Genesis 17:24-27

REFLECTIONS

My Christian Brother! Are you included in this blessed Covenant? Have you the marks and characters of it? Can you say as Paul did, We are the true circumcision, which worship God in spirit; rejoice in Christ Jesus; and have no confidence in the flesh. Pause over the question! And oh! that a gracious God may grant you an answer of peace. If this be your portion, then need you nothing more to make you happy. For God saith to you as to the Patriarch; I will give you the land wherein you are a stranger. And where is that, but heaven? Dearest Jesus! hast thou not taken possession of it in the name of thy people? and hast thou not promised, that thou wilt come again and receive them to thyself, that where thou art, there they shall be also.

Poor timorous, doubting Believer! Did God say to Abraham that he would bless him, and in confirmation of it, reveal himself by this glorious name-the Almighty God; beg of him then for grace to convert this promise into a prayer: and plead, that the same God may be to thee and thine, the God all-sufficient. And oh! that every gracious soul may find grace us the Patriarch did, to intreat God for the Ishmael's of his household, the unawakened and careless around him. And may the Lord's answer be as gracious. I have heard thee.