Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/69

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been pleased to magnify above all his name, says, "As for our Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts is His name, the Holy One of Israel." (Isa. xlvii. 4.) O worship in sincerity the Lord Jesus, for he is the Creator and Redeemer of thy soul. O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, and thou shalt feel the ecstatic bliss of looking towards the holy temple.


Janary Twenty-seventh.

RELIGION AND ITS BLESSED LIFE.

"Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear."Isa. lix. 2.

THE prophet, in these few words, clearly points out the cause of our separation from God, and why his face is hidden from us. It is our iniquities that have made the separation, and our sins have hidden his face. If we desire that this separation should exist no longer, the iniquities which cause it must be removed; and our sins must be shunned if we would behold the face of our heavenly Father. Nothing but true religion can remove the barrier that separates us from God, and nothing but this can dissipate the sins which hide the Divine countenance from our view. O what mighty wonders are contained in that word. Religion! it is fraught with eternally increasing joys, for its true import or meaning is a rebinding of the soul to God. What true joys and increasing pleasures arise every day and hour to that man whose soul is thus united with God. The apostle James says, "Pure religion, and undefiled before God, even the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and