Joel 1:20

REFLECTIONS

READER! mark in the instance of this Prophet to what all-the other Prophets of God bear equal testimony; the process of grace in all ages is the same. Sin brings forth sorrow, and godly sorrow through grace leads to Christ for salvation. From, the first transgressor in the garden of Eden, to the last fallen son or daughter of Adam to the end of the world, divine teachings invariably produce the same effect. The fathers to the children may therefore make known the Lord's truth, and the Lord's praise. Reader! it is most blessed to see, and yet more blessed to experience, our own personal interest in those divine teachings. I the Lord teacheth, thee to profit, may be discerned and read by every enlightened eye as the title page of the whole of inspiration. And when, in the corrections and visitations of the Lord, by the Lord's great army, we plainly discover the Lord's hand; when in the locusts and palmer worms of the earth, we both hear the rod and who hath appointed it; when the fatherly reproofs of a gracious God in Christ are sanctified to bring the heart to Christ: oh! how blessed are the awakening judgments of our God, in rousing his people from the sottish stupidity and indolence in which the world and its pursuits have intoxicated the soul, and calling home the heart to Jesus and his salvation. Lord! I pray thee put a cry in every heart of thy redeemed! Especially stir up the ministers of my God in the present awful hour of Zion's languishing, to cry aloud and spare not, for the Lord's deliverance of his people. Oh! for the Lord to be very jealous for his Zion, and make her yet the praise and perfection of the whole earth. Amen.