JANUARY 2. Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus 'TIS true, I am a mighty sinner, but He is a more mighty Saviour. Have I sinned to the uttermost? He has saved to the utmost. True, I am death, but Christ is life; I am darkness, but Christ is light; I am sin, but Christ is holiness; I am guilt, but Christ is righteousness; I am emptiness and nothingness, but Christ is fulness and sufficiency; I have broken the law, but Christ has fulfilled the law; His life is infinitely able to swallow up my death; His light, my darkness; His holiness, my sin: His righteousness, my guilt; His fulness, my emptiness; on Him, therefore, I'll lean, and live, and hope. Edward Pearse, 1673. JANUARY 3. A good conscience."-1 Tim. i. 19. BE we sure to keep conscience clear; O let not that upbraid us. Be we careful what we do, and then we need not be careful of what men say; if conscience do not reproach us, reproach will not much move us: one of conscience's testi monies for us, is more than ten thousand slanders against us. As the storms and winds without, do not move the earth, but vapours within, cause the earthquakes; so all the railings of all the Shimei's in the world cannot trouble us much, if our consciences within, do abound with good works. If I can but say with Job, "My heart shall not reproach me as long as I live," I am safe enough from the evil of reproach. Isaac Ambrose, 1658. JANUARY 4. Lord, let it alone this year also, till E shall dig about it." Luke xiii. 8. THUS deals the Lord Jesus Christ ofttimes with the barren professor. He diggeth about him, He smiteth one blow at his heart, another blow at his lusts, a third at his pleasures, a fourth at his comforts, another at his self-conceitedness. Thus He diggeth about him; this is the way to take bad earth from his roots, and to loosen his roots from the earth. Barren fig-tree! see here the care, the love, the labour, and way which the Lord Jesus, the dresser of the vineyard, is fain to take with thee, if haply thou mayest be made fruitful. John Bunyan, 1678. JANUARY 5. 'My son, give me thine heart.”—Prov. xxiii. 26. GIVE God thine heart that He may keep it; not a piece of thy heart, not a room in thy heart, but thy heart. The heart divided, dieth. God is not like the mother who would nave the child divided, but like the natural mother, who said, "Rather than it should be divided, let her take all." God hath no copeshave no parting of mate, therefore He will stakes, but all or none; and, therefore, He who asks thy heart, asks all thy heart, all thy soul, all thy strength: thrice He requireth all, lest we should keep a thought behind. It is thy heart, that is a vain heart, a barren heart, a sinful heart, until thou give it unto God; and then it is the spouse of Christ, the temple of the Holy Ghost, and the image of God, so changed, and formed, and refined, that God calls it a new heart. Henry Smith, 1630. JANUARY 6. 'Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.” 2 Cor. xiii. 5. TAKE your souls to the glass of the law, and go from one precept to another; and when you have done there, go to the gospel. And be sure you do not deal slightly. And when you have well studied the number and quality of your sins, then consider the justice and holiness of the eternal God, which you shall understand by the same law and gospel; but more especially shall ye know it by going to the cross of Christ; for we never know as we ought the evil of sin, and our misery thereby, until we know what He endured to make expiation for it. They that never knew themselves are most certainly without love to Christ. C. Nesse, 1661. JANUARY 7 "The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and E am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will E praise Him." Psa. xxviii. 7. HE that knoweth God aright will honour Him by trusting of Him; he that honours Him by trusting Him, will honour Him by praying; and he that honours Him by prayer, shall honour Him by praise; he that honours Him by praises here, shall perfect His praises in heaven. This trading with God is the richest trade in the world. When we return praises to Him, He returns new favours to us; and so an everlasting, everincreasing intercourse betwixt God and the soul is maintained. Richard Gibbs, 1635. 66 JANUARY 8. Blessed are they which are called riage supper of the Lamb." unto the marRev. xix. 9. O THOU saints of God, who art now watering thy plants, and weeping bitterly for sin, at this last and great Feast thy waters shall be turned into wine; thou who now mortifiest thy corruptions, and beatest down thy body by prayer and fasting, shalt shortly sup with Christ and angels; thou who didst refuse to touch the forbidden tree, shalt feed upon the tree of life in the Paradise of God; thou impoverished saint, who hast scarce a bit of bread to eat, remember for thy comfort in thy Father's house there is bread enough. O feed with delight upon the thoughts of this Marriage Supper; after thy funeral begins thy festival; long for suppertime. Christ hath paid for this supper upon the cross, and there is no fear of a reckoning to be brought in "wherefore comfort one another with these words." Thomas Watson, 1660. |