Revelation 16:21

REFLECTIONS

Look up, and contemplate the Lord, sending forth from his Church, the seven Angels, and messengers with his seven last plagues, to take vengeance on his enemies, and to deliver his people. Then let the Reader consider, how sure, how everlastingly sure, is the Lord's Church and people. What though for a while the enemy seems to triumph, and the redeemed of the Lord are oppressed by the mighty, yet the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord, who is also their strength in the time of need.

How awful are these pourings out of the vials of divine wrath? One after another, arising higher and higher in the scale of judgment. But so desperately hardened in sin, are the enemies of our God, and of his Christ, that though the sinner is scorched with fire and great heat, yet he only blasphemes the name of God, and repents not to give the Lord glory.

My soul! learn from hence, to trace all thy mercies to their source. It is God's everlasting love, which hath chosen thee in Christ, and preserved thee in Christ, and accepted thee in Christ, before the foundation of the world. Hence, all thy mercies in Jesus, by which the vials of wrath, poured out upon the ungodly cannot come nigh thee. Blessed Jesus! let my soul be on the lookout for thy coming, that no midnight hour may surprise me, no blasphemies of men or devils may alarm me. And, when Babylon shall come into remembrance before God, and our God shall give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath, thy Church may shout aloud in her destruction, and both heaven and earth praise God with exceeding joy.