Psalms 139:24

REFLECTIONS

READER! it may, and it will be highly profitable to your heart and mine, under the teaching of the Holy Ghost, to keep in view the consciousness of the divine presence, wherever we are, or however engaged. If this great article of the Christian faith were but properly kept alive in the mind, through grace, it would tend to check many an improper thought, which now, through the want of recollection, and the corruption within, breaks forth. But, Reader! if this Psalm leads your heart, as it doth mine, to the contemplation of Jesus, what blessings doth it open to our view in this prospect of the manhood of Christ. Think of his astonishing debasement! of his unequalled humility! Was Jesus indeed thus fearfully and wonderfully made? Was he thus formed in the lower parts of the earth; and were all his members written before the earth, or the habitable part of the dust of the world was formed? Were the counsels of his Father dear to him, and precious, in that these counsels appointed the redemption of his people by him, and all in him. Lamb of God! was this for me, even for me? Oh! what grace, what love which passeth knowledge, was in all this; and how precious ought the thoughts of thee, blessed Jesus, to be to me! and oh! how great the sum of them! Lord! give me grace henceforth to live to thee, to rejoice in thee, and unceasingly to view thee as the Lord my righteousness. I would humbly adopt thine own words: See, Lord, that there be nothing of allowed wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!