Mark 11:33

REFLECTIONS.

READER! I would call upon you, as I would call upon myself; and may GOD the HOLY GHOST mercifully call upon both, to behold the LORD JESUS, in the opening of this chapter, as manifesting his double nature in his one glorious person, the GOD-Man Mediator; both in his unequalled humility when entering Jerusalem, in having salvation, and yet lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. And who less than GOD, could have exercised the knowledge of Omniscience so as to direct his disciples where to find the colt; and the power of inclining the minds of those the disciples were to meet, to fulfil CHRIST's wishes in the loan of the colt? Who less than GOD could have taught the children in the temple of CHRIST's person and character? And what power less than divine, could have constrained those babes to shout Hosannah to the glory of JESUS; when the elders, and many of them very probably the parents of those little ones, were doing all their malice could contrive, to stop their hymns of praise?

Reader! behold the barren fig tree! Observe its fruitless verdure! Figure to yourself the state of a church, a people, a family; yea, an individual, thus! And calculate if you can the awful state of appearing flourishing to the eye of man, while under the blighting curse of GOD. Oh! the tremendous sentence, could it be heard, concerning the unauthorized, uncalled, unsent minister, or graceless people No man eat fruit of thee for ever

LORD JESUS! increase our faith! let mountains of sin and unbelief be removed through faith in thy person, blood, and righteousness! And oh! let the malice of thy foes, and the opposition made by men to thee and thy Gospel, endear both to our heart. And grant such rich supplies of grace in the knowledge of thy person and work, that our faith may never be founded in the wisdom of man, but in the power of GOD.