I have not broken the thread of the subject in these verses, because the whole, taken together, forms a most beautiful description of the divine bounty in those several productions of nature. The blessings of the Lord in fruitful gifts and seasons to the earth, and to the inhabitants of it, are delightfully set forth. And as Moses taught Israel to expect the perpetual return of those things, so the continued enjoyment of them should call forth blessings and praises to the almighty Giver. Exodus 23:16. But the subject is heightened to a more sublime degree of enjoyment, if, looking beyond the gifts of God in the natural world, we accept those scriptures as descriptive of his spiritual bounty in the world of grace: and we meet with numberless passages in the word of God, to prove that the Holy Ghost evidently intended that the church should so receive them. The wilderness of our nature is said to blossom as the rose, when the Lord visited our earthly minds with the dew of his blessing; and when Jesus comes down, like rain upon the mown grass, on the dry and thirsty souls of his people. The year is indeed crowned with the Lord's goodness, when the year of his redeemed is come, and the Lord pours out of the effusion of his Spirit from that river whose streams make glad the city of God. Oh! the blessedness of looking up to a covenant God in Christ, when the clouds drop fatness, to see all our mercies from whence they flow, through whom they come, and in whom they are indeed blessed. Yes, blessed Jesus! men shall be blessed in thee, and all nations shall call thee blessed. Isaiah 35:1 throughout; Psalms 46:4; Psalms 46:7 throughout.

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