Ezekiel 17:24

REFLECTIONS

Who can read a chapter of this nature but with wonder and astonishment, while beholding the baseness and deep-rooted sin of man, and the overflowing and preventing mercy of God! To view Israel as a nation and people overturned, in captivity and ruin, and yet unhumbled under such alarming providences! To behold them, from the king to the peasant, unfaithful, perfidious, and base; adding falsehood to rebellion; and, by the solemnity of an oath, calling in God himself to witness to a lie, and to bear testimony to an assurance which they never intended to perform! Lord! what is man, even when brought down under the most humbling providences? How evident is it from such a view of human nature, that no sufferings, no trials, no afflictions, can work any change, unless the sovereign grace of God commissions and sanctifies!

From such distressing subjects of human worthlessness, Lord give both Writer and Reader grace to turn unto Thee. Surely, blessed Lord, in the representation here made of our natural depravity, and the riches of thy mercy, taking occasion therefrom to the greater display of thy goodness, that sweet scripture is most blessedly fulfilled, Where sin abounded, grace doth much more abound; that as sin hath reigned unto death, so might grace through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessed Lord! help us to praise Thee, that Thou didst not only promise, but hast performed, that great work of redemption, in planting that branch of renown in Thine holy mountain! Yea, Lord, in the person of Thy dear Son Thou hast manifested Thy grace and Thy glory, and opened to Thy Church a blessed and everlasting tree of life in the paradise of God. Oh! for grace to come under the healing branches of it here, and under the full enjoyment of it hereafter, when there shall be no more curse, but all the captivities of sin, sorrow, and death shall be done away.