The benefit of reflection


It is the duty, and will be for the benefit of every true servant of God, occasionally to reflect, with due seriousness, on his own original state, on the rise and progress of religion in his own soul, and of the experience which he has thus individually had of the Divine power, goodness and mercy.

I. THE PERSONS HERE ADDRESSED. Those who "follow after righteousness" and "seek the Lord." How exactly does this description accord to the true people of God under the Christian Church?

II. THE EXHORTATION ADDRESSED TO THEM. "Look unto the rock," ete. The meaning is obvious, "Look back unto yourselves. Consider what you once were; in what a depth of misery you were originally sunk. Reflect on the natural hardness of your heart: on its insensibiliyt to spiritual things; on its dreadful alienation from God. See this state of things exemplified —

1. In your original conversion to God.

2. In your subsequent conduct towards God. Since the time in which you first knew Him in truth, and gave yourself up to serve Him in the gospel of His Son, what has been the state of your heart, of its affections, its tempers, and its dispositions? Have all these been uniformly such as this surrender and profession imply and require? Application: Whet lessons do these reflections teach.

1. Humility and-self-abasement.

2. Patience, contentment and resignation.

3. The necessity of a continual dependence on Divine grace to work in you both to will and to do.

4. Hope and encouragement.But the subject admits also of another less exclusive application. It furnishes one lesson of general importance: for it teaches ,as how holy and practical in its tendency is true, evangelical religion.

(E. Cooper.)

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