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Daughters of Jerufalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.

THI

HIS is a day of trouble, of rebuke, and blaj phemy; diftinguished in the annals of our nation, and the kalendar of our church, by the fad fuffering of an excellent prince, who fell a facrifice to the rage of his rebellious fubjects; and, by his fall, derived infamy, mifery, and guilt on them, and their finful pofterity.

VOL. IV.

We

We are met here, to acknowledge our fin, to exprefs our public deteftation of it, and to deprecate the vengeance, which hath pursued, and doth ftill, I fear, purfue us on the account of it. In order to raise and improve thefe good thoughts and difpofitions, I have pitched on the words fpoken by our bleffed Saviour, in his fad proceffion towards Calvary, as the ground of our prefent meditations,-Daughter of Jerufalem, &c.

Since Providence fo ordered it, that one of the Jeffons for that day, whereon the royal martyr fuffered, and which was read to him juft before his afcending the fcaffold, fhould contain an account of the paffion of our Lord; and the fame Jeffon is ftill, by authority, appointed to be read in these annual affemblies; I may be allowed, I hope, from the history of that paffion, written by St. Luke, to take the words you have heard, and apply them to the fubject I am now about to handle, without incurring the imputation of drawing unfeemly parallels, and without giving offence to any, but thofe, who are offended with the anniversary itself, and with our folemn and devout manner of observing it.

As fefus went to his crucifixion St. Luke tells us, that "there followed him, a great company of people, and of women, which alfo bewailed and lamented him. But Jefus turning unto "them, faid, Daughters of Jerufalem, weep not "for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your "children; For, behold the days are coming, "in the which they fhall fay, Bleffed are the «barren, and the wombs that never bare, and "the paps that never gave fuck!" His prefent fufferings,

fufferings, and approaching death. withheld him not from reflecting with concern on the calamities, which were ready to overtake others on his account. And, because the women who followed him to Calvary, out of a tenderness of nature peculiar to their fex, indulged hemfelves in the loudeft expreffions of grief; therefore to these he particularly addreffes the admonition of the text; directs them to turn their well-meant compaffion from him upon themfelves; to reserve all their tears for a time, now at hand, when the whole nation of the Jews would be called to a strict ac count for fpilling his blood, and be made an aftonishing inftance of divine vengeance.

The good prince, whofe unhappy fate we com memorate, did in this, as well as other refpects, follow the steps of " the great Captain of his falvation, who was made perfect thro' fufferings:" Heb i. 10. For the last moments of his life, which his murderers allowed him, were employed in awakening a drowsy nation into a fenfe of its guilt, and a dread of its impending punishment. Secure of his own innocence and happiness, he seemed to have conquered all concern for himfelf; and, like a true father of his people, was chiefly folicitous for the peace and welfare of his people. His 'dying words breathed nothing but pity and tenderness towards his fubjects, who were to furvive his fall, and to feel the fad effects of it.

And

therefore to thofe, who with weeping eyes then beheld that bloody fcene, and to us, who with, like grief now look on at a distance, may we fuppofe the royal fufferer (confiftently with the character he then maintained) to fay,-"Weep not

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