Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

"And the prophets, do they live for ever?" This inquiry is important, not only as we consider the affecting thought of their mortality, but, as we revert to the ministrations of former pastors here, and ask what has been the influence of this whole catalogue of pastors and teachers sent unto you, until this day? what has been their influence upon your character and prospects for eternity, who still survive? Some of you heard the gospel on this spot, from the lips of the venerable and sainted Rodgers and M'Knight, now gone to their rest, but who being dead, yet speak; and from the lips of their venerable colleagues, Miller, who stands upon the verge of fourscore, and Milledoler, who has also closed the stated labors of a ministry of more than half a century. Some of you were baptized by their hands. Others of you have heard that gospel from the lips of their successors, now separated from this charge, and not likely often to utter it to you again. And for seventeen years, for more than two thousand times you have heard it from these lips that speak to you once more this day, besides hundreds of times more, from other ministers, who have occasionally occupied this pulpit, during my connection with you. And all these men have passed, or are passing away; and the memory of these thousands of sermons, which have contributed to shape your character and destinies for eternity, rises up, and appeals to you. What impression have they left upon your souls, and what record borne to heaven concerning you? To the children of some of you, these hands have administered the seal of the covenant, in the waters of baptism;on some of you, my beloved youth, I have sprinkled those holy waters which signified your relation to the covenant, and your dedication to the Lord. Many of you have seen in this sanctuary, and in that which formerly stood here, the manifest tokens of the descent of the Spirit of God. Some of you have rejoiced in souls renewed, and síns forgiven. Some of you have felt the agonies of conviction of sin, but in so far as man can judge, you did not enter into terms of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, when His spirit strove with you. Some have been thoughtful,-perhaps are thoughtful now. And some have utterly despised the word and ordinances of the Lord's house; and for some, the table of the Lord has been spread scores of times in vain, for you have turned away from the symbols of the living bread, and refused the memorials of the atoning blood. Some have sinned against light and knowledge. Some have hardened themselves against God, and how have they prospered who are still utterly unmoved, in rebelling, and resisting the Holy Ghost.

And now let me appeal to you personally: Who hath believed our report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? How stands it between your soul and God? Ye Christians, are you growing in grace, letting your light shine, and ripening

for heaven? Ye tempted and afflicted ones, are the consolations of God small with you, and what good have you extracted from your sorrows? Ye, who have been awakened, are ye still anxious for your salvation, or, do ye now believe? Ye careless ones and despisers of the gospel, how long will ye behold, and wonder and perish in your unbelief against the word of God, which we have declared unto you? Ye parents, how have you honored and observed the promise which is to you, and your children, by training them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Ye baptized persons,-baptized men and women, who have hitherto trifled with your birthright, and defrauded your children of theirs, and ye young persons and children, who have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, what use have you made, and what use are you making of the privilege, and of the promise of God, and of the covenant of adoption, and of your own solemn obligations therein, and what requital are you making to that blessed Saviour, who autaorized your introduction to the seal of naturalization in his church, by commanding, "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven!" Are ye yet in your sins? And all ye, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, what are ye doing, and what have you done with the providences, and mercies, and trials, and means of grace, which God has employed with you, and in which you have been connected with the ministry of God's servants, the prophets who have passed, and are passing rapidly with you to that judgment-seat, where all of us must soon give account?

Let me appeal: And now, how many scenes rise up, in which you and I have mingled together: I have united some of you in marriage, blessed the nuptial bond, and prayed, when I exhorted you then, that your houses might be Bethels, that the fire of devotion might be kindled by your hands on the domestic altar and burn in your hearts, and that you, and your partners, and your children, might become heirs together of the grace of life: Have you performed your engagements, and honored your mercies? have you set up the domestic altar, and, as sons and daughters have been born unto you, sought diligently, and prayerfully, to train them up in the way they should go? and have you given yourselves unto the Lord, and dedicated your offspring unto God, before His altars, and in the courts of the Lord's house? Again, I have sat at your bedside, when you were sick, and afraid to die; and I saw your anguish, and counseled you then, and I prayed for you, and prayed with you, and I heard your vows and hopes; and again you recovered: But where are you vows to-day, and how have they been kept? Again, I have followed not a few from among you to the grave, and how many affecting scenes in the house of mourning, rise

now before my memory, and yours. Sometimes the aged father or mother in Israel, who, like a shock of corn fully ripe, died in peace, and entered upon the joy of the Lord. And sometimes, the youthful Christian, gathered with the early dead, but not too soon for him, nor too soon for the heaven for which grace had made him meet to be a partaker. And these were your dead; and mine, mine also sleep in your burial-places side by side with yours. Have you, their children, their brothers, sisters, or friends, been profited by their death, so that you have become followers of them who, through grace and patience, have inherited the promises? And sometimes, it was the aged sinner, "laden with guilt and heavy woes;" and sometimes the young sinner, cut off in his guilty career, and from his deceitful hopes and plans. And you have seen it, too; and have you trembled, and turned unto God, when He spared you, while He was striking them down and destroying them at your very side, and, amid this scene which was meant for mercy to you, warned you by the hopeless end of them who "died and made no sign?" And sometimes it was the father or mother, in the very prime of life, prostrated by insidious disease, and leaving the widowed partner, like a lonely partridge, to mourn in solitude, and the hapless babes to bewail their lot of orphanage. And again, the sweet and blooming infant, and the budding youth of girlhood, and the young man in his pride of strength,-just fixed his footsteps on the threshold of manly life,-have offered a shining mark and inviting target for the shaft of the insatiated archer, and parents have lamented in the bitterness of grief, and, in their anguish, burst forth in passionate exclaiming, "My child, my child! would God I had died for thee, my child!" And yet again, the wedding feast has been spread, and a tender but pleasant luxury of sweet and timid sorrow, has mingled with the joy of the bridegroom and the bride-but soon, alas! yea, sometimes ere the appointed day came round, another partner claimed the plighted hand, and the bridal couch was exchanged for the wind ing-sheet, and the cold, dark grave, and the felicitations of kinsmen and friends, for the embrace and brotherhood of corruption and the worm, that feed sweetly in their hideous, loathsome revelry, on the fair, but unresisting and helpless form, alike of delicate beauty and sinewy manhood. Whose house has not death invaded!

My friends, you have shared these scenes, and I have shared them with you. They are of the incidents in your domestic his tory. In these and like afflictions you have sought the pres ence and counsels, the consolations and prayers of your minister. And the God of all comfort hath even united us with you in tenderer sympathies, as partakers of like afflictions, that so we might be the better able to instruct and comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are com

forted of God-that our affliction and consolation might be for your consolation and salvation, through the close and enduring bonds of communion in sorrow and communion in joy. And now, I ask you, how you have borne these sorrows, and read these affecting lessons of Providence, and gained, as wisdom and grace can gain, extracting spiritual life and health, even from the gloom of the house of mourning, and from the fields and ravages of death!

I seek not, in waking up these tender recollections, to wound stricken hearts afresh, nor to provoke a mere momentary sigh, nor barely to unseal, as for this little moment, the fountain of your tears. And yet, why should not both you and I weep, unmindful of fastidious propriety, and indulging the luxury of grief and the salutary sorrow sanctioned by our great high-priest, whose heart of tenderness overflowed, when standing beside the tomb of His friend Lazarus, and surrounded by the tearful Martha and Mary, and the sympathizing friends of that lovely, bereaved family of Bethany, even "Jesus wept."

But still, we would use these scenes to mark the flight of time, and to suggest inquiries as to what we have laid to heart, and what has been the influence upon our spiritual condition, of all this mingled sorrow and kindness, warning and rebuke, mercies and means of grace, which we review this day? Oh! with what spirit, with what saving impression and sanctified emotion, shall our hearts dwell upon the questions, where are the friends of our youth? Where our loved ones? Where are the dead? Where are we, and whither do we tend? and what is our portion in the gospel, and our portion in eternity?

How oft have your ministers toiled in pastoral labors, waking while you slept, now trimming the midnight lamp, and now meditating on their sleepless couch, late in the watches of the night, and now bending the knee in prayers for you, while they kept these vigils of which your slumbers were unconscious, and of the meaning of which you are too unconscious even while you wake. Why do I speak thus publicly of these private, personal exercises, and secluded studies in the word of God? It is because you are concerned in them. They are of the cares and labors of the prophets and ministers of God, on your behalf. It is that I may appeal to you, who have the fruits of our labors, and ask you, "What fruits of your salvation shall we have in requital of our ministry among you?"

And let the solemn tones of the question which is uttered from the lips of the Lord of Hosts, ring in your ears, and be repeated in your resounding hearts, until it forces you to repentance and to peace with God; until you comprehend the fullness of that merciful solicitude with which your God is asking you, "Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?"

SERMON CCCCLXIX.

SYMPATHY WITH CHRIST.

BY REV. JAMES M. MACDONALD,

MINISTER OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, JAMAICA, L. I.

"But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.

"And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but, to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father." -MATTHEW, XX., 22, 23.

THE two disciples of our Lord, who applied to have special posts of honor assigned to them in His kingdom, were ignorant of what was involved in their request. Such honor could be shared, only, by their having, in another respect, been common sharers with their Lord. They must drink of His cup, and be baptized with His baptism. James and John desired to sit, the one on His right hand and the other on His left; they are given to understand that in order to be joint heirs with Christ in His glory, they must be ready to suffer with Him; for, if so be that we suffer with Him, we shall be also glorified together.

SYMPATHY WITH CHRIST, OR FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM IN HIS HUMILIATION, IS THE BELIEVER'S TRUE GLORY. To this subject your attention is now invited.

Mere enjoyment, it is evident, is, with multitudes, the great end to be sought in becoming Christians. At one period of our Lord's public ministry He was followed by a large number who professed to be His disciples, but who, when He told them what was the nature of true religion, went back and walked no more with Him; which led Him to propose to the Twelve that affecting inquiry, "Will ye also, go away?" And, on several occasions, the

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »