You see, therefore, the great profaneness of those, who go about to prostitute the ordinances of God, by making them the common business of all Christians. Well then, if the minister of God does, with a real effect, bless all those that are disposed to receive His blessing, and repair to the Church to receive it; how unhappy are they, who, for their sins, are shut out of the Church, as well as they who deprive themselves of the blessing of God, by wilfully absenting from the public ordinances. Little do Christians consider what they lose by doing so. You have seen, good Christians, our work and our burden. You are, or may be, partakers of the blessings of our ministrations. Let us beseech you, not to add to our burden, which is great enough, God knows, if we perform it as we should do; do not add to our trouble, by despising our ministry, or make it useless to yourselves, by your ungodly lives. When you remember, that we are Christ's ministers, remember also that the Master is always dishonoured when His servants are slighted. It has always been the devil's aim, to discountenance, by his agents, the ministers of the Gospel; he knowing very well, that as bad as the world is, it would be ten times worse, if there were none to stand in the gap, none to tell men their duty, none to keep up order and discipline. Suffer yourselves, Christian brethren, to be instructed, to be admonished, to be reproved, by those that are in Christ's stead. And if any of you should have the misfortune to fall into sins inconsistent with Christianity and salvation, suffer yourselves to be reformed by godly discipline; and bless God that He has appointed a sure way, if it is not your own faults, of restoring you to peace and pardon. And if the duties of Christianity, or the difficulties of our proper callings, affright us, let us call to mind that Scripture question, "Who can dwell with everlasting burnings?" and [Is. 33. 14.] all the difficulties we fear will vanish. In short, this is the time in which we are to choose what we are to be, and where we must be, to all eternity. Christians may flatter themselves, that their salvation is in their own hands; and that they can make their peace 19. SERM. with God when they please. They will find to their cost XCVIII. that they have a work to do, and to finish, even before they come to die. It is an exceeding great comfort to the serious part of the living, when they can lay their dead friends in the grave, in sure and certain hopes of a blessed resurrection. And blessed be God, that this is the case before us. This good man's life, as a Christian, has been unblameable; as a pastor, for threescore years, laborious and exemplary; always resident upon his cure, always contented with his condition, and never eager to increase his work and his burden, at the hazard of his soul. But his life, his virtues, and his character, are so well known, not only to this congregation, but to this whole land, that I shall not injure his memory by recounting only a part of them. One would only wish and hope, (if the evil tempers and times we are fallen into did not discourage us from hoping for it,) that he may have many followers, as a Christian, as a minister of Christ, as a neighbour, and as a friend; in all which capacities, he has most worthily discharged himself. And now, his good name and his good works do follow him; and all we must follow him very soon, either with or without these witnesses of our behaviour in this world. I have but one word or two more to add. First, to you, my brethren; and it is to put you, and myself, in mind of a truth which we shall all believe when we come to die; that is, that our final sentence will, in a great measure, depend upon the faithful discharge of our ministry. What is our 1 Thess. 2. hope, saith St. Paul, "What is our hope, or joy, or crown, or rejoicing? Are not ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming;" that is, all the hope we shall then have, of our being accepted of God, is this, that we have faithfully discharged our duty to the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made us overseers. The care of our flocks must be our glory or our shame, our crown or our condemnation. And with you, good Christians, who are our flock, I would leave this wholesome admonition of the Apostle; 1 Thess. 5. "We beseech you, brethren, to know," that is, acknow 12. ledge, "those which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly for their works' sake;" for it is they that must give an account; that they may do it with joy, and not with grief, for that will be no profit to you. The good Lord grant that we may all so live, as that we may die in peace, and rest in hope, and rise in glory; for the Lord Jesus' sake. To Whom, &c. SERMON XCIX. PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF THE REV. DR. WALKER, VICAR-GENERAL, AND RECTOR OF BALLAUGH. ST. PAUL'S COMFORT IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH APPLICABLE See Acts 20. 26; 2 Tim. 4. 8; 1 Thess. 2. 19; 16. PHIL. i. 21. For to me to live is Christ; and to die is gain. THAT is, to me, the motive I have to desire to live is the Phil. 2. service of Christ; but to die in His service would be my greatest gain. St. Paul shews, in these words, what a most comfortable prospect of death he had; that he was well assured he should be a gainer by it. He was ready and willing either to live or die, as it should be most for the glory of God and the good of his flock. It will be well worth our pains to enquire, First, upon what foundation this assurance of St. Paul was founded. And, secondly, whether every minister of Christ may not be able to say the same thing, and with some reasonable assurance, if it is not his own fault. I. We will first enquire, upon what foundation this comfortable assurance of St. Paul was built. And, in the first place, he himself tells us long before this, Acts 23. 1. what was his greatest comfort in life: "I have lived in all good conscience before God unto this day;" that is, I ever sin- When I was a Jew; when I persecuted the Church of Jesus," I did it through a firm persuasion that it was my duty to do so. Why, will this justify any one who follows the judgment of a wrong-informed conscience? No, by no means: St. Paul himself tells us it will not. But he tells us, at the same time, that he obtained mercy, even the grace of conversion; 1 Tim. 1. because what he had done amiss, he did it, not against knowledge, but ignorantly. From whence we learn, what a dreadful thing it is, to act against knowledge and conscience; that such are entirely out of the way of conversion, and are too often forsaken of God, and given over to a reprobate mind. Whereas such as act uprightly are objects of the divine mercy, as St. Paul was, who, through God's grace, became an instrument of the greatest good to the world, and at the same time to himself, so as to be able to say, TO ME TO DIE IS GAIN. That which makes the sight of death uneasy to flesh and blood, and frightful to others, makes it to me easy and comfortable, and even to be chosen and wished for. What that was, we now come to consider. He was in the first place, A SINCERE LOVER OF GOD, AND A LOVER OF SOULS. 13. We have the fullest instances of this in the account of his life, and in the several epistles he wrote: where he is ever and anon expressing his love and gratitude to God for the favours He had vouchsafed himself, and the Church through his means. "I thank Christ Jesus the Lord, who hath en- 1 Tim. 1. 12. abled me, for that He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry." And this, by the way, was the very first subject which this worthy person, and imitator of St. Paul, preached upon, when he entered into holy orders; ascribing to God his ability, his vocation to the ministry, and all his holy purposes and resolutions to discharge his duty faithfully. How faithfully he performed this, will be better understood by the loss his flock will have of him, than by any words of mine. To return to St. Paul, and to the other reasons he had, not to be afraid of dying. To ME TO DIE IS GAIN. |