Daniel 10:21

REFLECTIONS

READER! let our improvement of this blessed Chapter be, to admire the wonderful grace, love, and condescension of our adorable Lord Jesus; in his manifestation to his servant the Prophet: and the solemn effect wrought upon the Prophet's mind, even in the mercy.

Precious Lord! never can thy people sufficiently admire the astonishing love that must be in thine heart, when we behold such evidences of thine attention towards them. Was it not enough, blessed Jesus, when the fulness of time should come, that thou shouldest so readily and freely give thy back to the smiters, and thy cheeks to them that plucked off the hair? And was it not to show thy people in the several ages before the time arrived, how much thy soul was bent to redeem them, and that thine whole heart was towards them, and full of love? And in confirmation of it, didst thou, dearest Emanuel, visit then one and then another of thy saints, and tell them, that they were greatly beloved? Lord! shed abroad a portion of that love in our cold hearts, and cause, us to love thee, who hast so freely and so greatly loved us!

Reader! do not close this Chapter, neither pass away from the contents of it, until that thou hast duly pondered what is here said of Daniel's comeliness, turned into corruption, in the view of the Holy One. Think, my brother sinner, I beseech you, how solemn, how awful, how overwhelming, must be the open view of Christ in his glory; What must be the feelings of the soul, in the moment of death, when departing the body, at the first interview; yea, the first glimpse, of the Lord Jesus? I am speaking now of God's redeemed ones; of souls truly regenerated, and who are clothed in the robe of Jesus's own righteousness. Yet even with them, how solemn, how truly awful and affecting! But, if so, think again, my brother, and ask the heart, what it must be to the soul of him, who cometh up from the bed of death without a surety, without the Redeemer's righteousness, and without Christ as an advocate! What trembling, what paleness, what horror, must then be upon the soul? Lord Jesus! be thou my righteousness now; and then wilt thou be my everlasting confidence, through life, in death, at the day of judgment, and forevermore. Amen.