Genesis 42:38

REFLECTIONS

Learn, my soul, that gracious lesson to live above ordinances while favoured in the use of them; that when the means fail, the LORD of the means, who never faileth, may be thy portion forever. And if at any time thy JESUS should seem to make himself strange to thee, and by his dispensations to speak roughly unto thee, never doubt but that faithful are the wounds of thy friend: he is still a brother born for adversity.

Hail thou spiritual Joseph! thou almighty governor, and no less our brother, in whose hands are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. To thee we come for food. Before thy sacred presence would we bow the knee. We are indeed verily guilty before thee; for, like the unnatural brethren, we have sold thee by our sins, and hid our faces from the anguish of thy soul by our iniquities. But GOD hath sent thee before us to preserve us a posterity in the earth, and to save our lives by a great deliverance. Nourish us, dearest LORD, how unworthy soever thy favor; and feed us with that living bread which came down from heaven; so will we praise thy mercy, and adore thy name.