Matthew 26:75

REFLECTIONS

Reader! in looking back upon the many wonderful events related in this Chapter, let us admire as well we may, the boundless love of the Lord Jesus, in the tender institution of his holy supper. For as the type and shadow of the Jewish Passover, was now forever to cease, when He the true Christian Passover to which that service ministered, was sacrificed for us; it was an act of the highest love and mercy, in our dear Redeemer, to set up this precious ordinance in his Church, as a standing memorial of his death, until his coming again. And surely Jesus hath endeared it and recommended it by every affecting circumstance, when we consider the time when he instituted it; the manner in which he observed it himself, and commanded its perpetual observance by his people: with all the blessed effects he hath promised in it, from his gracious presence, in those holy seasons of communion: and the sure mercies, which shall accompany the faithful use of it. Oh! for grace, frequently thus to set forth the Lord's death till he come!

And oh! thou dearest Redeemer! grant both the Writer and Reader the blessed unction of thine Holy Spirit, as often as we follow thy steps by faith, to the garden of Gethsemane. Here may we oft resort in spirit, as Jesus in the days of his flesh oft resorted with his disciples.

And Lord grant, that we enter into thy retirings, and by watchfulness and prayer, go over in review again and again, the soul-agonies and soul-travails of Jesus: taking interest in all that we behold, of his sorrows for us and our salvation. Oh! for grace thus to read and thus to meditate on the person, work, offices, characters, and relations of the Lord Jesus Christ! To behold him, and to know him, who was made sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.