1 Chronicles 8:40

REFLECTIONS

IT forms no small improvement in the perusal of this chapter, and indeed in the review of the whole registry of Israel, to remark with what honour the illustrious tribes of Israel, are handed down to us in the word of God. Here are names with whom, by frequent reading, we may become familiar, who lived and died in ages so remote from the present, while thousands and tens of thousands among the great ones of the earth, who made splendid appearances in their day, no doubt, their very memorial is perished with them. Think, Reader! what a succession of men and monarchies have passed on through the world, of whose remembrance not a vestige remains. While those families, even the least and most inconsiderable, because they were the Israel of God, are had in everlasting remembrance.

But chiefly, Reader, from this view, let you and I be led to consider the vast importance of having our names written in the book of life. Think, Sir, of that awful day, at the audit of God, which John describes as he saw it in vision; and which will one day certainly be realized: therein he tells us he saw, the dead both small and great, stand before God. And the sea gave up her dead, and death and hell delivered up their dead. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:12. Oh! precious, precious Jesus, that last delivered thy people from the wrath to come; give me, dearest Lord, to rejoice in the pleasing, glorious hope, that my name, worthless as it is, is written in heaven.