Nehemiah 9:38

REFLECTIONS

READER! there is a sweet improvement suggested to us in this solemn fast of God's ancient people, which we shall do well to observe, for this will be to convert their afflictions into a source for our joy. I mean the sense they had of the long series of blessings shown to them and their fathers, and their sad use and abuse of them. And was Israel singular in this? May not you and I justly take up the same language? Have not our lives been marked with mercy? Our fathers and their fathers through every past generation; what do the histories of all speak, but the same solemn truth; God's grace and man's unworthiness. Hence the Psalmist, after a long and beautiful recapitulation of divine love and goodness, as manifested in the history of Israel, makes this charming observation; Whoso is wise will ponder these things; and they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. And Reader! if we ponder these things as they concern our own private history, depend upon it, like Israel, we shall discover God's gracious tokens all the way along the path of life we have trodden; and his pardons and blessings in the midst of all our ingratitude, and rebellion, and sin.

But when the mind is oppressed and overwhelmed under such a sense of departures and backslidings from the Lord God of our fathers, what a relief is afforded in the contemplation of God's covenant love in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. How infinitely precious to every poor sinner becomes the view then of Jesus and his finished salvation? How delightful is it to take refuge in Jesus when under a conscious sense that I am nothing but sin, he is the Lord my righteousness; and he is made of God to all his people wisdom, and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Oh! precious Redeemer! to thee I come; in thee my soul finds confidence. Thy blood and righteousness pleads more for thy people's salvation than all their transgressions plead against them. Here then, do I desire, like the Princes, and Levites, and Priests of the congregation, to renew the covenant in thee, for thou art the whole of it, and set to my seal that God is true.