Acts 16:40

REFLECTIONS

Amidst many gracious improvements to be made of this Chapter, I would desire to remark the Lord's merciful manifestations, in the instances here recorded of sovereign grace, in opening the heart of Lydia by the sweet constraining cords of love; and in alarming into conviction the heart of the Jailor, by the trembling convulsions of horror, and anguish of soul. Oh! how various, how wonderful, and how full of mercy in all, are the multiform ways of our wonder-working God! He will beautify the meek with salvation. He will pull down the strong-holds of sin in his people; and make the stubborn knee of the soul to bend to his power.

Reader! have you observed, carefully observed, what is said in this Chapter of God the Spirit? How truly awful to read of his forbidding the word to be preached in Asia! How strikingly solemn, that when the servants of the Lord assayed to go into Bithynia, the Spirit suffered them not. Reader! have you noticed these things? And can you notice such things without pausing to remark, yea, and to remark with astonishment, wonder, love, and praise also, that the Lord hath not long, long since forbidden it in our guilty land? Oh! the forbearance of our God to the present Christ-despising generation! Lord! let it never be said of our British Judah, I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it! But, oh! in mercy grant, that the goodness and long suffering of our God may lead to repentance.