1 Samuel 31:13

REFLECTIONS

PAUSE, Reader! once more over the sad view of Saul's history, and as thou hast been called upon to mark his progress in sin, and the ripening of his mind in iniquity; here behold, in self-murder, the awful close of a life so evil. Oh! how dreadful to die out of Christ, uninterested in him; void of all covenant promises; unregenerated in heart, unwashed in the blood of the Lamb, and without the clothing of the Redeemer's righteousness. Better to die in a ditch, than to die out of Christ. The manner of death is nothing: to die anyhow, anywhere, by any means; only to die in Jesus. Lord! give to him that reads, and him that writes, the blessed hope in our death, that living or dying, we are the Lord's. Oh! for a part in the first resurrection, and then the second death hath no power.

Dearest Jesus! thou art the resurrection, and the life. Thou blessed Jesus, by thy death, hast overcome death, so that death now, by thee, is among the inventory of the believer's treasure. To die in time is gain. Lord, give grace, both to writer and reader, that we may so live, as to add death to our sure account of profit; that whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all may be ours; for we are Christ's, and Christ is God's.