Ecclesiastes 8:17

REFLECTIONS

READER! while the preacher is demanding, who is as the wise man? let us be looking unto Jesus, until that our eyes are enlightened in beholding him as wisdom itself, the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person. And so let our souls look and gaze upon that first fair, first beautiful, first and only Holy One, until that from beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

And Reader! while thus looking unto Jesus, until brought into some degree of conformity to him in all things; contemplate at the same time the dark, wretched, and deplorable state of those who are ignorant of him. Behold the end of these men. Though sentence against them is not executed speedily; yea, though their days be prolonged to even the dregs of old age; yet, how in the end will the voice of murdered years and days be lifted up against them? Oh! The soul agony of lying down at last in eternal sorrow!

My brother! think of the felicity of souls redeemed by Jesus, and beg of God the Holy Ghost for grace, that you may cast your lot in among them, and with them have one portion. This will be to sit down to a perpetual feast, and never to be cloyed: but the grace of Jesus, yea, Jesus himself shall abide with him, as the wise man speaks, All the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.