O how refreshing, delightful, encouraging to us, on our way to Zion, to perceive around us those who are “living unto the Lord,” with their eyes and hearts fixed upon the heavenly inheritance. And O still happier sight, and yet an awful rejoicing, to behold a brother “dying unto the Lord;” to witness the triumph of our holy faith, in nature’s last hour and Satan’s last buffeting; to observe the trophies of divine love adorning and cheering the melancholy bed—the tranquil smile, the unwearied trust, the patient contented thankful resignation; the uplifted hand and eye, the illuminated countenance, the peaceful spirit all the while ready to wing its flight. Go boastful science, go vain philosophy, and visit the death-beds of your votaries; mark well the doubts and fears betraying themselves under the mask of a bold profession; mark the impatience and vexation; the present burden and the miserable foreboding; go and discover your infidel champions, the proud Goliaths of your kingdom, trembling and quailing under the lifted stroke of death; and despairing under the load of unforgiven sin, under the terrors of an insulted and avenging God. Go to your despisers of the crucified Jesus, to those who have been too wise to seek or too busy to find Him; see them, as I have seen, stretching out their hands in agony, and saying, “Is there none to save a fellow-creature from destruction?” Then, when ye are sickened with such scenes, repair to the bedside of a departing saint, and see how a Christian can die. Go and study a lesson, more instructive and more precious than all your pages of human lore and learning; go and learn from a lovely example, how to live and how to die.
If I seem to be describing these blessed truths and facts with a minuteness and a particularity and a real resemblance, it is because I am drawing from the life; because they have been so recently embodied before my eyes in the person of a Christian friend and minister—your deceased pastor. You know that he lived unto the Lord: and I have enjoyed the privilege of attesting the fruit of that living in his latter days—days of severe pain, but days of comfort and serenity. He spoke thereof in a manner, which convinced me, that he wished his views and experience to be made public; possibly looking forward to the day, when I might be fulfilling this very office. He said “I wish you distinctly to understand how I am: I have no ecstasies, no rapturous flights, but a calm composure, a quiet resting, a peaceful waiting for the Lord: and I desire the Lord to deal with me as seemeth to Him good: to give me patience, to give me his grace that I may endure unto the end; and to continue or remove me at His pleasure.” It was an affecting communication, an overcoming moment.
By these and similar words, it was manifest that he set his great value, not upon any peculiar notions or points of doctrine, but upon a living and fruitful faith, upon the practical influence of the spirit of God; upon the state of mind and heart and character and life, as resulting from christian principles and views.
Such undoubtedly then has been the scope, such the transcendent object of his ministerial endeavours and exertions—to produce like faith and fruit in you: and you, brethren, will bear a willing testimony to his holy zeal and faithfulness; through a period of well nigh thirty years have you made trial of him, yea full proof of his labour of love. The memory of him is bound round your hearts by a multitude of the tenderest holiest ties. Many of you he baptized into the church of Christ; he has been all along your spiritual guide, training you up from childhood in the way you should go. To many has he delivered the blessed elements, the signs of the body and blood of Christ, as ye were assembled around him at the table of your Lord, and feasted together upon redeeming love. Many has he visited on beds of sickness, relieving your wants and comforting your sorrows, and teaching you to improve them all. And not a few of your relatives and friends, gone to rest, he attended in their last moments; and instructed and confirmed and soothed their lingering spirit. You remember the scene: you saw and loved him there: and you owe him now a debt of gratitude. And in many a walk of kindness and usefulness, and many a place of righteous resort, you have watched and honoured and applauded him: but his race is run; he is gone; and the place that knew him, shall know him no more.
Nor were his services confined within the precincts of his own congregation, but always ready to be extended far and near. Various societies and charities have rejoiced in his help and activity, and will heavily feel their loss. But I must forbear and leave the fond strain of regret, for a word of serious and spiritual improvement. Was he faithful? Then the larger account have you to render. Did he preach the truth in love? Then the more will his preaching condemn those hearers, who have failed to be convinced and converted. He has expounded and illustrated for you the whole of the sacred volume, from Genesis to Revelation; he dug deeply into that precious mine in the field of the word of God, and presented for your acceptance the treasures and the jewels in all their intrinsic worth and brightness. The Bible, the inexhaustible stores of the whole Bible, he laid open before you in all their vast and magnificent abundance; and led you, by precept and by example, to “the way and the truth and the life.” If you have not received the word and the spirit of grace, if you have not laid the doctrine to your soul, if you have not in earnest begun the goodly work, if you are not far advanced, the fault is not with the departed: you will not seek to charge him with neglect. Whom then? and where does the burden lie? “Son of man, speak to the children of thy people and say unto them, when I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people: Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.” The trumpet has sounded in your ears, long and loud; the clear, thrilling, evangelical trumpet. The herald of God has done his duty; would to God that every conscience could whisper, “And I have done mine.”
And all you, who have listened to him with teachableness and sincerity, who have caught from his lips the word of life into your willing ear, and laid it up in your heart, take comfort and be thankful. You have not profited as you might, as you would now fain have done: you lament your infirmities and corruptions; your minister lamented his: but the Lord loveth sincerity, and pardoneth the transgressions of His people. You value your past privileges; and you adore that divine goodness, which made them profitable to your salvation. You dwell, not with the tear of sharp regret for a ministry slighted, for opportunities unregarded and lost; but with tears of grateful love, in the remembrance of one, who was ordained by God to lighten your darkness, and to be the messenger of peace to your soul. And while you are gathering here the plentiful fruits of righteousness, you are looking forward to the far more glorious harvest in the end of the world; looking to the day, when the shepherd and his flock shall stand together for presentation before the eternal throne; and he shall say, “Lord here am I, and those whom thou hast given me.”
O my brethren, no sheep of his, no true member of the Lord’s flock, shall be forgotten on that day. The world knows them not; the earthly shepherd himself may not have known them all: but “the Lord knoweth them that are His.” Rich or poor, honoured or despised, loved or hated among men, if they have lived unto the Lord and died unto the Lord, the Lord will confess them at last, will infallibly select them every one out of an assembled world, and set them on His right hand. “Them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” Be this my sleep, come soon, come late: Be thine the time, good Lord, and mine the blessing. Lord, hear my prayer; I make but one: “Let me but die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.”