Proverbs 6:35

REFLECTIONS.

PRECIOUS Lord Jesus! I feel constrained while reading what is here said of a surety, and the sad state in which such an one involves himself, to call to mind what thy love must have been, which prompted thine infinite breast to enter into suretyship engagements for thy people, and what a state of unequalled sorrows the gracious act induced. In the contemplation of it, I cannot but pass over every other subject which this chapter might otherwise awaken to profit, to consider the greatness of thy love, and the greatness of the calamities which it brought to thy holy soul. Never surely was there an act so truly blessed, gracious, and beneficent as this. In this one act thou didst put thyself in the law-place, and room of all thy chosen. And by that act thou didst undertake both for our debt and for our duty; both to cancel sin and to fulfil all righteousness. And now, Lord, in such views of thee and thine unparalleled mercy, where shall I look but to thee? To whom shall I come but to Jesus? Hast thou struck out my name from the dreadful bond debt where it stood, and where it must forever have stood but for thee, hast thou paid it all, cancelled it all; and when I lay forever insolvent, hast thou redeemed me from all? And shall I, can I reject thine infinite love, and go about to establish mine own righteousness, and forget the wormwood and the gall, the prison and the pit from which thou hast freed me? Oh! infinite love, passing all knowledge. Let me, blessed Redeemer, since thou hast brought me off, and brought me out, let me live to thy glory and to thy praise; and among all thy ransomed, bless forever the almighty surety whose hand was striken for such a stranger, and whose soul travail became so exquisite to redeem me from death. May the life thus saved by grace be spent to thy service, and since by purchase and redemption I am thine, may my soul bless thee, love thee, and delight in thee forever.