Isaiah 17:14

REFLECTIONS

READER! mark the burden of Damascus; and behold, in the history of that people, the final end of all the enemies of God, and of his Christ. Of what avail was the splendour of this kingdom, or the power of her armies? Though the haughty Syrian exclaimed, in the vanity of his heart, Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters in Israel? yet, like the waters of the Dead Sea, everything around them, and in them, and what was brought forth from their watering, produced nothing but death. Without God, without Christ, no ordinances of grace, no word of salvation, no blood of sprinkling! Alas, when the evil day cometh, and the prosperous days of carnal delights are once over, all is over!

Precious Redeemer! let mine eyes be unto thee, and let my soul have respect unto the Holy One of Israel! Surely nothing can truly sweeten even the sweets of this life, that they shall have no bitterness mingled up with them, except thou art in them; and the very thoughts of an hereafter (until a conscious interest in thee, and in thy salvation, makes that hereafter truly blessed) will be forever full of horrors to the thinking mind. Be thou, therefore, precious Jesus, the all of this life, and of that which is to come. In thee, and from thee, let all my springs flow; for then, and then only, will my meditation of thee be sweet.