2 Kings 21:26

REFLECTIONS

READER! mark, I beseech you, in the character of Manasseh, the evident truth of God's holy word, that the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son. Grace descends not from father to son by natural generation. But what a gracious God had Manasseh to do with! Oh! how lovely and encouraging is it to poor sinners, to behold such monuments of mercy placed in the church, as if to tell men that there is mercy with God that he might be feared. Yes! precious Jesus! thou art the Father of mercies; and thou art the mercy promised; thou art indeed, and ever wilt be, Jesus. In that lovely name all mercy is contained. Thou art the hope of Israel, and the Saviour thereof.

But Reader! while we look at Amon the son of Manasseh, in the very moment our souls feel all possible encouragement in the grace vouchsafed the father, is there not enough to induce trembling, when we behold the hardened state of the son. Like the two thieves on the cross. Who can contemplate that sight without a mixture of joy and terror: Both so near Jesus, and yet the one as unconscious as the dead; while the other manifests forth so illustrious an evidence of the highest faith and truest repentance. Oh! thou, blessed author and finisher of our faith and salvation, grant, if it be thy blessed will, both to Writer and Reader, suited grace to profit by such striking examples. Let everything tend to lead our hearts to thee, for of thee cometh our salvation. Lord open our eyes, unstop our ears, that we may no longer be uncircumcised in heart and spirit; but make us altogether what thou wouldest have us to be, and work in us both to will and to do of thy good pleasure.