1 Thessalonians 1:10

REFLECTIONS

READER! is it our privilege, like this Church, to give thanks to God always for the divine grace, and mercy, and love, bestowed upon us? Can it be said to you, and to me, as the Apostle did to the Thessalonians, in the remembrance of our work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God our Father? Can we with full assurance of faith, and in the enjoyment of the same testimonies as Paul here marked down, take up the well-grounded confidence of our election of God? Oh! then, let us see to it, that our faith in Jesus is a working faith, working by love. That our hope is that hope founded in Christ, and his blood, and righteousness, which maketh not ashamed. That our patience is that which the Apostle elsewhere describes, and which worketh experience. And in the exercise of which, we wait for the return of the Son of God from heaven, who hath delivered us from the wrath to come. This will be an honorable testimony to the Spirit's work in our heart, and will most plainly show, in the midst of the awful day in which we live, what manner of entering in the word of grace hath had in our souls; and how, through the regenerating power of the Spirit, the Lord hath turned our hearts from idols to serve the living and true God. Blessed be the electing love of God the Father, the redemption by Christ, and the quickening of God the Holy Ghost!