Ezekiel 47:23

REFLECTIONS

HERE let my soul take her stand, where the Prophet once stood, and as I behold by the eye of faith, as he then did by vision, the waters issuing from under the threshold of the Lord's house, I would call to mind and contemplate that pure water of life, clear as crystal, which John also saw, to the same purport, and from the same cause, even from the throne of God and the Lamb. Yes! truly, O Lord, all blessings flow in and from Jehovah in his threefold character of Person; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; through the Lamb, Christ Jesus. And oh! how full of healing, sovereign, quickening, cleansing, refreshing, sanctifying grace, are all the thousand streams. Oh! what rich, full, everlasting, ever flowing, and overflowing waters, these are! How they run in the ordinances of the Gospel, and through the several means of grace! In some places to the ankles, in others to the knees, in others to the loins, and in others becoming even a river for the redeemed souls to bathe in! Surely they are commissioned by Him, from whom they issue, to give life, and to give it more abundantly! It is only those marshy and miry souls, who resist the life-giving stream, that are given up to perpetual barrenness! But everywhere, even to the Dead Sea of dead sinners hearts, where this water comes, it quickens to immediate life. Truly, blessed Jesus, mightest thou well call this perennial spring living water; and the water of life; for it springeth up in my soul, and in every soul whom thou causest to partake of it, a well of water springing up to everlasting life. Oh! for every poor sinner that hears of this life-giving stream, to come to it, freely given as it is, without money and without price!

Reader! contemplate the many blessed things of Gospel mercies, contained in this lovely Chapter. Behold the streams of grace; behold the trees of life on the banks of the river, and the many, yea, very many trees of the Lord's right hand planting, on either side! Behold those living waters going forth towards the East Country, and toward the desert of our poor dry nature. And then look up with me, yea, let us both look up together, to the great source, and fountain of those mercies, in Jesus, and pray the Lord to send the healing streams in every direction, to bless the Church of our Lord Jesus throughout the whole habitable earth. O Sacred River! do thou make glad the city of our God. Amen.