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Title: A Farewell Sermon
delivered on Sunday, October 23, A.D. 1842, at the Parish Church of St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington
Author: Joseph Holden Pott
Release Date: March 6, 2021 [eBook #64716]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FAREWELL SERMON***
Transcribed from the 1842 J. G. F. & J. Rivington edition by David Price.
DELIVERED
ON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, A.D. 1842,
AT THE PARISH CHURCH OF
ST. MARY ABBOTTS, KENSINGTON.
BY THE
VEN.
ARCHDEACON POTT, M.A.
PRINTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE PARISHIONERS.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON,
ST. PAUL’S CHURCH
YARD,
AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL.
1842.
p. 5TO
THE PARISHIONERS
OF
THE PARISH OF KENSINGTON,
THE FOLLOWING DISCOURSE,
WITH EVERY FERVENT PRAYER FOR THEIR WELFARE,
IS INSCRIBED,
BY THEIR FAITHFUL
AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,
J. H. POTT.
Eccles. iii. 1.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
When time draws on to a close with us, the last opportunities should be carefully regarded and applied to some such purpose as may show what has been the chief aim and the main design of past endeavours.
A sad thing it would be, indeed, if the last portion of our time were to be reserved for some single effort: for who can accomplish at one step that which a daily progress only can effect?
They who enjoyed long lives of old time, indulged, it must be owned, in some complaints which showed more of the weakness of our common nature, than of that proficiency for which the loan of life, whatever p. 8may be the term of its duration, is bestowed. The good king Hezekiah poured his lamentation, when it should seem he had much cause to be contented with what God had wrought for him in his day. He called that “the cutting off his days,” which it may be thought he might have met with more complacency of mind, from the contemplation of the benefits which God had enabled him to procure for Israel: but if there was any token of infirmity in this, it was coupled with a pious mind, and the suit was therefore heard and granted. If David, too, seems sometimes querulous in his pleas for the enlargement of his days, yet he added a good and becoming reason for it, that he might show the power of God to that generation in which his eventful lot was cast, and make it known to those who were to come.
But we may remark in general, that we do not form a right judgment of the Providence of God, if at any time we speak with disparagement of the term of human life, as too short for the accomplishment of things which form its proper end. We should consider, rather, that in all cases the gift of life is made capable of some sufficient share of the mercies and salvation of the Lord. It becomes so for all who partake a common nature, where they put no impediment to the current and communication of Divine Grace. Let us weigh this point with care: it has a seasonable application at this moment, since it will prevent undue regrets when any portion of the loan of life may cease to serve the purposes to which p. 9it may have been conducive whilst the season for its exercise endured.
If, then, it is the child who is called hence to an early grave, he goes with the seal of grace upon him; and what was wanting here, the bud, the blossom, and the ripened cluster, will thrive in a happier soil, and flourish in a more propitious climate. The thread of life, which, in this case, was so soon severed from the parent’s bosom, was fastened to the throne of heaven, and death has no power to dissolve it. The Conqueror of Satan, who brought life and immortality to light, will not exclude those little ones, whom He once called into his presence, from the rescued train of countless multitudes who shall hear that glad word of introduction, “Behold, I and the children whom God hath given me.” The privileges of the Gospel stood pledged to them in this life to render their change blessed to themselves, and to leave that consolation, in the day of sorrow, for surviving friends.
If the call hence comes in somewhat of maturer years, though still in the days of youth, the young man will have lived long enough to have learned the rudiments of saving knowledge, and to have practised the first lessons of Christian faith and Christian duty; and thus the best end for which the loan of life was given, will have found that happy earnest of its future fulness.
If, again, the thread of life shall have been continued to later periods of its course, no doubt the p. 10opportunities for all those advantages to which life can minister, will render it at all times a blessing and a boon. Nor will you wonder, in comparing the longer with the shorter term of life, that the suit of supplicating parents in our Lord’s days, whether for the child or for the youth, was so often granted by a restoration to a more protracted term of life. You will not wonder that our Blessed Lord should so mark the value of the life which now is, and its connexion, by a right improvement of it, with the life of glory. We are bound, indeed, to bless God for all the dispensations of his hand, for they all serve for good; but we must not reverse the language, not of natural feeling only, but of more just conceptions of the purposes for which life is given, or be led to think that death is the boon, and that a return to this life could be no blessing. When did our Lord make that answer to the mourner’s suit? or when did He reprove the tears and sorrows of survivors with that cold reply? So little ground is there, among the singularities of dress and manners in which some have placed so much of their religion, for refusing to put on the mourning weed for the departed. There is but a single instance in the Sacred Volume of a prohibition so enjoined; and then it was designedly portentous, denoting the last extremity to which offences had grown up in Israel, and the punishments which were to follow.
If now the term of life runs on, and the seasons p. 11are prolonged, old age comes forward, and not without its burdens and privations. Will you plead here with old Barzillai, to whom David gave a gracious invitation, to mark the sense he entertained of the value of past services, proposing that he should return with him when he was restored from exile, and brought back in peace and honour to Jerusalem? The old man’s answer was not entirely the most proper and becoming: “and Barzillai said unto the king, Can thy servant taste what I eat, or what I drink? can I hear any more the voice of singing-men or singing-women? Wherefore, then, should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king?” But Barzillai, if this was ill spoken, showed a prudent spirit in what followed, for he puts in a prompt plea for his son: “Behold,” said he, “thy servant Chimham; let him go with my lord the king, and do with him what shall seem good unto thee.” Now David might, no doubt, have replied, “I want you for the council-board, where your sage experience may yield me better service than this youth can furnish.” But David had a due regard to the privileges of descent, and to the preference to be shown to the children of deserving parents who may spend their lives in the service of their country, and frequently can find no reward in this life, but in the persons of surviving children. It is the plain stamp of barbarism which rests upon those governments which do not recognize this principle, and where the hand of power makes one only testament p. 12for the frail possessor after all his services. David formed a different judgment; he accepted Barzillai’s tender of his son; he followed the same course which he had pursued with poor Mephibosheth, the son of the princely, noble-minded Jonathan, who preferred the known will of God, and his love to David, to the crown of one who had incurred the forfeiture of what he had so ill-sustained. David placed Mephibosheth at his own board, although he could neither serve him in the field, nor attend him in his exile. The first order made upon the king’s return, after receiving Mephibosheth’s excuse, was to confirm to him the grant which had before been made in his behalf.
Thus have we traced the several stages of the life of man, and in each of them we have found that life might be a blessing, and the ground of every blessing; and that God, ever gracious, ever merciful, might crown with some word of benediction the closing days of each such term or period of the life of man, just as He did the six glorious days of the creation. The morning and the evening (for so we reckon time) were followed by a solemn benediction, but with a special blessing for the Sabbath-day, the crown of all that stupendous work, the day sanctified by the Creator’s rest; the day claimed for Himself, with a marked reserve, such as the true Proprietor of all that He had made, and of all the bounties which distinguished man’s first abode in Paradise, was pleased to attach to one tree in the p. 13garden, by which the first pair might be reminded of the homage due to God, and might fulfil it by a strict regard to his commandment.
The Sabbath-day! With what joy must its regular returns have been hailed in the first scenes of an unblemished world; and how good and gracious was the Author of that first hallowed institution, so that in the day of forfeiture, not only was the first pledge of salvation given, but the welcome respite from increasing labours by returning Sabbaths was continued. It had no limitation or exception in its first appointment, nor should we presume to put such; much less was there any intimation given in that hour that the appointment of this day, with its solemn benediction, was but an anticipated notice of the Jewish Sabbath, together with what was indeed peculiar to it, when, after long intermissions or neglects, it was revived. Can we think that when “for every thing there is a season,” there was to be none more especially provided, in all times, for religious observation? and that, too, when the Sovereign Lord had set his seal to such provision, without one word which could affect its perpetuity? Accordingly we find a set time for religious exercises mentioned in that new scene of discipline and trial to which man was removed; for, indeed, he was not cast out as an alien and an enemy, a wanderer and a wretch.
In this hour of closure for my pastoral care among you, it may not be unseasonable to advert to things p. 14which have found their turns in hours of teaching and persuasion. Let me then entreat you to remember those first acts of grace, the early grounds of good hope, which made life itself, with all its seasons, a blessing, and, if rightly husbanded, the seed-plot of all blessings to the sons of men. Nothing but a new apostasy could destroy that hope, when the term of life was continued where it might have been cut short, in which case the human race would have been extinguished, and that triumph would have been given to the common foe to God and man. Nothing but a new apostasy from God would render man, in his state of promised rescue and encouragement and in the new term of his probation, an enemy to God. Before that horrible desertion from his worship, the Most High made his visit to the patriarchal altar, and gave that memorable declaration of his will, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” The ground was laid in purpose and effect for that acceptance; and surely the assurance thus added was not for one family.
Thus there is a Sabbath still set apart for a welcome day of rest, and for religious exercises; a day, the joy of which I have so often shared with you in these happy seasons of religious worship and communion. Remember the well-timed distinctions which He who was Lord also of the Sabbath-day, as the partner of his Father’s glory, prescribed for the right observance of the day, divesting it of its legal p. 15strictness and peculiarities, and still more protecting it, by an open vindication of its essential objects, from Jewish scruples and from Jewish superstitions.
O look well to the duties of the Christian Sabbath! We want no traditionary warrant for its transfer to the glad day of the Redeemer’s resurrection. The Scriptures furnish plain and indubitable vestiges of that change. Look well to its salutary obligations, bound upon us by the twofold cogency of precept and example.
Remember who it was, who, after the scene of his ministerial labours, kept his last Sabbath in the grave, and crowned with perpetual glory the day of his triumphant resurrection. Well might that day become not only the day of rest from labour, but a day of gladness and release from worldly cares and occupation, and, above all, the happy emblem of a rest from every evil work, a respite from a bondage worse than that of servile Egypt, a rest too from the galling yoke and ruling power of sin, which is the privilege of faith.
Among such topics as may now claim a seasonable repetition, I may again remind you how much it behoves us, in consulting the written word, the rule of faith and duty, to avoid all partial views, by which restriction one truth would exclude another; or, what is worse, a wrong conclusion may be joined with what is only true in some respects, and both the truth and the fallacious inference may thus gain p. 16currency together. The neglect of this rule has brought more strifes and divisions into the Christian world than almost any thing that can be named. Take an instance if you think fit; there is more joy when that which is lost is found again, than for that which was never lost. This is true in that respect; but will you strain the matter farther, and say that the recovered sheep is of more worth than the whole flock to which it is restored? Will you say that the piece of silver which was missing, and when found creates much joy on that account, outweighs all that the purse, from whence it dropped, contained? Will you say, that the pardoned son, who returns to the right path by a true repentance, and fills his father’s heart with well placed and unwonted joy, is in all respects to be preferred to the son who never left the right path from an early day? The forgiving father’s answer will convict that misconception:—“Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” If the elder brother may be thought to have lost his preference, it could only be because of his envious temper and his ill-timed remonstrance. In avoiding partial views and misapplications of what is true, the more numerous and more general and plainer testimonies, and those which admit but of one construction, will be the guiding light for reconcilement and consistency—not for preference, for that would still be but a partial view.
I may here add a necessary caution (oftentimes p. 17suggested, for it frequently proves needful), to give heed to the native idioms or forms of speech, which were in use, and rightly understood, by those to whom the word of treaty and persuasion was first addressed. The use of learned pains will thus appear, as well as of every method of right reasoning in the study of the sacred Scriptures, the rule of faith and duty for which we have to bless God daily.
I may now touch upon the best and only safe ground of trust which we have to take in any season of review, when past portions of our lives are recalled to our consideration. We may look, now, to the hope of pardon, and allowance for things done amiss, or things left undone; and blessed be God that ground has been laid, or who could stand in judgment in the last account? Certainly not the boastful and punctilious Pharisee; certainly not those who have keener eyes for the faults of others than for their own defects. Excellent are the words of our Lord’s apostle, and now most seasonable in their application; thus he marks it for a ruling principle of charity, that it “thinketh no evil,” and is not, therefore, apt to censure or condemn.
It is but in some respects, that we can speak well of those whom we are least inclined to censure, and most ready to regard with favour;—and with that remark I shall fairly take leave of what concerns myself in this day of valediction.
But I am well aware that the season of departure from accustomed scenes of duty is a proper season p. 18for advice, and to this last tribute of sincere affection and regard, I will now address myself.
We stand much for authority, for rights of station, and the sacred warrant of the pastoral commission—and we do well, for without them there would be no order in the world, no joint progress in a common path; no peace, no security. When every man in Israel did what was right in his own eyes, and nothing by direction or consent, it was a day of trouble and disaster, of ruin and confusion. They who will own no guide in the way they have to tread, had need be well acquainted with the road.
It would be well if such men, who despise all guides, would be content to go alone—but was it ever so seen in all the world? Are not such the men who strive most eagerly to press others into their train from all quarters where they can obtrude themselves and spread their pestilent opinions, and lay their destructive snares?
But the rules of pastoral advice derive their obligation from the simplest forms of truth; were it otherwise, how would they meet the varied calls for choice and resolution which come forward in the course of human life? If the truth itself has no special period for the height and measure of its growth in human breasts, yet it has for its perpetual standard God’s own eternal attributes. In those perfections of the Deity, the sure test of truth is established. Our Lord’s apostle takes this ground; “He that cometh to God, must believe that he is;”—p. 19and observe what follows, “and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him;”—in which two particulars, the existence of God, and the never-failing characters of truth, wisdom, equity, and goodness in such expressions of his favour, the sure foundations of his moral government are laid, as well as the sum of every moral and religious obligation. This appears in all the articles of faith, and in all the acts of duteous service; it appears in all that God hath done for us in the great work of our redemption more especially, and in all that he requires of us in order to a future recompense.
Let no vicissitude in things by which men are tried, but with a sure refuge under all events for the dutiful, tempt you for a moment to forget that the “ways of God are equal:” it was his own challenge to backsliding Israel, and the last result will not fail to confirm it. Let no light conceit at any time induce you to suppose that the great truths, upon which the hope of our salvation is built, may be regarded as things indifferent, for which another season may be found; or that such things, with all their convincing proofs and trains of evidence, are placed beyond our reach. Can we think that our Lord’s word is not verified, that, “Wisdom should be justified of her children?” And with respect more particularly to disingenuous pleas of difficulty, do we find the rules of faith and duty things so hard to be ascertained? Have we no sufficient traces of them in the light of conscience; p. 20in the bright tokens and communications of God’s own grace and solemn declarations, in the powers of right discrimination, without which there could be no reasonable choice of any thing that best deserves our compliance? Have we not (blessed be God!) the sacred, never-erring Word, which has been written for our learning, and for our sure direction in all things needful to salvation?
It is much to be observed, in such general statements, that the Apostles of our Lord never failed to add to their reasonings with Jew or Gentile, scribe or sophist, such comprehensive testimonies of the grounds of faith and the fruits of holiness in those who continue true to their engagement, as will leave no room for uncertain tests or bold opinions, for endless fluctuations in the mind and conduct, with doubts and difficulties of our own creating. It is true, that in the revelations of God’s will there are things which no human faculties, or even those of the purest of created beings in the realms of light, could penetrate, until the Most High so graciously revealed them,—things which relate to his own Essence, with his purposes and counsels for the redemption of mankind; but is it so hard to understand that when all was forfeited, God should send a Saviour from the throne of glory to become the new Head of mankind, by taking flesh, and in that nature, which He by his Divine prerogative had power to assume, to fulfil all that wherein our common sire had failed? Was not this a nobler exercise of p. 21Divine wisdom, than the creating a new race, and leaving that triumph to the common foe to God and man, that one such race was lost? Is it so hard to be understood, that to vindicate the credit of God’s Holy Law, there should be one sufficient satisfactory atonement, one sacrifice never more to be repeated or renewed? or that, by the prevailing intercession of the same Divine Redeemer, the gates of Heaven should be set wide to a rescued race, whose own exertions should from thenceforth be well employed, in spite of all the force and all the artifices of the common adversary? The glory of Divine grace is thus exalted, when the first gifts of God are again directed to their proper ends. To raise children unto Abraham of the stones of the desert, had been, no doubt, an easy task to the Almighty; but would it have served so highly to his glory, as the preservation and recovery of the first formed race? Is it so hard to perceive how signally the conspiring attributes of God, his justice, truth, and mercy, were thus illustrated and made to meet together in that work of redemption, which was accomplished in Christ Jesus? Does it require much scope of argument or pains of study to enable us to see, that to redeem mankind was an object no less worthy of Divine interposition, than to create them from the first?
Again, could we safely remain strangers (as some would gladly seem to do) to the several branches of all moral obligations, when they have been confirmed p. 22anew, and drawn out into manifest example, and set before us so expressly for our imitation, in our Lord’s own life?
St. Paul’s brief enumeration of faith, hope, and charity, forms the sum of what in other places he sets forth with a large detail of things required of us, all serving to the same end and intent: only, remember carefully what that end is,—it is not the same for which Christ wrought and suffered, and He only could sustain; yet is it the “reasonable service,” or “living sacrifice of the whole man,” which is required, in order not only to our own improvement, which could not thrive without it, but in order to a promised recompense, which, together with the freedom of the Gospel state, were procured for us at so rich a cost. The ransom paid, the heritage obtained, by one only righteous Mediator, how widely do they differ from the promised recompense for the faithful and sincere! and yet how consistent are these things in their whole effect! There is one judgment-seat for both, and one form of judicial sentence, though in different respects, is applied to both; but how different is the language in which the same Apostle speaks of each. There is no need to call in the suffrage of a fellow-witness to correct his view, for both he and his fellow-witness, when they speak of the same things, use the same language, and declare the same consistent judgment.
And what, then, is our Lord’s compendious draft p. 23of things required of us in the days of our probation? it is “to love the Lord our God with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind, and with all the strength; and our neighbour as ourselves.” Will you strain a flight beyond this, and regard the care for yourselves as too low a pitch for your wishes to excel, or for the native worth of what is good? Do but consider that the welfare and the happiness of his reasonable creatures formed the first object and design of the Creator, and can never cease to be his purpose; consider, too, that any kind of moral goodness which should not be good for us, would want just so much of real goodness, and of its proper and essential excellency. It was one of the vilest errors of the heathen world, and one which prevailed much, as their earliest historian tells us, that there was envy towards man among the gods; and no wonder, if the rule of Providence could be placed in such hands as they feigned for its administration.
Again, as the truth itself is always true, and virtue, which is its image, is no less uniform and constant, most groundless and injurious must be those restrictions which would shut out any one real virtue or its exercise from the Christian pattern; for in so doing we should detract just so much from its integrity. You may reverse the proposition if you think fit, and say, with truth, that every virtue puts on the Christian character, not from any date of their adoption, but as they are cherished and enhanced p. 24by new motives and inducements, and strengthened by the bond of unity and concord in the Christian household.
Can I forget at this moment, befriended as I have been in the past scene of my labours, that among the virtues which some would leave to the heathen, together with the patriot spirit and the courage to maintain it, Friendship has been made to share the sentence of exclusion? At this rate the noble-minded Jonathan could not be added to the list of worthies, to recount which St. Paul found the day too short. But the glowing pen of David has inscribed the name of his generous and ever-constant friend with the sons of faith, in characters which no time shall efface. And what then? Had our blessed Lord no family of friends which brought him even weeping to the grave of Lazarus? Was it for nothing that it was then said, “Behold how he loved him?” Had our Lord no disciple who was laid in his bosom at the paschal feast; to whom also He gave his last charge concerning her who should be blessed among women? Most gladly, therefore, shall I pay the debt of friendly obligation on my removal from among you, and cherish that good property of mind which has so many moral motives for exciting its first growth, and brings forth so many moral fruits in its maturity which may be stored in everlasting garners.
But as strange as that distinction is which would cast out real virtues from the Christian code, I may p. 25now warn you from an opposite extreme. Thus have words of counsel been exalted above the word of the commandment. Let us weigh this also for a moment; it has been, and continues still to be, the nurse of many fond conceits.
If you strive to put more into a vessel which is already well replenished, will you not displace some of its contents? And if this be done where the hand of the Lord hath filled the vessel, that we may drink and thirst no more, but live for ever, the loss (not to name the sacrilege) will outweigh the gain a thousand-fold. The boastful young man, who would not accept the word of the commandment at our Lord’s lips as a full reply to his inquiry, but said, “All this have I kept from my youth up; what lack I yet?” did not receive, in answer to this pretension, a word of counsel. Our Lord showed him plainly what the true breadth of the commandment was. Thus he required no more of him than that which became the bounden duty of many in the days of trouble which succeeded. Many were made to feel the force of that never-changing precept, which demands the sacrifice of all things sublunary, where the bond of Truth cannot otherwise be kept. There was no sacrifice, then, proposed to this aspiring youth, nothing counselled, beyond the verge of the commandment; and the test to which he was put was but the fruit of his overweening zeal.
When some of the early Christians were not p. 26contented to wait the coming of the fore-named obligation, but sought martyrdom of their own accord, although our Lord enjoined them when persecuted in one city to flee into another, the Church interposed, and set a mark of public censure upon such rash exposures of the lives of faithful men. Will you say, then, that St. Paul put forward words of counsel for which he acknowledged that, in advising what was best for those days of peril, he had no commandment? He did so; but as he had received no commandment, so did he impose none. He left his converts free to follow his advice according to their own discretion: he laid no bond upon them, no vow, no snare, no scruple; for, indeed, he was the steady foe to things unbidden.
And what, then, are the general and never changing precepts which no flight of zeal can surpass? We have already taken one such comprehensive rule from our Lord’s lips; but to enlarge a little on a theme so seasonable at all times, we may remark, that the word of precept requires us to weigh and esteem things according to their real worth; to seek the kingdom of God first, and his righteousness; to prize that pearl of price above all other things; to take readily, as St. Paul showed in his example, what God giveth, with a thankful and becoming use of the welcome gift, but with a just sense that what may be bitter and distasteful, if such be the cup, will serve for good to those who love God; we are thus enjoined to be content with such things as we p. 27have, to keep under and to combat every evil inclination, for there lies the place and proper exercise of self-denial; it will prove unfit and injurious when pressed beyond its uses. It was the aim of the apostle to set free to all things lawful and becoming, but not to be brought under the power of any; which shows at once the misery and inconvenience of an iron chain, whether forged by others, and imposed upon us in their names, or adopted by our own devices.
He who will set up better rules than these, must not expect his word to be taken for them; he must prove them by the known declaration of the will of God, or by sufficient reasons, tried by the sure word of the commandment.
There were not wanting, we may now remark, many who passed the season of attendance before the coming of the promised Mediator, with some profit to themselves and others. We have noticed this with respect to the patriarchal age and to the Israel of God; and it holds good, in some measure, with relation to the Gentile world. There were those even where the hideous darkness of idolatry prevailed, among whom truth found its seasonable culture. There were those who sustained in some sort the credit of the human race. They sought a refuge in their own reflections from false worship, and delusions gross, impious, and far below the character of man. They betook themselves accordingly to some sound principles of moral truth and moral p. 28wisdom. Thus the faculty of right discrimination, and the power of conscience, when not drowned in vice and superstition, exhibited some lines, and showed some traces of the great Creator’s image. They reduced the rule of life and of well-doing to some fixed points; prudence, justice, fortitude, the love of truth, the scorn of falsehood or deceit, self-government, with other noble qualities, exhibited plain characters of man’s first resemblance to the Author of his being. Thus things which are always true and always good, kept their place in some fair examples, and sustained the claim which such men had to be the teachers and the monitors of others, although without authority to teach or to direct—that want remained to be supplied, as the wisest of them fairly owned.
Our blessed Lord, who came to bind the bruised reed, and to fan the least spark of the smoking flax, never turned with scorn from such tokens of good disposition and right judgment, or failed to give his word of commendation when they came before him. “I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel,” were words which embraced the qualities of mind which were always found to be most favourable to prepare the heart (the seat of every moral property) for any seed of truth which should be cast upon it. Such was the good ground of which our Lord made mention in his instructive parable of the Sower and the Seed. A rational acknowledgment, with a just esteem for what is good, is the soul of faith, of which p. 29the tenth leper left a memorable proof. Without such moral properties faith might be the hand for receiving any benefit, but where would be the mind to understand its value, and perceive the nature of its obligations? Let the nine lepers who were healed, but returned not to give thanks, supply the answer. But if the Gentile sages showed indeed sound judgment in reducing rules of ethics to fixed principles, our blessed Lord with the full warrant of divine authority formed the draft of faith and duty, sometimes compendiously, and sometimes with particular enumerations.
But again, with these main principles and never-changing objects of regard, there is another word which has its special season—it is that of pastoral entreaty; and it remains for me to press it at this time—it results, indeed, from the whole view which has been taken.
Never then, I beseech you, my beloved brethren, consent to yield the profession or the practice of the rule of faith and duty, for fear or favour; for any flattering bait or treacherous inducement, never lose sight of what is due to God, to your fellow-creatures, and yourselves;—only remember that if we neglect to take thought for others, that is not the care for ourselves which we are enjoined to extend to others. And here I cannot sufficiently commend the manifold attentions of the prudent and sincere, which have been paid to the needs of many in this vicinage. O! let that care continue for your poorer brethren—p. 30let it manifest itself in the religious instructions which your schools provide for their children, and in a thousand instances of kindness which the succours which the law requires cannot supply.
And yet again, amidst all these incumbent obligations, there is still room for the words of Solomon, “to every thing there is a season;” and the present moment constrains me yet once more to conjure you to bear these things in mind, to keep them as the treasure of your hearts. If such shall be the purpose and endeavour, it matters less at what period the foot is stayed, provided it be found in the right path when the day of travel or of any special charge shall close. But in such case, when we can no longer walk together as companions, there must be the word of exhortation for those who have to go forward—let it then be the word of the apostle—to “walk worthy of your vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is . . . one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
To us who have walked long together, there is another cheering word on separation, when most happily the new guide, with every hopeful commendation, is at hand and ready to succeed.
There is but one word more, one which cannot be p. 31amplified, for it contains the sum of every good wish, every grateful sense and recollection of past kindnesses—there remains but the little, yet significant and comprehensive word—farewell; “and this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more, in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent, that ye may be sincere, and without offence until the day of Christ.”
THE END
p. 32LONDON:
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,
ST. JOHN’S SQUARE.
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