Numbers 4

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. IV.—God’s service, especially in the ministry, is a warfare. He deserves and he requires the best of our time and strength. His ministers ought not to be novices either in knowledge or experience. Apparently insignificant mistakes in their work may cost one his life, nay, his eternal salvation: it is therefore necessary that we should give the strictest attention to the directions of scripture. Distressful is the paucity of God’s faithful servants: yet are they in his hand, and he proportions their number and ability to their work. But let me especially rejoice that the whole care of the churches, and of the elect, is upon our Redeemer: not Levites, in the power of their might, but the Almighty Jesus bears and carries us, and all our concerns: not the prudent sons of Aaron, but the only wise Son of God rears and dissolves particular churches on earth; rears and dissolves the particular frames of our spirit; dissolves our bodies in death, and again rears them up in the resurrection. He hath destroyed the vail and face of the covering cast over all people; that it is not now death, but life, for us sinful men to behold, and even enter by faith into the highest of all! Let us therefore, whether ministers or private Christians, draw near with boldness, and behold, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, that we may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. N N