“To patient faith the prize is sure,
And all, who to the end endure
The cross, shall wear the crown.”
Her attendance upon the word was early, constant, and uniform—as a wife, a relation, a neighbour, and a friend, few could equal her—diffident, humble, and serious, loving, kind, peaceable, and benevolent, none perhaps exceeded her; and this she was by the power of electing grace. How great her gain, how deep the loss of all who were related to her in her respectable family, and in the church of God; possessing a spiritual knowledge of Christ, precious faith in him, a hope that maketh not ashamed, founded alone on the person, blood, and righteousness of the Son of God, love to his person, to his truth, his people, his ministers, his ways, and works, evidenced her eternal election of God, her complete redemption from the ruins of the fall, and that the work of grace was genuine on heart, carried by the arms of divine power and faithfulness. She persevered, because carried to the end of her days; this is indeed the privilege of all the Lord’s people. For in his love, and in his pity, he saved them, bare them, and carried them all their days; nor can there be any final perseverance of the saints, but as they are carried—
“But he that hath loved them, bears them through,
And makes them more than conquerors too.Hallelujah.”
However dear the Lord’s people may be to their families, or to the church on earth; as sinners, all must bow to the awful sentence of “dust thou art, and to dust thou must return.”—Even
“An angel’s arm can’t snatch me from the grave;
Legions of Angels can’t confine me there.”
An old divine of the last century remarks that “mankind are like sheep grazing upon a common—death is the butcher appointed to take away first one and then another.” Surely then we may ask who next shall be summoned away, my merciful God is it I?
What a mercy for the people of God they cannot die unprepared—none unfit; the grace that provided the kingdom has provided a fitness for it, in the person and work of the dear Redeemer, and in the effectual operations of the holy-making God the Divine Spirit; and without this holiness no man shall see the Lord—without this holy change of state, of principle, and of pursuit, none can enjoy either the liberty of the Gospel now, or the glory beyond the grave; and however the wicked may be driven away in his wickedness, the righteous hath hope in his death, “for thou shalt come to thy grave in full age, like a shock of corn, that cometh in his season, fully ripened for the heavenly garner.” Such was our dear departed friend—deeply afflicted in body, such as baffled all human skill; she gradually descended to the grave, sweetly supported, kept up by mighty grace, and consoled by the word of truth. She beheld her pious and affectionate family around her. On one occasion she had been remarkably low in thinking of death, when the Lord kindly, but very powerfully whispered to her heart, “blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, even so saith the Spirit.” This sweet sentence being clothed with such energy delivered her mind from all fears of death. Often did she exclaim “oh! why is the Lord so long in coming? come, come Lord, I long to be at home;” and although her sufferings were great, her faculties were kept amazingly strong, so much as to enable her to repeat the whole of her favorite hymn she had often heard sung at the chapel, on preparation to meat God, ending with—
“And if pale death to me appears,
Creating new alarming fears,
My last appeal to Calvary’s blood,
And I’m prepar’d to meet my God.”
One of her affectionate family read to her the 40th Isaiah, and sweetly commented upon it, which she very much enjoyed. Her desire to depart and be with Christ seemed to increase, and her affliction continuing still, she hastened quickly to meet the last enemy of her nature, though the covenant friend of her soul; prayerful, sincerely, solemnly, and composedly she breathed her soul into the hands of her redeeming Lord; she slept in peace—she fell asleep in Jesus, and experienced all that is contained, in the precious declaration, “blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”—Her sun sweetly set to rise in another horizon, where it will never be clouded—never set again—never, no never go down: but there the Lord is her everlasting light—her God—her glory; and the days of her mourning are for ever over.
“Forbear the righteous to deplore,
They enter into rest;
Released from care, and sin, and woe,
To everlasting bliss they go,
And learn what they might doubt below,
To die is to be blest.”