Deuteronomy 11

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XI.—Thus let my love to the Lord always work in holy obedience to all his commandments. Let the remembrance of his early kindness to me and mine, and his awful judgments on others around me, stir me up to the utmost circumspection in my conduct. God’s mercies should leave an impression on us which neither time nor age should ever efface. And while sin shorten men’s days, and cause countries to spue out their inhabitants, yea, often into hell fire, let me carefully observe God’s kindness, even in outward things. Mercies coming from the immediate hand of God are doubly sweet. Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come. But, if we refuse to be influenced by God’s mercies, we must sink under his judgments. When the heart is filled with the knowledge and love of God’s word, the tongue will be as the pen of a ready writer in speaking of divine things. Let me therefore, by all means, labour to fix a deep sense of spiritual things upon my own soul, and be careful to transmit the knowledge of them unto my seed: for true religion stamps a reverence on its professors, which keeps even their enemies in awe of them: and godliness, transmitted with our possessions, is the surest way to perpetuate them in our families. How plain and evident, in God’s word, is the way to happiness and misery! And if men will not see, will not walk aright, their blood must be on their own head. Since, then, the blessings and curses of time and eternity are set before me in the gospel, let me choose Jesus, and his inexhaustible fulness of blessings, as my portion, and my everlasting ALL. 2