore, that the terrible consequences of this necessary abandonment were full in our Saviour’s view when he lamented that the things belonging to their peace were for ever hid from their eyes. We are aware that these remarks have brought us to the very threshold of a profound and inscrutable mystery, and are reminded of the solemn awe with which it becomes us to approach a subject which involves the hidden counsels of unsearchable wisdom, and before which our understanding is summoned to prostrate its every faculty in holy and humble acquiescence in truths which God has been pleased to reveal, but which no stretch of created intelligence is adequate fully to comprehend. But may we not be permitted to observe, without traveling beyond the limits of legitimate investigation, or entering the forbidden ground of inquiry into the secret things of the Most High, that, while the compassion of God would prompt him to extend mercy to every apostate child of Adam, there are infinitely wise and righteous reasons that forbid such an indiscriminate exercise of that mercy—that though in one sense he wills the repentance and salvation of every sinner, inasmuch as the returning allegiance of a rebel subject must be regarded by him with complacency, as accordant with the holiness and unbounded beneficence of his nature; yet there is to him who comprehends at once all the purpose of his holy administration, a limit beyond which his Spirit must cease to strive with the obstinacy and perverseness of the carnal mind; and that, in every case therefore where his grace is withheld or where his Spirit is withdrawn, it is because the holy but to us unsearchable purposes of his moral government lay a restraint as it were on the exercise of his compassion, and fix a point beyond which his forbearance cannot extend. All this we conceive is obviously intimated to us in the passage referred to; and is it not sufficient to silence every such presumptuous question as that which has sometimes been proposed on the subject, Why our Lord should have lamented an evil which it was not beyond his power as God to have averted? May we not ask, in reply, Whether it is befitting arraigned and condemned criminals to meet with a question like this, the most affecting manifestation that can be conceived of the unmerited compassion of our righteous Judge—Whether the tears which the Redeemer shed over the infatuation of Jerusalem merit such a reception as to be made the subject of inquiry by a daring curiosity? Whether the impenitent and unbelieving, whose ruin he lamented, will hereafter venture to charge upon him the misery which they deliberately and wilfully brought upon themselves? And whether that very lamentation will not fearfully aggravate their guilt and impart unspeakable bitterness to the anguish of their remorse!
We do not think it necessary to dwell at greater length on the examination of the subject as immediately referring to the character and condition of the Jews; and we are not very willing, we confess, to enter more minutely on the inquiry to which it has sometimes given rise, and from which one may gather more to gratify a propensity for idle speculation than of what will minister to practical and profitable instruction. However mysterious the subject may appear to the humble and anxious inquirer, he will see nothing but what is perfectly intelligible in the simple fact that the Son of God wept over the ruin of the finally impenitent; the very mystery with which this fact stands connected will serve to render it, in his estimation, more impressive and affecting; and he will have no difficulty in perceiving the solemn and important lesson which it is fitted and obviously designed to inculcate. Though no direct reference is made, in the language of our Saviour, to any but the unbelieving Jews of that time, we cannot doubt that what is here written was written for our admonition; and, indeed, various considerations forbid us to limit the application of this subject to unbelievers of that or any other age. In the last intercessory supplication which our Lord offered up on behalf of his disciples before he suffered, we find him praying, not for them alone, but for those also which should believe on him through their word; and if, in recommending his followers to the holy keeping of his heavenly Father, he contemplated the successive generations of his people through every subsequent age, may we not infer that his lamentation over the miseries of his irreconcilable enemies was equally extended and comprehensive? But, independent of this consideration, there is another view of the subject which brings it directly to bear on men of every age, and renders it universally applicable to the condition of the impenitent and unbelieving. When our Lord lamented the approaching desolation of the guiltiest because the most highly-favoured community on earth, and shed tears of commiseration over the irremediable wretchedness of men whom he had so often laboured to convert and reclaim, and with whose perverse obstinacy he had so long and so patiently borne, it was because he contemplated, in their final destruction, an evil which, considered in itself, was most abhorrent to his holy nature. It presented to him the melancholy spectacle of guilty creatures rejecting every proposal of mercy, and repelling every approach to reconciliation on the part of their offended Creator; he beheld, in their final impenitency, immortal spirits, on whom he had sought to impress the Divine image, and whom he would have quickened with the principles of a divine life, consigned to all the debasement and degradation of spiritual death; and he saw perpetuated in them, beyond the possibility of change, or the hope of mitigation, that enmity against God which must necessarily bring upon reprobate spirits an eternal accumulation of guilt, and an endless aggravation of suffering. Such were, without doubt, the evils which our Lord contemplated when he uttered his compassionate lamentation over Jerusalem; and though they are evils of which we can form but a very inadequate conception, does not the simple fact that the Son of God wept as they presented themselves to the eye of his omniscience, convey an overwhelming idea of their inconceivable magnitude? But do not the same evils accompany the final ruin of every impenitent sinner? Are not these evils just as abhorrent as ever they were to the principles of holiness and purity and peace which characterize the government of an infinitely wise and righteous sovereign? And must they not still present the same aspect of malignity to the eye of Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever? We must not indeed imagine that our exalted and glorified Redeemer looks upon these evils with anything of the painful emotions which his language and his tears indicated in the days of his flesh; or that, when the high and inscrutable purposes of his wisdom require him to withdraw divine influences from those who have resisted and grieved the Holy Spirit beyond what it is befitting his rectitude and truth to endure, his doing so can ever disturb that infinite complacency with which he can never cease to contemplate the execution of his sovereign decrees. But neither are we to imagine that the ruin of immortal spirits presents to his all-seeing eye anything different from what it has always done, and, from the very immutability of his nature, must necessarily do; or that there is nothing in his mind towards those who perish now, corresponding to what there was towards those who rejected him in the days of his flesh. He has expressly assured his followers, that he has carried with him, even into the abodes of ineffable glory and blessedness, all the tenderness of which he gave so many unequivocal proofs during his ministry on earth—that he is not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of their infirmities, or who can remain an insensible spectator of the temptations which he himself endured; and this assurance is in perfect accordance with the whole tenor of his communications to the Old Testament church. And can we suppose then, that he has forgotten the compassion with which he once looked on the infatuation of sinners? Or that any change has taken place in his mind toward those who still continue deliberately to reject the counsel of God against themselves? The careless and the unbelieving may, indeed, make their escape from such reflections, and plead the mysteriousness of this compassion, in excuse for their remaining unmoved and unaffected by it. But, mysterious as it may be, if it were competent for us to single out one hopeless and impenitent sinner, should we not be warranted to tell him that he is pitied at the very moment that he is forsaken—that he perishes, not because God was unwilling to be reconciled unto him, but because he would not be reconciled unto God—that his turning, by penitence and faith, from his rebellious courses, would have been regarded with infinite complacency by that almighty Sovereign whom he has compelled to arm against him all the terrors of his displeasure—and that the ruin which he has wilfully and deliberately chosen is the very evil over which the Son of God did, in the days of his flesh, shed tears of commiseration and pity.
The object of these remarks, as we have already observed, is to remove, if possible, from the plain and impressive language of Scripture, that indistinctness in which we are so apt to envelope it, and which so frequently prevents it from making its way to the heart—to place distinctly before the sinner’s eye the fact recorded in the Gospel history that the Saviour wept over the ruin of those who lived and died in a state of unbelief—to show that, in as far as the Divine compassion is concerned, it is still the same as that which dictated the pathetic lamentation over Jerusalem—and to bring the persuasive influence of this simple fact to bear on the affections of all—of those who have as well as those who have not yet yielded to the constraining power of the love of Christ. It is to the latter indeed, that the solemn admonition suggested by our Saviour’s language is more immediately applicable, and it is on them therefore that we would more especially urge it; nor do we know, within the whole range of Scripture argument and motive, any one consideration so well fitted, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, to vanquish the hostility of the natural man; or, should it fail to accomplish this, any one that so fully elicits, in all its deformity, the desperate wickedness of the human heart. The sinner may at times be arrested by the solemn declaration, that there is an appointed day in which God will judge the world in righteousness, and be compelled, by the apprehension of the procedure of that day, to pause before he enters on what his conscience tells him is in direct opposition to the revealed will of his Judge. But however powerful such a restraint may be, and whatever struggle it may cost him again to throw it off, the principle of enmity within him will have lost nothing of its malignant energy; nay the very restraint which fear imposes will arm it with a power before unfelt; and melancholy as the fact unquestionably is, yet it accords with all that we know of the constitution of our nature to believe, that such will be the effect of apprehensions like these, so long as sinners regard God as their enemy, and as prescribing limits to gratifications which they are determined at all hazards to indulge. But when that very God whose commandments they are thus transgressing, appeals to them in the language of earnest entreaty—when he addresses them as he addressed the backsliding Jews of old, “O do not this abominable thing which I hate;” and when he employs every possible expression that can intimate his merciful forbearance and his willingness to receive them into his favour, to heal their backslidings and love them freely—then the opposition that is not disarmed by treatment like this, assumes a character of more hopeless and hardened impiety than even the desperate defiance of the Divine displeasure; and the man who has so resisted and who is conscious that he still continues to resist, has traveled to an alarming length on his way towards that point where others have become the subjects of the Saviour’s compassionate lamentation. But often as such men have evaded the force of that appeal, we would still continue to make it; for if ever they are to relinquish the unequal contest—if ever they are to be convinced of the unreasonableness of that suspicious dislike with which they eye every subject of a spiritual nature, and brought to see that they have been all along resisting the advances of a gracious Father towards reconciliation—it must be by the persuasive eloquence of such arguments as that in the passage to which we refer. Every believer can bear witness that thus it has been with him—that the love of God in Christ Jesus has melted and subdued the obstinacy which no dread of punishment ever could have vanquished, and that the small still voice of the Gospel is the only melody that can dispel from the human soul the evil spirit of distrust and unbelief. And where is this melody to be heard if it is not in the simple and unadorned narrative of the inspired writer when he tells us that on our Lord’s approach to Jerusalem, the place where, above all others, he had been calumniated and reviled—where his doctrines had been misrepresented and his miracles ascribed to the power of devils, and where he was so soon to suffer the ignominious death by which he was to expiate the sins of a guilty world—even with all these recollections of the past, and with the most perfect foreknowledge of the future, he beheld the city, and he wept over it? Could sinners be but persuaded of the reality of the compassion that was then manifested—could they be made to see, that there was a depth and an intenseness in that compassion which the most complicated affliction never awakened in the bosom even of the most benevolent and humane of the children of men, and could they be convinced that this very pity is flowing forth towards themselves in the midst of all the folly and infatuation by which they are permitting themselves to be duped and deceived—is it possible to suppose that they could summon up hardihood enough to treat such forbearance with contempt or with unconcern? And if they did venture so to treat it, could they arraign either the rectitude or the beneficence of God, if he should for ever withdraw from them his Holy Spirit? Would they not be compelled to acknowledge that indulgence to ingratitude like this would be a departure from the unchangeable principles of justice and truth—and whatever plea they might be disposed to urge in their own defence when sisted at the tribunal of God, could it require anything more than merely reminding them of the long-suffering patience which they had experienced and abused, to awe them at once into silence and shame?
But we are aware it may be urged by many who, though they are in reality still in a state of alienation from God, have, nevertheless, the credit and respectability of a Christian profession to plead that there is no sort of parallel between their condition and that of the unbelieving Jews—that they have no reason, therefore, to dread their ever arriving at that state of hardened impenitency in which the persons whose ruin our Lord lamented were given up to the blindness of a reprobate mind. They may allege too that they have never questioned, as the Jews did, the testimony which the Spirit of God bears to the truth of the Gospel, either by a miraculous agency without, or the operation of his influence within them—that they have given their assent to the truth which he formerly attested, and are endeavouring, in some measure, to regulate the ordinary tenor of their life by the laws and precepts which he has sanctioned—and that they cannot therefore in justice or in fairness be ranked among those who have resisted and grieved the Holy Spirit, whereby the believer is sealed unto the day of redemption. Now, in reply to all this, we would observe that we are not seeking to establish any parallel between those who avowedly believe the Gospel and such as openly reject it; nor does the force of the remarks that have been offered depend on any similarity with regard to external condition and character between the one class and the other. But we would remind those who may be most forward to repel any such charge, that it is not enough that they have never openly denied the truth, nor publicly denied the faith of the Gospel; and that it proves but little with regard to their spiritual safety, that they have never been placed in circumstances where they could be guilty of such complicated offences as those that stand recorded in the Gospel history against the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The question is not in what way or to what extent they have rejected Christ, but whether they have received him—whether they have surrendered their hearts to the influence of his love, and devoted by a willing obedience their lives to his glory; and if they are conscious that they have not done, and have no desire to do so—that they would gladly live with as little reflection on the subject as they possibly can—and that their aversion to the spirituality of the service which he requires is still unsubdued and unabated—then they must be held as having turned a deaf ear to all the affectionate earnestness of his remonstrances with sinners, and opposed a callous heart to all the tenderness with which he has assailed them. Nor can they, without belying their own experience, allege that they have never resisted the direct operation of the Spirit’s influence on their hearts; for where is the individual among professing Christians who has not had his seasons of suspicion and fear regarding his eternal interests—whose heart has not at times misgiven him, in spite of all the arguments by which he may have labored to set himself at ease on the subject of his spiritual concerns—who has not, occasionally at least, felt the depressing weight of doubts, from which he could with difficulty make his escape—and who has not been, at one period or another, under something approaching to a conviction that all was not right with regard to the state of his soul? And can they who are conscious of having suppressed such awakenings, or rid themselves of such fears, in any other way than that which the Gospel has provided, still maintain that they have never quenched or resisted the Spirit’s influence; or can they still venture to calculate on his renewing his operation upon them with more power and efficiency at some future period? This may, perhaps, be the condition and the sentiments of some; and they may be ready with what they conceive to be a satisfactory reply to all that has now been urged. They may oppose to the danger which these remarks would represent as awaiting them, the unbounded mercy of God—they may flatter themselves that he will never institute so rigorous an inquiry into their character as the statement now made would seem to insinuate—and they may even gather encouragement to their indifference from the view that has just been exhibited of the Redeemer’s compassion. But can they require to be again reminded that the very persons whose condition called forth the Saviour’s lamentation had shut themselves out from all share in the blessed effects of that compassion which their wretchedness had awakened; and will they venture to rely on this compassion while they deliberately keep out of view the principles of holiness and justice and truth, according to which it must ever be exercised? Is it not saying that they will take encouragement to sin from the very mercy that is seeking to deliver them from the pollution and misery which sin has entailed upon them? Is it not to calculate on their experiencing the pity which the Saviour manifested for sinners, while they are deliberately resisting the very influence with which that pity is designed to operate? Is it not to degrade this principle from its lofty preeminence as an attribute of the Godhead to a level with the weakness and imperfection of humanity? O let not sinners so trifle with the solemn declarations as at one time to treat the Divine compassion with indifference, on the ground of its being too far removed from their ordinary conceptions either to influence their understanding or impress their heart; and at another time to presume on its being exercised towards them without any reference to the essential perfections of the Divine nature, and the honour and dignity of the Divine government. While they seek to be persuaded of its reality, let them not wilfully misunderstand its nature or mistake its design; and let them bear in mind that the object of every gracious invitation which the Gospel contains is to urge and persuade them, in this the day of their most merciful visitation, to remember the things that belong to their peace before they are for ever hid from their eyes.
It will not, we think, be disputed, that one of the most powerful and persuasive arguments, by which the enmity of the carnal mind can be assailed, is furnished by the simple fact, that God has left no conceivable means unemployed, whereby to demonstrate the reality of his compassion for sinners, and of his unwillingness that they should continue in a state of impenitence and of unbelief; and of the many proofs of this fact to be found in Scripture, there are none, perhaps, either more decisive or more affecting than our Lord’s weeping over the fate of Jerusalem. We are aware that, in the preceding remarks, we have done little more than hinted at this argument; but for the further illustration of the subject, we gladly refer to the following treatise, as containing one of the most powerful appeals to the conscience with which we are acquainted. It would be difficult indeed to point out any work in which so much important matter has been condensed into so small a compass. Within the limits of a few pages, the reader will find exhibited, in a very striking and impressive light, the true state of the controversy which sinners are maintaining with God—the nature of faith and genuine repentance—the responsibility of those who live under the Gospel dispensation, as enjoying a day of grace, which may in various ways terminate while they are still in a state of alienation from their Maker—the folly of the arguments by which the unregenerate will sometimes seek to justify their indolence and indifference, on the ground that no anxiety or efforts of theirs will avail anything till God is pleased to put forth upon them the efficacious influences of his Holy Spirit—the unreasonableness as well as the mischievous tendency of those painful suspicions by which the awakened sinner sometimes permits himself to be perplexed, when he sets about determining whether his day of grace may not already be over—and a vindication of the rectitude of the Divine procedure in those cases where, in consequence of the sinner’s obstinacy, the influences of the Holy Spirit are either withheld or finally withdrawn. We can hardly conceive it possible, that the most indifferent should attentively peruse this treatise without finding some suspicions of their safety, and some misgivings about the validity of the plea which they may have been accustomed to urge in their own defence, and by which they have hitherto contrived to reconcile their conscience to a life of thoughtlessness and folly. And should any such begin to feel uneasiness, on the recollection of the ingratitude and neglect with which they have treated the mercy and forbearance of God, we would earnestly recommend to their serious perusal the discourses on “Self-dedication,” and “Yielding ourselves to God,” which have been selected as an appropriate accompaniment to the treatise which it is the more immediate object of this publication to bring within the reach of those who may not have access to the full edition of our author’s works.2The public are indebted to the Rev. John Hunt, of Chichester, for a uniform edition of the whole of Howe’s Works, in eight volumes, 8vo, commenced in 1810, and completed in 1899. These discourses are characterised by the same spirit of earnest and affectionate solicitude for the salvation of sinners which breathes throughout the treatise on our Lord’s Lamentation over Jerusalem; and if any salutary impressions are made by the perusal of the one, it will be found that in the other, the author never, for a moment, relinquishes his hold of the conscience of his readers till he brings them to the point where every reflecting mind must be compelled to acknowledge the necessity of coming to an immediate decision on the question which more than any other the natural man is anxious to evade. Of the sublimity of conception, the ardour of feeling, and energy of language, which distinguish the following treatises, it is unnecessary for us to speak; but we would entreat those into whose hands they may come, not to lay them aside with a single reading; for we may venture to assure them, that however much of their excellence they may discover on a first perusal, every subsequent one will more than confirm the estimate. It is matter of regret that these, as well as the other works of Howe, have for a long period been so little known; and we should rejoice to be in any degree instrumental in bringing into wider circulation what, through the Divine blessing, is so eminently calculated to promote the cause of vital godliness. May the Spirit of God give efficacy to the present feeble effort for awakening the thoughtless and self-secure, and seal on the hearts of all who shall peruse the following pages the momentous truths which they contain.
Footnotes
- 1Luke 19:41-42, “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.” ↩︎
- 2The public are indebted to the Rev. John Hunt, of Chichester, for a uniform edition of the whole of Howe’s Works, in eight volumes, 8vo, commenced in 1810, and completed in 1899. ↩︎
