November 5
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeSixteenth Tuesday after Trinity
His own elect. S. Luke 18:7.
WE pray in the Burial Service that it may please God "shortly to accomplish the number of His elect." This expression "the number of His elect" is found in the 7th chapter of Revelation, and what an awful description, and at the same time so exceedingly beautiful and sublime that one fears to lower or limit it by any human explanation. It is a subject rather for devout meditation and prayer. For even unto us has come the Messenger of the covenant, ascending from the east as the rising Sun with healing on His wings; we have been sealed on the forehead with the seal of the living God, the Cross of Christ signed on our foreheads at our Baptism; and our souls have been sealed with the anointing of the Holy One, but as then they were "not all Israel that were of Israel." Oh that we may find this our calling and election of God in heaven! That we may be of that predestined number known of God, when all shall be found to be in exact fulness, completion, and perfection, however indefinite and uncertain things may now appear. For such is represented in the exactness of the number 144. The Christian Church, though it be so broken and divided, yet it shall fulfil those ends which God hath ordained for the gathering in of His elect. Though hidden from the world, they are known unto Him.
Wash me, and dry these bitter tears,
O let my heart no further roam!
'Tis Thine by vows, and hopes, and fears,
Long since. O call Thy wanderer home!
To that dear home, safe in Thy wounded Side,
Where only broken hearts their sin and shame may hide.