TO THE BEREAVED AND MOURNING CHURCH
AND CONGREGATION WORSHIPPING IN ST. MARY’S MEETING-HOUSE, NORWICH,
THE FOLLOWING SERMON IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY

THE AUTHOR.

SERMON

II Peter, chap, i, verses 12–15.

“Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me. Moreover, I will endeavour that ye may be able, after my decease, to have these things always in remembrance.”

These words, my brethren, are impressively suitable to the present solemnity; especially when you consider that, if the life and health of your beloved pastor had been prolonged till to-day, he would probably have made them the subject of his own discourse. Having been engaged, for some time past, in preaching a course of sermons on some of the Epistles, he had proceeded in his expositions as far as the eighth verse of this chapter; and, by this time, perhaps, he would have addressed you on the following verses, including those of our text. He would, in that case, have enforced upon you the duty “to give diligence to make your calling and election sure;” and he would have encouraged you to do so by the promise, that “if ye do these things ye shall never fall; for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” But whatever intentions or expectations he might have formed respecting future sermons, they have all been frustrated by the stroke of death. Instead of urging upon you the performance of this duty by his living voice, he now admonishes you from the grave. Instead of animating your minds by this “exceeding great and precious promise,” he now enjoys the fulfilment of it himself, in all its richness and perpetuity; and instead of attempting, with mortal lips, to describe to you the glories of that “everlasting kingdom,” he has had ministered unto himself “an abundant entrance” into its celestial palaces, where all the inhabitants are made “kings and priests unto God.”

The duty and the promise, to which I have referred, are immediately followed by the words of our text, which, on this occasion, we may, without impropriety, adopt as his own language. They were indeed practically the language of his life and ministry; and on this, or on some early sabbath, had his life been spared, they would have been made the subject of his discourse to you in this place of worship. They were evidently the motto which he adopted at the commencement of his ministry; and during the whole course of his labours among you, it was his endeavour that the doctrines which he preached might be retained in your remembrance, not only during his lifetime, but also after his decease. And often has he said to you, verbally in his discourses, and virtually by the conduct which he pursued in his life and ministry, “I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me. Moreover, I will endeavour that ye may be able, after my decease, to have these things always in remembrance.” His own remarks on this passage would probably have included the language of determination and anticipation; ours alas! must include principally the language of reflection and remembrance. Let us therefore consider the work in which he was engaged, the decease by which it has been terminated, and the remembrance of it which it now becomes you to cherish. Let us consider,

I. The work in which, as a minister of the gospel, he was engaged during his life.

The work of a minister of the gospel, as intimated by the apostle, is to remind his hearers of the various and important truths which the gospel of Christ contains; for he determines to put them “always in remembrance of these things,” and “to stir them up by putting them in remembrance.”

The “THINGS” to which the apostle here refers are evidently the various doctrines, and exhortations, and blessings, which he has recorded in the preceding parts of this chapter; and which, in the third verse, are emphatically called “all things that pertain unto life and godliness.” They are the “grace and peace,” which is multiplied to all the partakers of “precious faith”—the “promises,” which are “exceeding great and precious”—the influences by which we become “partakers of the divine nature”—the Christian graces, which include “faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity”—the admonitions by which we are warned lest we lack any of these things, and exhorted to give all diligence to secure them—and the motives and prospects which are presented to us, full of constraining and inspiring energy, “for if ye do these things ye shall never fall; for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Such, my brethren, is the beautiful and comprehensive view, which the apostle gives us, of the doctrines, and promises, and influences of the gospel of Christ, and such is the evidence which he affords that it contains “all things which pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue,” and by whose precious blood and efficacious grace we are redeemed, and sanctified, and saved. To make these things known, for the conversion and salvation of the guilty and depraved, is the great work of the Christian preacher, to whom is committed the word of reconciliation, and who beseeches men to be reconciled to God. And to “stir up” the minds of those who know these things already, and are established in the present truth, in order that they may have them always in remembrance, is the peculiar work of the Christian pastor, whose office it is “to feed the church of God which he has purchased with his own blood.”