Afternoon/Evening Reflection Meekness makes us fit for death and eternity. The grave is a quiet place; there the wicked cease from troubling. Those that were most troublesome are there bound to the peace; and their hatred and envy are there perished. Whether we will or no, in the grave we shall lie still and be quiet. Job 3:13. What a great change then must it needs be to the unquiet, the angry and litigious; and what a mighty shock will that sudden, forced rest give them, after such a violent, rapid motion. It is therefore our wisdom to compose ourselves for the grave; to prepare ourselves for it,by adapting and accommodating ourselves to that which is likely to be our long home. This is dying daily, quieting ourselves, for death will shortly quiet us. The meek and quiet soul is, at death, let into that rest which it has been so much laboring after; and how welcome must that needs be. Thoughts of death and the grave are very agreeable to those who love to be quiet; for then and there they shall enter into peace, and rest in their beds. After death we expect the judgment, than which nothing is more dreadful to them that are contentious. The coming of the Master brings terror along with it to those who smite their fellow-servants; but those that are meek and quiet are likely to have their plea ready, their accounts stated, and whenever it comes it will be no surprise to them: to those whose moderation is known to all men, it will be no ungrateful news to hear that the Lord is at hand. It is therefore prescribed as that which ought to be our constant care, that whenever our Master comes, we may be found of him in peace, that is, in a peaceable temper. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he comes shall find in such a frame. A good man, says the late excellent Archbishop Tillotson, in his preface to his book of Family Religion, would be loath to be taken out of the world reeking hot from a sharp contention with a perverse adversary; and not a little out of countenance to find himself in this temper translated into the calm and peaceable regions of the blessed, where nothing but perfect charity and good-will reigns for ever. Heaven is a quiet place, and none are fit for it but quiet people. The heavenly Canaan, that land of peace, would be no heaven to those that delight in war. The turbulent and unquiet would be out of their element, like a fish upon the dry ground, in those calm regions. They are the sheep of Christ—such as are patient and inoffensive—that are called to inherit the kingdom; without are dogs, that bite and devour. Rev. 22:15. They are the wings of a dove, not those of a hawk or eagle, that David would fly upon to his desired rest. Psalm 55:6. Now lay all this together, and then consider whether there be not a real excellency in this meekness and quietness of spirit, which highly recommends it to all that love either God or themselves, or have any sensible regard to their own comfort, either in this world or in that which is to come.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 21:49:06 +0000
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