2 Kings 5:27

REFLECTIONS

READER! though I have already detained you, as we have passed through this chapter, with several suitable reflections, as they appeared to my view, and arose in my mind, yet I would call upon you before we close the book, to gather up a few more of a spiritual nature, which I pray the Lord to make profitable.

If we have been reading the history of Naaman's leprosy, as a matter remote from ourselves, and simply no other than a transaction which occurred in the annals of Israel, many years since; we have lost all the gracious designs which the Holy Ghost had in view, in causing such a memorable event to be recorded. Reader! you and I, and every child of Adam, bring with us into the world the leprosy of sin. Behold! (says David) I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Are you, Reader, sensible of this? Do you know it? Do you believe it? Oh! then, I say as the captive maid in Syria; Would to God you were with the Prophet that is in Samaria, even the Lord God of the prophets, the Lord Jesus Christ, for he would recover you of your leprosy!

And, Reader! do not come, as the Syrian did, with chariots and horses; do not seek with gifts and rewards to purchase redemption. Our Jesus is too rich to need our gold; too gracious to accept anything from his creatures. He hath a fulness, a suitableness, an all-sufficiency in himself; and his precious blood cleanseth from all sins. Dearest Jesus! behold I come to thee. No Naaman, no leper at the foot of the mountain; no Ethiopian can need cleansing more than I the cry of my soul is, Lord! if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean! Oh! then put forth thy gracious hand; put forth thy sovereign grace in my soul, and pronounce the healing word, I will; be thou clean; and immediately my soul shall be healed. And healed by thee, like Naaman, my soul will he fully convinced that there is no God in all the earth, no other name under heaven given among men, whereby sinners may be saved! Oh! for grace to know with Paul, now that we are washed, that we are sanctified, that we are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. And shortly we shall then come to sing that song with all the congregation in heaven, who were once leprous as ourselves, but have been cleansed in the same laver of redemption; thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.