A TOKEN FOR MOURNERS.
THE hope of the resurrection should powerfully restrain all excess of sorrow in those that do profess it. Let them only mourn without measure who mourn without hope. The husbandman doth not mourn when he casts his seed-corn into the earth, because he sows in hope; commits it to the ground with an expectation to receive it again with improvement. Why thus stands the case here, and just as the apostle states it (I Thess. iv. 13, 14), “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them that sleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.”
Look not upon the dead as a lost generation; think not that death hath annihilated and utterly destroyed them: O no, they are not dead, but only sleep; and if they sleep, they shall awake again. You do not use to make outcries and lamentations for your children and friends when you find them asleep upon their beds. Why, death is but a longer sleep, out of which they shall as surely awake as ever they did in the morning in this world.
I beseech thee, reader, if thy deceased friend have left thee any solid ground of hope that he died interested in Christ, and the covenant, that thou wilt distinctly ponder these admirable supports which the doctrine of the resurrection affords.
First, that the same body which was so pleasant a spectacle to thee shall be restored again; yea, the same numerically, as well as the same specifically; so that it shall not only be what it was but the who it was. “Thine eyes shall behold him and not another” (Job xix. 27). The very same body you laid, or are now about to lay in the grave, shall be restored again: thou shalt find thine own husband, wife, or child, or friend again; I say the self-same, and not another.
Secondly, and farther, this is supposing that as you shall see the same person that was so dear to you, so shall you know them to be the same that were once endeared to you on earth in so near a tie of relation.
Indeed, you shall know them no more in any carnal relation—death dissolved that bond—but you shall know them to be such as once were your dear relations in this world, and be able to single them out among the great multitude, and say, this was my father, mother, husband, wife or child; this was the person for whom I wept and made supplication, who was an instrument of good to me, or to whose salvation God then made me instrumental.
For we may allow, in that state, all that knowledge which is cumulative and perfective, whatsoever may enlarge and heighten our felicity and satisfaction, and this must needs be allowed to do. Luther’s judgment upon this point, being asked by friends at supper the evening before he died, replies thus, What, saith he, befel Adam? He never saw Eve, but was in a deep sleep when God formed her; yet when he awaked, and saw her, he asked not what she was, nor whence she came? But saith, she was flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone. Now, how proved he that? He being full of the Holy Ghost, and induced with the knowledge of God, spake thus: After the same manner we shall be in the other life renewed by Christ, and shall know our parents, our wives, and children . . .
Thirdly, that at our next meeting, they shall be unspeakably more desirable, sweet, and excellent than ever they were in this world. They had a desirableness in them here, but they were not altogether lovely, and in every respect desirable; they had their infirmities, both natural and moral; but all those are removed in heaven, and for ever done away; no natural infirmities hang about glorified bodies, or sinful ones upon perfected spirits of the just. O what lovely creatures will they appear to you then when that which is now sown in dishonour shall be raised in honour! (I Cor. xv. 43). And then to crown all:
Fourthly, you shall have an everlasting enjoyment of them in heaven, never to part again. The children of the resurrection can die no more (Luke xx. 36). You shall miss their pale lips and cold cheeks no more; you shall never fear another parting pull, but be together with the Lord for ever (I Thess. iv. 14). And this the apostle thought an effectual cordial in this case when he exhorted the Thessalonians to “comfort one another with these words.”—From the Works of John Flavel, Puritan Divine, Vol. v., ps. 638-640.
TOPLADY ON PREACHING.
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Preach Christ crucified and dwell chiefly on the blessings resulting from His righteousness, atonement and intercession.
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Avoid all needless controversies in the pulpit, except when the truths of God are likely to suffer by your silence.
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When you ascend the pulpit, leave your learning behind you; endeavour to preach more to the hearts of people than to their heads.
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Do not affect much oratory; seek rather to profit than to be admired.
CHRIST CALLED THE EVERLASTING FATHER (Isa. ix. 6).
This appellation does not describe His mode of existence as a Divine person, for all the corresponding epithets only describe His dignity and attributes—the possession of matchless and glorious power. He is called the Father of futurity, but not in relation to any person. He Himself is solely named and described. Had another person of the Godhead been introduced in relation of whom the Messiah was termed Father, the fact would undoubtedly be decisive that the designations Father and Son were not indicative of eternal states within the Divine essence; but no such circumstance is stated by the prophet. He does not say that it is in the Divine nature that the Messiah, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God is Father, but simply that He is the Father of future eternity, the director of events in the future dispensation. He speaks of Messiah as God, but none that peruses the passage with attention will say that he speaks of this Divine person in reference to other Divine persons. It is solely the Divine person in reference to other Divine persons. It is solely the Divine person who was to be Messiah that the prophet portrays—it is the person in His own peculiar character. There is therefore no possible room for affirming that the relations of the Persons in the Godhead are confounded, and their terms employed the one for the other indiscriminately—Kidd on the Eternal Sonship.
Importune Christ, be often at His gate; give His door no rest: I can tell you, He will be found.—Samuel Rutherford.
THE LESSONS OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.
I thank you for your letter; I never receive one from you without pleasure, and I believe seldom without profit, at least for the time. I believe with you, that there is much of the proper and designed efficacy of the gospel mystery which I have not yet experienced. And I suppose they who are advanced far beyond me in the divine light, judge the same of their present attainments. Yet I have no idea of any permanent state in this life that shall make my experience cease to be a state of warfare and humiliation. At my first setting out, indeed, I thought to be better, and to feel myself better from year to year; I expected by degrees to attain everything which I then comprised in my idea of a saint. I thought my grain of grace, by much diligence and careful improvement, would in time amount to a pound, that pound in a further space of time to a talent, and then I hoped to increase from one talent to many; so that supposing the Lord should spare me a competent number of years, I pleased myself with the thoughts of dying rich. But, alas! these my golden expectations have been like South Sea dreams; I have lived hitherto a poor sinner, and I believe I shall die one. Have I then gained nothing by waiting upon the Lord? Yes, I have gained that which I once would rather have been without, such accumulated proofs of the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of my heart as I hope, by the Lord’s blessing, has in some measure taught me to know what I mean when I say, Behold I am vile, and in connection with this I have gained such experience of the wisdom, power, and compassion of my Redeemer, the need, the worth of His blood, righteousness, attention, and intercession, the glory that He displays in pardoning iniquity and sins, and passing by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage, that my soul cannot but cry out, Who is a God like unto Thee? Thus, if I have any meaner thoughts of myself (Ezek. xvi. 63) and any higher thoughts of Him than I had 20 years ago, I have reason to be thankful; every grain of this experience is worth mountains of gold. And if, by His mercy, I shall yet sink more in my own esteem, and He will be pleased to rise still more glorious in my eyes, and more precious to my heart, I expect it will be much in the same way. I was ashamed when I began to seek Him; I am more ashamed now; and I expect to be most of all ashamed when He shall appear to destroy my last enemy. But, oh! I may rejoice in Him, to think that He will not be ashamed of me.—From a letter dated November 23, 1774, by John Newton.