as Himself to condescend to weep with them. We have here sufficient proof, if proof were needed, that Jesus did not merely bear the form and fashion of a man, but the nature and feeling too. He saw around Him a scene of grief: those who were thus mourning were persons in whom He took that peculiar interest which belongs to what we call friendship; and their grief excited in Him those emotions of sorrow,—that sympathy, which our ordinary human nature cannot withhold, when we observe distress in those we love. Though He was inwardly conscious that a very short period would elapse before that sorrow would be turned into joy, yet the sorrow and the signs of it were present; and He did not resist the sympathetic feeling which they excited in Him,"Jesus wept "." Jesus Christ condemns not the tears of the sisters of Lazarus; He joins His tears to theirs: His authority is sufficient; His example is a rule and a law and the most conclusive proof that an action is innocent, or even commendable, is to show that He did it. Here it is worthy of observation to consider the sincerity of St. John in relating the circumstances of this affair,- -a sincerity at once edifying and adapted to establish our faith. An historian, who would have drawn up an account of his invention to do honour to Christ, would Archbishop Sumner.

Dr. Hammond.

9

never have represented Him as troubled, as grieved, as weeping at the grave of His friend, or as terrified, and cast into an agony, at the approach of His own death. The four Evangelists have recorded the glorious and miraculous actions of Christ, because they were true; they have recorded His human weaknesses and infirmities, because they were true also '.

It pleased the Lord, on this occasion, to show the intimate connexion between Himself and the Father. The miracle was especially intended to display His power. He had stated from the first that the sickness of Lazarus was not unto death, but "for the glory of God, and that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." Therefore, He now makes a direct appeal to heaven: "Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I know that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me"."

2

The grave of Lazarus is described as "a cave; and a stone lay upon it." It is manifestly necessary for Europeans to disabuse their minds of their own customs of sepulture to understand the particular circumstances of this story. Burial-places were not anciently among the Jews in cities, but in caves or vaults in the fields: it was often in one corner of an inclosure, and near 2 Archbishop Sumner.

1 Dr. Jortin.

the highway, where they sometimes chose to deposit their dead': great numbers of these natural or artificial caves are still to be found in Palestine. The arrangement and extent of them varied with circumstances. Those in the declivity of a mountain were often cut in horizontally niches six or seven feet deep were cut in the sides of the vault, each adapted to receive a single corpse; but in some there were stone slabs or shelves, on which the bodies were deposited. No coffins being used, the dead were generally carefully and elaborately wrapped and swathed in many folds of linen or cotton cloth. The body when thus enfolded retains the profile of the human form; but the legs are generally not folded separately, but together and the arms are not distinguished, but confined to one general envelope. It is probable that the body of Lazarus was so "bound hand and foot with grave clothes," in such a recess as is above described: into which the body had been introduced head foremost. When then the loud voice, which even death heard, cried, "Lazarus, come forth," it is probable that the dead man worked himself out of the recess, from which the stone had been, by the command of Jesus, previously removed, and, sliding down, stood on his two feet on the floor of the cavern, until "Jesus saith unto them, Bishop Patrick.

3

Loose him, and let him go;" or he may have been more loosely bound, in such a manner as to have some use of his limbs". Yet the text clearly intimates that, although "he came forth bound," he could not "go" till he had been "loosed."

This exercise of Divine power gave fresh force to His assurance, concerning every one that believeth in Him: "I will raise him up at the last day." We are here assured of His power to do so. To restore animation to the lifeless corpse,-to re-unite the soul to the body after they have been four days separated, is no less the work of Omnipotence, than to raise those who have lain in the grave four hundred, or four thousand years. As, then, He here said to Lazarus, "Come forth," so will He hereafter say to all, even to those who have long since returned to their native dust'. Such is the voice which we shall all one day hear, sounding at the bottom of the grave, and which will raise us up from corruption; such the voice which will pierce the rocks, and divide the mountains, and bring up the dead out of the lowest depths.

It is observable that this remarkable history of the raising of Lazarus is omitted by three Evangelists, and recorded only by St. John. A very probable reason for this omission is,

4 Pictorial Bible. Abp. Newcome. 6 Pictorial Bible.

7 Archbishop Sumner.

8

Bishop Hall.

that as Lazarus was living when they wrote their Gospels, (for, according to received traditions, he lived thirty years after he was raised from the dead,) they were unwilling to point him out in a particular manner, so as to expose him to the malice of the Jews; and whilst he was alive, the event must have been perfectly well known to all, without the necessity of its being recorded. When, however, St. John wrote, Lazarus was probably dead, and then there was no further personal risk to him in recording the event; and it was necessary to do so, in order to perpetuate the memory of it to future generations'.

SECT. CXVII.-Council of the Chief Priests. Caiaphas prophesieth.-John xi. 47-54.

JESUS CHRIST had now worked His last miracle on earth; and it is instructive to reflect on the comparison of it with His first. He then turned water into wine at a convivial meeting of His kinsfolk and acquaintance, at an inconsiderable village in remote Galilee, He having been then but just baptized into His ministry. Now He turns death into life in the presence of a considerable concourse of His countrymen—in the capital-just before He was about to suffer and to finish His work. The first was a mere mani

festation of His glory;- "and His disciples The last had probably

believed on Him."

Dr. Whitby.