PROVERBS, xi: 11.
By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted.
It is a law of the Divine government of the world, that the temporal blessings granted to the righteous, and the temporal punishments sent upon the wicked, are shared in by others than the individuals specially concerned. We realize this perhaps, more distinctly, and it comes home to us more solemnly, in the latter case than in the former. For so it is, that the punishments of the Almighty always impress us more than his mercies. The occasional thunder-bolt awes us as the daily sunlight does not; the sweeping storm we wonder at as we do not at the gentle rain and dew; death is more solemn to us than the continued life. We feel God's hand in the first-named of all these things, we are apt to forget it in the last.
And yet the progress of the world gives us as many proofs that the blessings given to the righteous are shared in by others than themselves, as that the punishments sent to the wicked extend beyond those on whom, especially, they come. And God's word is as full of instances illustrating the one truth, as it is of those illustrating the other.
For if we find in Jerusalem, Samaria, Babylon and Egypt, the innocent suffering with, and because of the guilty, so too we find not Lot alone, but his family with him, rescued from the city of the plain; not Joseph only, but his brethren also, and even his Egyptian lord, blessed and prospered; not Elijah only, but the family of the widow of Sarepta, miraculously supported through the famine: not St. Paul alone, but "all in the ship, two hundred, three score and sixteen souls," preserved from wreck and destruction.[A]
[A] Bishop Heber.
These instances, and there are many like them, illustrate and prove the law of God that the temporal blessings which are sent upon the righteous flow over, as one may say, upon others besides themselves. And, Beloved, do not the very instincts of our nature respond to, and recognise this law? Do we not rejoice in the presence among us of a godly man, even if our eyes rarely behold him; and is there not sorrow of heart and a more than ordinary feeling of vacancy when such an one is taken from us? And in either case, whether we joy or sorrow, is there not more in our hearts than a mere recognition of the value of example, counsel, guidance, which is given in the one case, and in the other is taken from us? Do we not on the one hand feel, that we have among us a herald and a pledge of the blessings from the Lord, blessings which shall light our pathway, as they have on his? or, on the other hand, is there not the feeling that such a herald, and such a pledge is gone, that an avenue of benediction has been closed, and that the world is darker than it was? And is the feeling of such loss ever deeper, or stronger than when a holy and a sanctified old age, around which gathered the gentlest ministries of earth, and the most precious ones of heaven, and which glowed in the high place where God had set it with the calm, mild glory of the evening star, has been taken away from us, transformed, though our eyes can not behold it, into the freshness of eternal youth?
My Brethren, it is with this feeling of vacancy, and loss, and bereavement pressing on my heart that I come to you to-day, to speak of our dear and honored Bishop and Father whom God has taken from us. I utter no idle word of ordinary custom when I say, that it entails a task from which, for reasons which you know without their statement, I shrink. Not least among these reasons is the feeling that it almost seems presumptuous to add one word to those so fitly spoken, so leaving nothing to be said or even wished, when the mourning multitude that gathered round our departed Father's bier, made an Abel-mizraim indeed, of this House of God. Still, duty has seemed to demand this service at my hands, and I have tried to nerve myself for its discharge. And here, surely, is where any such words should be spoken; here, where he once held pastoral charge;[B] here, where he came with the faithful to worship God; here, where all that remained on earth was brought, when life was ended. May God be with us all, that our communing here, may be for good!
[B] Bishop Brownell was Rector of Christ Church, Hartford, from Dec. 1819 to Dec. 1820.
I will not weary and chill you, Brethren, with those ordinary biographical details with the chief of which you are already familiar, and which in another way and place will all be gathered and preserved. The thought that is uppermost in all our minds to-day, is that of the godly man whose serene old age has passed into the heavenly life; of the honored Prelate, oldest in consecration in all our now widely spread communion, who has laid down his earthly mitre, that he may receive "a beautiful crown from the Lord's hand."