Psalms 105:45

REFLECTIONS

Now, Reader! you have gone through that part of the Church's history, from the call of Abraham to the settling of the Church in Canaan, and seen how lovely it sets forth God's covenant love and mercy - in Christ; what say you to your personal interest in these things? The apostle Paul's comment upon this history should always be uppermost in our remembrance, whenever we read this account of the Church. Now these things, saith Paul, were our ensamples. By these God the Holy Ghost is now teaching the Church. And if a believing soul so reads, and is so taught of God, as to see his personal concern in the whole, as a part of Christ's mystical body, he will involuntarily join the hymn of praise with which this Psalm begins, and cry out, O give thanks unto the Lord, and call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people.

But chiefly, Reader, let you and I view God's covenant love in these solemn transactions, and trace it to its source; in the fountain-head of all mercies, God in Christ in his great salvation. Yes! blessed Jesus, it was thou whom Moses typified, when, at the call of God, he came to deliver thy people, thy chosen! Egypt, at this hour, is still the bondage of the soul, under which all thy people groan, until by thy mighty arm thou bringest them out. And oh! what miracles of grace dost thou work to confute thy foes, and to encourage thy redeemed! While turning water into blood, and alarming the enemies of thy people with tokens of thy displeasure to dismay them, thou art converting the rocky heart into a heart of flesh, and making a wilderness dispensation to blossom as a rose, to give drink to thy people, thy chosen. Blessed Lord! thus nourish my soul through every remaining part of my pilgrimage, until thou shalt bring me out of all, into thine heavenly kingdom, to rejoice evermore in thy great salvation, and to sing upon the everlasting hills the triumphs of Jesus, and his Church in him. Praise, praise the Lord. Amen.