III. The third conjugal affection on the part of Christ is pity and compassion. As a man “nourisheth and cherisheth his “Fateor insitam esse nobis corporis nostri caritatem.” — Senec. Epist. xiv. “Generi animantium omni est a natura tributum ut se, vitam, corpusque tueatur.” — Cicer. Off. i. [iv.]own flesh, so doth the Lord his church,” Eph. v. 29. Christ hath a fellow feeling with his saints in all their troubles, as a man hath with his own flesh. This act of the conjugal love of Christ relates to the many trials and pressures of afflictions that his saints meet withal here below. He doth not deal with believers as the Samaritans with the Jews, that fawned on them in their prosperity, but despised them in their trouble; he is as a tender Ps. ciii. 13.father, who, though perhaps he love all his children alike, yet he will take most pains with, and give most of his presence unto, one that is sick and weak, though therein and thereby he may be made most froward, and, as it should seem, hardest to be borne with. And (which is more than the pity of any father can extend to) he himself suffers with them, and takes share in all their troubles.