Daniel 2:49

REFLECTIONS

READER! let you and I contemplate the God of Daniel in his providences, as well as in his grace. Oh! what an arrangement of events and things were here, in order to raise the Lord's poor captives from their low estate, to an high. Surely, that scripture was eminently fulfilled; He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill: that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people. But let us not rest here, but remember also, that the events recorded in this Chapter were for the comfort of the Church then in captivity: or as Daniel told the King, it was for their sakes that the secret was disclosed to Daniel, that is, the sake of his Church, his chosen. Not to inform an idolatrous King and his court, unless to damp and mortify their pride, that Babylon must fall, and all monarchies unto Christ, be as the potsherds of the earth; but that the Church of the living God might know that Jehovah was still as ever, watching over their interests, and would in due time, hasten on and establish forever the kingdom of his dear Son. Here, Reader! let you and I make our improvements of this blessed Chapter, and at the same time recollect, that this, and this only, is at the bottom, of all Jehovah's dispensations, to bring forward Jesus and his great salvation; that, as the scripture gloriously explains it, Jehovah might, in the dispensation of the fulness of time, gather together in one all, things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are in earth, even in Him. Hallelujah, Amen.

But chiefly, Reader! let our improvement of this Chapter be to contemplate Him, whom under the similitude of a little stone cut out without hands, was both to destroy all the images of idolatry, and to become a mountain, and fill the earth! Oh, precious, precious Lord Jesus, in thee I behold all this most blessedly fulfilled! and on thee would I hang the whole of my soul's meditation, as the Bee hangs upon the sweetest flower. Surely, Lord, without human hands, or human power, or human policy, or human strength, thou camest forth unknown, unperceived, unsought of men, at the call of God thy Father, for the salvation of thy people, and the destruction of thine enemies. Little indeed, and despised, a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; but, oh! how infinitely precious in the sight of Jehovah, and in the love and admiration of thy people. And how hast thou, Lord, since the day of thy servant Daniel, fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, all that was then promised. Oh! do thou Almighty mountain! fill heaven and earth; yea, all the hearts of thy people with thy glory. Hasten, Lord, the glorious hour, when all the kingdoms of the earth shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and thou shalt reign forever.