Psalms 39:13

REFLECTIONS

READER! let our improvements on this solemn meditation of the Psalmist, (for we are all, as men, equally interested in it), lead out our thoughts upon the same necessary subject. Have we ever lifted the earnest supplication like him unto God for grace, so to number our days as to apply our hearts unto wisdom? Have we so counted ourselves for strangers and sojourners upon earth, as like sojourners only to make Christ our home, our resting place, our one only pursuit, our one only desire? My brother! I would say, are you a stranger upon earth? Then surely your plan of life, your pursuit, your conversation, your daily walk, will be as the pilgrim, foreign to all the customs, manners, habits, pleasures, and delights of those around. If a sojourner only, then this is not your home, nor are these objects worth your regard. Are you then asking for the good old way the holy fathers trod? Are you seeking the way to Zion with your face thitherward? Is Jesus the pearl of great price, God your Father, the Holy Spirit your guide, the church of Christ your inn, the ordinances of the gospel like waggons on the road to refresh you, and the holy sabbaths like so many wells of salivation to draw from? Oh! how blessed is it to sit loose and detached from all things here below, that we may have our conversation in heaven, that while going home to our Father's house we may use the world as not abusing it, knowing that the fashion of it passeth away; and, like the patriarchs, may be always on the look-out for that city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.