THE DIARY
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According to my constant custom, since the Lord was pleased to call me by his grace, I opened my Diary, in my little Pocket Companion, to enquire what is the word of the Lord recommended to my serious consideration today? for it is a favourite maxim of mine, with the first dawn of day, to seek a morning-blessing from the Lord in this way, in one of his sweet promises. The promises of God are the present heritage of his people—they are evidently intended to be their support and stay in the house of their pilgrimage. In a little book which I always keep by me for this purpose, to have recourse to as occasion may require, and which I call my Pocket Companion, I have also a Diary, containing some refreshing portion of Scripture for every day in the year; and though it cannot be supposed (neither will anyone I should hope imagine) that, by a selection of this kind, a preference is given to one gracious promise to the exclusion of the rest, "which in Christ Jesus are all yes and amen," yet, as the mind is not sufficiently capacious, nor sufficiently alive to exercise itself in the meditation of them all, it should seem to be no unpromising plan of usefulness to have recourse to one or more of them in this manner.
I shall be exempt, I trust, from the charge of presumption, if I add that I have found at times, the promise in my Diary so strikingly suited to my then circumstances, as if a voice had accompanied it, like that of the apostle to the men of Antioch—"To you is the word of this salvation sent."
The promise for this day I have found to be, Psalm 121:5. "The Lord is your keeper." Sweet and precious indeed to all his people, is this assurance! My mind, as I lay upon my bed, was much exercised in the contemplation of God as a covenant-God, in keeping his people. It is he who keeps them in the faith; keeps them in the hour of temptation; keeps them from the power of the enemy—from a thousand unseen, and as many visible evils—from finally falling, and from eternal death!—and though he has nowhere promised to keep his people from tribulation, or persecution, or the strife and slander of tongues—from sickness, or sorrow or the like—yet he has promised, that "no weapon formed against them shall prosper—no temptation shall take them, from which he will not make a way for them to escape. He will bruise Satan under their feet shortly." Oh, the blessed privilege of those who have the Lord for their keeper!
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