Ezekiel 30:26

REFLECTIONS

PAUSE, Reader, over this chapter, and connect with it the former; and learn from both the sure and certain purposes of the Lord in their accomplishment. When we thus view the Lord Jehovah going forth to punish the nations, and especially with an eye for the injuries done to his people, what a solemn representation doth it afford of the sovereignty of God? Oh! could we but learn more humbly to bend before the just and all-wise decision of the Lord, in his dispensations both of men and things, how differently would be our estimate of right and wrong to what it now is? Here, in this chapter as well as in several others around, we behold the Lord's jealousy for his people in the punishment of the nations; in all which we ought to mark his sovereignty, and to bow down implicitly before it. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Wherefore and whence his dispensations are so directed? why Christ, his great gift, is held forth to one nation with a full, free, and extended hand, while others know not the Lord, nor the operation of his hand? who shall take upon him to determine? It is the Lord, (said an ancient deeply-exercised soul, under the heaviest afflictions), let him do what seemeth him good. This was enough to stop all complaints. He adds no more. Blessed Lord! give me grace in the reading of thy judgments, and, marking thy mercies, to learn, like David, to sing of both, and to direct my song to thee. For sure I am thy glory is in all; and when this is the object to be attained, Egypt's destruction or Israel's deliverance, must be right. Again I say, Shall not the Judge of the earth do right?