Jeremiah 39:18

REFLECTIONS

WHO would have believed (saith the Prophet) among the kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem! But the cause is immediately given. For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, it is that which hath shed the blood of the just in the midst of her. But Reader! behold not only in this history, but in the history of all the earth, what sin hath wrought. It was sin that caused the destruction of the old world by a flood! It was sin that gave rise to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire. And it as sin, by which death hath entered into the circumstances of all mankind, and destroys all, because all have sinned. And would you see a yet more tremendous display of the effects of sin, than the everlasting destruction of rebellious men and angels, put all together; behold it in the death of Christ; when he who knows no sin became sin and a curse for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Yea, Reader, in the Son of God taking upon him our nature, and dying, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God, there is a greater manifestation of the awful nature of sin, than the overthrow and annihilation of all the creation of God would have been in proof!

Pause then, my soul, over these solemn considerations! Behold the judgments against sin, going on throughout the earth! Look at the effects of sin, in the sorrows, and wars, and carnage, and miseries, both in private life and public bodies. And when the full influence of these solemn things are suitably felt in thine own apprehension, look unto Jesus, the only refuge and consolation under all. Oh! for grace to know him, who by death hath destroyed him that had the power of death; and delivered them who through fear of death are all their life time subject to bondage.