CONTENTS OF VOL. IV. PAGE V. Some Thoughts on the Book of Job VI. The Kingdom of God and of Heaven-The Church and XV. Responsibility to God resulting from Revelation XXVII. Synopsis of the Books of the Bible-Isaiah XXVIII. On the Connexion of the Fourteenth Chapter of Luke's Gospel with the Fifteenth XXIX. The End and Purpose of God in the Church XXX. The Sermon on the Mount XXXI. The Habitation of God XXXII. The Potter's Broken Vessel XXXIII. The True Grace of God 401 VARIETIES:- Fragments 37, 54, 64, 158, 280, 282, 288, 349, 351, 400, THE reader is requested to make the following corrections in Vol. IV.— THE PRESENT TESTIMONY, ETC., ETC. No I. 1 CHRONICLES. THE Books of Kings have given us the general and public history of God's government in Israel; and, from Rehoboam to Hezekiah, the history of the kings of Israel-a history in which the result of the fall of the kingly power is manifested in the presence of God's long-suffering. That which is said in these books respecting Judah, only extends to the connection of Judah with the house of Israel, during this period. The Books of Chronicles give us the history of the same period under another aspect, i.e. that of blessing and of the grace of God; and, more particularly, they give us the history of the house of David, with respect to which this grace was manifested. We shall see this verified in a multitude of instances. These Books, written or drawn up after the captivity (see 1 Chron. vi. 15), preserve God's history of His people, recorded by the Holy Ghost, as He loved to remember it, exhibiting only such faults as require to be known in order to understand the instructions of His grace. He records, at the same time, the names of those who had gone through the trials mentioned in this history, without being blotted out of the Book. Here, indeed, it is but the outward figure of this; but, in fact, this is what we find here. All Israel is not there; but all are not Israel who are of Israel. the same time the Spirit of God goes farther back, and gives us the genealogy, from Adam, of the generation blessed by grace according to the sovereignty of God, with that which belonged to it outwardly, or after the flesh. He puts into relief, sufficiently to make it At apparent, the part owned in grace, which externally existed in relationship with it; putting always that which is natural first, as the Apostle tells us. Thus, beginning with Adam, we have the family of Seth down to Noah. Then come the families of Japheth and of Ham, one of whose descendants began to be mighty on the earth; and finally that of Shem, whose God was the Lord, and whose line is followed down to Abraham. Abraham becomes, as it were, a fresh stock. His posterity, after the flesh, is first given us; then Israel, the child of promise, a fresh stock, whose children, after the flesh, are exhibited with their kings and their chiefs, before the child of election. At length, in the second chapter, we shall find Israel, all of whose sons were, more or less, under the care of God who had loved Jacob. Judah is then introduced to lead us to the royal race of David, the object also of the promises according to the election of God. Besides this, we find a picture of the prosperity of Judah's family in general, and that of Caleb's family in particular, who was faithful to God in his generation. God has preserved the memorial of it in this place. Thus, also, the way in which the land was peopled and its internal history, are vividly presented to the reader. The genealogy of David's family is next given us, as far as several generations after the return from the captivity; and then that of the tribes in succession; but in relationship with their position in Israel, and with the addition of certain notices of possessions acquired either by families or by an entire tribe. Dan and Zebulon are wanting. Judah is found (chap. iv. 1). Simeon (chap. iv. 24) had had his lot within the territory of Judah, but he had enlarged his domain: and some of this tribe, having gone beyond the borders of the land, had escaped the captivity. Reuben (chap. It is well to remark here, that in all these genealogies, when a family has been established in a place, the name of the place is often used for that of the family; that the descendants, through several generations, are named together as children of the head of the race (comp. chap. iv. 1, with the commencement of chap. ii.); and that without having been named before, the eminent man of a family is taken to begin a genealogy anew (chap. viii. 29, 33). |