Isaiah 22:25

REFLECTIONS

BLESSED Jesus! I pass over every lesser subject, and every lesser object, to fix mine eyes on thee, oh thou excelling excellence of all perfection! The burden indeed of the valley of vision. It is the Lord, who for thine own people, thine Israel and Judah after the flesh, hath brought thee forth, as the glorious Eliakim, over thy Father's house, and for the covering of Judah which was by sin uncovered, and for repairing the many many breaches of David, which transgression had opened; thou, and thou only, couldst be competent to perform! All our own attempts, and every aspiring exertion of man, were found but as the pride of Shebna. Nothing could restore what sin had taken away, until thou, the Lord of life and glory, came from heaven, to bring back the waste heritages, and to restore the desolations of many generations. Hail! thou glorious almighty Jesus. Blessed be God our Father, who hath called thee over his house, and committed all government into thine hand, that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.

Help us, Lord, to hang all the stress of our salvation, both our being, and our well-being, wholly on thee. And do thou, Lord, for thou only hast the key of David, to do it, open thy treasures of wisdom and knowledge to our raptured view, and open our souls to the enjoyment of them. Open thy word, and open our eyes to see it, and our hearts to enjoy it, our ears to hear, and our tongues to proclaim the wonders of redemption. And oh, Lord! shut out all thoughts that would arise, to rob us of our delight in thee, and our whole dependence upon thee. Let every faculty of our souls, by the almightiness of thy power, be resolutely shut against everything but Jesus. Drive, Lord, every buyer and seller out of thy temple, which is our bodies; and let nothing open our souls to receive ought but thee. Say to our hearts, to our affections, Open, ye gates, that the Lord Jesus, the King of glory, may come in, in the daily, hourly influences of his grace, until he finally and fully open the everlasting gates of heaven, to take us home, to the enjoyment of glory in Jesus forever. Amen.