I. The end which we ought to aim at —
That, for which the use of the fringe was appointed to the Jews, is equally necessary for us; namely, to preserve continually upon our minds a sense of,
1. Our duty to God —
[We are told to " walk in the fear of the Lord all the day long." For this purpose we should have the commandments of God ever, as it were, before our eyes. It is not unuseful to have habitually some short portion of the word of God, some one precept or promise, for our meditation through the day, especially at those intervals when the mind has nothing parti- cular to engage its attention. The expediency of such an habit appears from the text itself : for, if we have nothing good at hand for our meditations, " the eye and the heart " will furnish evil enough. In our unconverted state we uniformly, as God himself expresses it, " go a whoring after these :" our affections are estranged from God, and our thoughts from time to time fix on some vanity which our eyes have seen, or on some evil which our own wicked heart has suggested. How desirable were it, instead of having our minds thus occupied, to have them filled with heavenly contemplations ; to be searching out our duty; to be examining our own hearts in relation to it; and to be inquiring continually wherein we can make our pro- fiting to appear !]
2. Our obligations to him —
[How strong and energetic are the expressions in our text respecting this ! " I am your God : I have redeemed you in order that I might be so to the utmost possible extent : and I consider all that I am, and all that I have, as yours." If these mercies, as far as they were vouchsafed to the Jews, deserved to be had in continual remembrance, how much greater cause have we to remember them ; we, who have been redeemed, not from Egypt, but from hell itself; and not by power only, but by price, even by the precious blood of God's only-begotten Son ; and who have such an interest in God, that he not merely dwells amongst us, but in us, being one with us, as he is one with Christ himself3! Methinks, instead of finding it difficult to turn our minds to this subject, it may well appear strange that we can for a moment fix them upon any thing else. Were we day and night to " meditate on the loving-kindness of our God, our souls would be filled as with marrow and fatness, and our mouth would praise him with joyful lipsV]
a John xv. 5. and xvii. 21 — 23. and 1 Cor. vi. 17. b Ps. lxiii. 3—6.