Psalms 12:8

REFLECTIONS

READER, there never was a period of the Church, when this Psalm seemed to be more applicable. How few are there asking the way to Zion! How many the vacancies made by death in the congregations of the faithful! And who is there pleading, crying, wrestling with Zion's King in prayer, and determined to take no denial, that the Lord would fill those vacancies, and raise up a generation to call him blessed? Alas, alas! may it not with too much truth be said, all seek their own, and not the things of Jesus Christ? Blessed Lord, help us to look to thee. O for grace to be poured out from on high on churches, ministers, people; that the Lord would yet make Zion a praise in the earth. Oh! that the cause of truth, of God, and of his Christ, were become the most interesting concern of all his people. Oh! ye servants of Jesus, cry, cry mightily to the Lord; and tell him how Zion languisheth. And ye who love her courts and ordinances, pray, pray for the peace of Jerusalem; for they shall prosper that love Zion. But oh! from men, my soul, look thou to the Lord. Tell thy Jesus, that Zion must be dear to him, when her walls are always before him, and her name graven on the palms of his sacred hands. O, then, Lord, let my soul hear, by the ear of faith, thine own most precious promise, again and again repeated. Now for the oppressions of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord. Come, Lord! take thy glorious cause into thine own most glorious hand: then wilt thou turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon thy name, and serve thee with one consent; even from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, thy suppliants, even the daughters of thy dispersed, shall bring thine offering.