Psalms 78:72

REFLECTIONS

READER, let us make a solemn pause over the perusal of this most interesting Psalm. And when we have taken a careful survey of its precious contents, let us beg of God the Holy Ghost, the almighty Author of it, to give us grace so to read, and so to improve it to our own use and benefit, that his gracious design may be accomplished, in having caused it to be written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of this world are come.

And to this end, Lord, we would pray that we may have a clear and distinct apprehension of the sacramental design of thy grace all along in tended from the church's history. Didst thou bring thy people by thine own power, and with a stretched out arm, from Egypt? Didst thou lead them through the wilderness, manifest thy grace to them all the way, and finally settle them in Canaan? And hast thou not, by the sovereignty of the same wonders in redeeming love, brought thy church now out of spiritual Egypt, and art thou not leading thy people home to thyself in the everlasting Canaan, which is above, through all the wilderness dispensations with which they are exercised, while thy presence is ever with them, and thine arm conducting them along in safety? - Were thy redeemed blessed with the visible symbols of thy divine presence, the pillar of cloud going before them by day, and the pillar of fire protecting them by night; manna from heaven for their food, and the rock to give water for their thirst? And dost thou teach us that these were so many sacraments, types, and figures of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, shedding his illuminating, guiding, protecting grace; the manna of heaven, even Jesus the living bread, and the rock, even Christ the living water, to supply every need? Oh! Lord, grant, we beseech thee, that our souls, like the Israelites bodies, amidst the dust of a wilderness, the serpents and scorpions of a sultry soil, may thirst with a vehement thirst, as the hart for the cooling streams, panting, longing, and looking to Jesus, the only one to assuage the thirst of our souls. Didst thou, blessed Jesus, in the day-time lead them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire; oh! then, give us to see that thou art still with thy church, still loving, still protecting, still feeding, and wilt never leave them nor forsake them, until thou hast brought them home unto thyself, that where thou art there they may be also. And do thou keep us, Lord, from the awful examples here set before us. Oh! for grace to believe the record God hath given of his Son! and, above all sins, preserve us from that dreadful, dreadful sin of a Christ-despising generation! May we never tempt Christ; never doubt either his power to save, or his willingness to redeem; nor murmur, as some of them murmured, lest, like them, we be destroyed of the destroyer; but with an eye to thee, in all thy rich dispensations, view thy sacramental designs in all the eventful history. Yes, blessed Jesus! our desire is to thee, and to the remembrance of thy name. May we eat of the same spiritual meat, and drink of the same spiritual drink; yea, may we drink deep into the full assurance of that blessed truth, that we are now, by faith, as much as the church of old, drinking of that spiritual rock that followed them, convinced that that Rock was Christ.