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The friend to whose [text obscured] he was now going had been but a short time before enjoying all the necessary comforts of this life - formerly Mary had sat at his feet listening with delight to the words which fell from his lips, now she lies prostrate before his feet bathing them in tears - unable to give a kind & hearty welcome - she can only say "Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died" - How short lived is all the earthly happiness - Does it not remind us of what is happening every day around us & probably of what may a few days or hours happen to ourselves. Sickness & death may soon visit this happiness of families - our children are as liable to the stroke of death as others & are as liable to become orphans & for their loss by the
same cause - We may [word obscured] be called to follow an affect. brother to yr grave or our brother may here to shed his tears over us - The wife of our [indecipherable] may be as kind hearted tender & pious as Ruth & Hannah yet is she not exempt from the common lot of mankind nor will her love for her husband cause him to live for ever -
It is a hard lesson to learn, but it is one that cannot be learnt too soon - that all our earthly comforts are lent for a season & may be required before we are aware - Thus it is & thus it ever has been & it is for our good We are ready to make idols of our blessings though we are aware of their frailty our duty relative to them is plain we should love our childn. & our friends but we must not deem them essential to our happiness God can make a Cxn. happy without them as well as with them - He is too wise to err too good to be unkind - He knows when to give
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would give the world [text obscured] hope of this to have that ark to flee to which shelters him peacefully amidst the storms of life - There is nothing like having a simple belief in the Bible & a simple dependence upon God through Cxt for salvation - O if there be a foolish being in the universe it is the man who finds himself living in a world so full of trouble as this & yet despising the only thing which can support & comfort him under it
Let us now proceed a step further & view the tears of our Lord not only as a kind & tender hearted friend but as the tears of the great Redeemer of mankind - His sorrow arose partly from his friendship to the diseased & the mourning sisters probably this was the principle cause; At the same time we must not forget that he was the Son of God as well as the Son Man & as such must have felt more than we can possibly describe at the same time
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we may touch upon [text obscured] that appear to be prominent - & in this place may we not suppose that he felt keenly the view we afford him of the degradation of him in nature - It was standing near to a grave & to the grave of a friend & with a mind like his, could he forget the original condition of the creature who was there supposed to be turning to ash & dust - He must have remembered the garden of Eden & contrasted the scene of woe now before him to that of our first primal happiness before the fall - Yet he must have thought of what man once was & of what he might still have been = while he looked on & wept
And who can seriously look at the grave & not see it in this affecting light - It was not once "the house appointed for all living" - God did not design it as the end of all men - No it was of our own church we may say that it was our own
hand that gave [text obscured] for our sins that took death & all our woe into the world - And, again how solemn the idea this world beyond the grave to which this is the passage or rather the gate - It is not (as we can testify) a flowery path ever to the grave nor is the land beyond it always a land of rest - & who can contemplate the millions of mankind going century to the grave & not drop a tear of compassion over the awful degradation of our race - Man is indeed a guilty creature & his sinfulness adds to the load of his guilt - But still the guilty may be pitied & our compassion may be extended to the most sinful part of our vice But our degraded state was much more likely to affect our Lord than ourselves. None can see a Vessel wrecked & beaten to pieces by the violence of the waves without being moved and he who builds & owns it must
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[Text obscured] of Christ. He made him at first a form holy Temple for God to dwell in - How then must he have been grieved when he saw the work of his hands destroyed & overwhelmed - & brought down to the degradation of the grave
2. Christ might have been led to weep at the time of Lazarus by the unbelief & obstinacy of many who surrounded him - He had already done many miracles in order to convince the Jews that he was the Messiah but they were sill hard & would not receive him as the Son of God - If Jesus did not abandon them he still watched over them & for them & was now about to per -form a miracle of the most extraordinary nat ure that seemed calculated to overcome the strongest prejudices & remove the greatest un -belief - He however plainly foresaw their hardness of heart & that the greater part of
them would still [text obscured] others would only be stirred up to a greater spirit of envy & hatred against him - Hence he was troubled in spirit & wept - It might have been supposed that He would not have wept over such obstinate sinners as these but have left them to the misery they chose in preference to the belief of the truth - but No he tenderly loved the Jews he knew that they were the offspring of one of his oldest friends & he could not leave them as they were rushing forward to him without some emotions of tenderness - No they were his enemies & thirsting for his blood yet he could not willingly aban -don them - like a merciful Judge he wept over the criminals whom justice required to be given up to punishment - Indeed gratitude was the chief source of our Savr's troubles while here below "for he came his own & his own received him not" -
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He was [text obscured] & it was this which made him a man of sorrows & agita -ted with grief - Nor can we tell how much our thoughtlessness& unbeliefs tended to fill fill up that cup of sorrow which the Redeemer drank - He foresaw how many of us would light of him, & of all he was about to do to suffer on our account - how contemptuously we should treat his [indecipherable] - slight his ministers & saw our souls - Who can tell but that even he was weeping at Bethany he saw some poor hardened sinners in this who has heard of his love & of his tears with sin
Who can tell but that he saw some phariseecal hypocrite [indecipherable] - Who can tell but that he saw some [indecipherable] & lifting the Lord to heaven while his hard hearted transgressors who rather than with his sins & his follies would consent to love him & his soul forever - How then is it that we are so unconcerned about these mo -mentous things how is it that we are so little affected with our folly & guilt
How is it that [text obliterated] remain so careless & [text obscured] - The reason is plain We know not the value of Salv'n. We know not the worth of the soul - Sin & the world have possession of our hearts & we have not serious thoughts to spare for eternity - These then are some of the probable causes of the tears which the Saviour shed at the grave of Lazarus - He wept as a man in sympathy with his brethren at the loss of a dear friend - and in the contemplation of the instability of all human happiness - He wept as the Redeemer of men at the degradation of mankind and the guilt & wretchedness of unrepentant Sin
The first inference we may draw on the subject is this tenderness of heart is not inconsistent with true greatness [indecipherable] - We perceive this truth exemplified in the whole of the life & conduct of Jesus - And yet many of his followers