DEAREST, BLESSED, PRECIOUS JESUS!

"That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." -Romans 5:21 [KJV]

Pause, my soul, and put forth thy fullest thoughts in the contemplation of those two united sources of thy felicity (-happiness), marked in this verse: the Father's eternal purpose, in the reign of grace; and the everlasting efficacy and infinite value of thy Jesus' righteousness, to eternal life. None but God Himself can know the fulness and extent of either. I am persuaded, that angels of light can never entertain adequate conceptions of either. 

The eternal purpose of God hath bounded the reign of sin; it is but unto death. But those purposes give a further extent to the redemption from death and sin, by Jesus; for the glory of Christ's person, and the worth of His salvation, possess in both a vast overplus, a redundancy of merit, which brings the redeemed into favour and acceptance in Jesus, and with such a title to everlasting felicity, as eternity itself can never exhaust- no, nor fully recompense nor pay. 

Oh for grace to contemplate the love of the Father, and of the Son, by this standard; and the love of God the Holy Ghost, through whose gracious influence we enjoy both. Lord, I would be lost, I would be swallowed up, day by day, in the unceasing meditation! Dearest, blessed, precious Jesus! give me to think of nothing else, to speak of nothing else; but by faith to possess in anticipation, the joys of Thy redeemed, until I come, through Thee, and in Thee, to the everlasting enjoyment of them, in Thy kingdom of glory.

 

-preacher Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.)

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