Ezekiel 4:17

REFLECTIONS

READER! amidst many very sweet and profitable subjects suggested to our contemplation by the several types in this Chapter, I feel my mind constrained to one or two more immediately striking; and may the Lord direct yours also to the contemplation of the same. Who can overlook the Lord Christ as the great burden-bearer of his Church and people, while reading of God's appointment of Ezekiel to represent the bearing of iniquity: or, who that knows the blessedness of abundance, both in temporals and spirituals, but must be instantly led to eye Christ, as the bread of life, and the sanctifying mercy in the bread that perisheth with using, when sitting down to the enjoyment of either. Surely the Prophet was but the faintest type of Jesus, under the character of a burden-bearer, when laying on his side. Painful as the posture must have been, yet, what was it to Jesus hanging on the cross, suffering not only agonies of body, but the deepest anguish of soul when dying, the just for the unjust to bring us unto God! Precious Lord! may my soul behold thee often under this blessed character! And may I daily know, what it is to live upon thy fulness, and that the Holy Ghost breaketh to me daily of thee the staff of life, of which whosoever eateth shall live forever. Lord! evermore give me this bread!