882 P127im 1836 Cha SERMON And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. WHILE Stephen was called to bestow some necessary attention on secular things for the relief of the apostles, he prosecuted with uncommon energy and zeal, the ministry of the gospel. He did great wonders and miracles among the people, and such was the wisdom and spirit with which he spake, that his enemies were unable to resist him. Having opportunity when falsely accused, to speak before his judges, he improved it, not so much to vindicate himself, as to bear witness to the truth. He was suffered to continue his testimony, until his enemies being cut to the heart by its directness and pungency, gnashed upon him with their teeth, stopped their ears, ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city and stoned him. Stephen died as such a witness to the truth might hope to die. Amidst the tumult and violence of his enemies he was full of the Holy Ghost. Celestial prospects opened on his view. He saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand, to whom, sinking under a shower of stones, he could commend his spirit. On the departure of those who had been engaged in this tragedy, the friends of the martyred Stephen, devout men, carried his mangled remains to their burial, and made great lamentation over him. They lamented him openly, and gave him an honorable burial, notwithstanding the daring violence of the times. These devout men regarded the death of a faithful minister of the Gospel as a deeply afflictive event. There may be those who are enemies to the ministers of Christ because they tell them the truth who revile them, living, and secretly rejoice over them, dead. Others may regard their removal with indifference, having taken no interest in their persons, in the objects of their mission, in the Sabbath, the house of God, or in any of the institutions of religion. But with devout persons- those whose judgment and sensibility in + such cases are worthy of respect, it is otherwise. The perils which encompassed the friends of Stephen did not deter them from rescuing his remains from the contemptuous, brutal treatment to which they were left exposed, giving them an honorable burial and lamenting him openly. I now stand in the midst of those whose feelings respond to the sentiment before us. God gave to this bereaved church and people a faithful minister. He was sent to them in his youth. At the call of of Christ he cheerfully took the oversight of them, and devoted himself to be their servant for Jesus' sake. He never became indifferent to their welfare or weary of laboring for their spiritual good. Under his ministry God granted repeated seasons of refreshing and raised many to the hope of eternal life. The church has been pre-` served and enlarged, and all the spiritual interests of this people have been prospered. At length this man of God is arrested in the midst of his labors. Through months of pain and near converse with death, he sets his seal to that gospel which he had preached, from youth to age, and, at length, dies in the midst of his flock. The sensibility apparent, and the honorable testimonials which are not withheld, shew that the death of a faithful minister is regarded by you as a deeply afflictive event. It is to be regarded in this light,— I. In view of the ends which are accomplished by the ministry. Under the preaching of the gospel attention is excited, religious knowledge is acquired, divine truth is considered, a respect for the Sabbath and the institutions of religion is increased, vice is shunned, virtuous habits are assumed, a concern for the future is awakened and the inquiry is made, What must I do to be saved? The Holy Ghost attends the divinely instituted means of grace. are born from above, animated with the hope of Heaven, prepared faithfully to serve God and their generation, and after having served in hope through life, depart in peace to be forever with the Lord. These effects are known only where the ministry of the gospel is enjoyed, and but for this ministry they would not be known. Men This place, under the ministry of our dear brother, bore witness that God accomplishes these ends by the labors of his servants. Here he preached that gospel, with the dispensation of which, Christ has charged his ministers. He preached it from sabbath to sabbath -from house to house -in season and out of season with 'weari ness and painfulness-in watchings often-with fasting and prayer in the sanctuary, in the school and in the family circle, in the chamber of sickness, by the bed of the dying, and over the opened grave. He preached the gospel by word. He preached the gospel by his example. And, need I add, the great ends for which the ministry was instituted, have not failed. Here is a church of Christ. Its numbers with but few exceptions, have been gathered by our brother from the world. How many have inquired of him for the way of salvation! How many has he guided to the Saviour! You have not many fathers. The recollection of the favored seasons which you have enjoyed in the sanctuary stands connected with him. The recollection of what you have enjoyed at the table of Christ, brings up the remembrance of him. He has assuaged your griefs. He has strengthened your faith. This sacramental host has followed him in what you have enterprised for the glory of God and the salvation of men. But all is over. His work is done. His last sermon is preached. His last example has been witnessed. Urgent soever as may be your necessities, he can respond to them The children will cluster around him no more. The pla. ces of instruction he will visit no more. Your dwellings will rejoice in his presence no more. He will stand as the guide of inqui. rers no more. He will break the sacramental bread no more. He will apply the baptismal water no more. No more will he sympathise in your joys or sorrows, bear you on his heart, or intercede in your behalf before the throne of grace. All is done! O when we consider how benign is the influence of a faithful minister, his removal by death cannot be regarded otherwise than as a deeply afflictive no more. event. II. The death of a faithful minister is to be regarded in this light, in view of the ties of friendship which it dissolves. The relation between him and his people is such as can hardly fail of being cemented by friendship, tender and strong. Such a minister can say, on his part, Ye are in our hearts to die and live with you; and, there are times, at least, in which, if it were possible, his people would pluck out their eyes for him. The object of his labors tends to render their union affectionate. He partakes of the feelings of Christ when he says:- The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundant ly. I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep. Paul assures his brethren that he sought not theirs but them not their goods, but their salvation. He speaks of himself as travailing in birth for their spiritual good; -as ready to be offered on the sacrifice and service of their faith. Being affectionately desirous of you, he says to the Thessalonians, we were willing to have imparted to you not the gospel of God only, but our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. Where such feelings exist, and no faithful minister is a stranger to them, they will be apparent. Infallible proofs of them will appear. And where they are evidenced by such solicitude and labors as are their appropriate fruit, they can hardly fail to beget corresponding feelings. The intimacy which takes place between a faithful minister and his people, in the prosecution of his work, is such as to render their union affectionate. He approaches them on subjects of the highest personal concern, and they make him the confidant of their secret feelings. They submit to him their views of divine truth, their hopes and fears, the questions of duty also that perplex them, and find that they meet with appropriate fidelity, and avail themselves of needed wisdom and kindness. Such intercourse must beget affection, affection that is rarely surpassed in any of the relations of men. The circumstances under which a faithful minister is intimate with his people tend to beget a strong and mutual affection. He is with them on the best of days. On the day on which they are freed from the toils of life, the day which is an emblem of Heaven, and affords an earnest of Heaven they meet their minister. The anticipation of the Sabbath brings him before the mind. He is associated in their recollection with its joys and the blessings it has imparted, and is identified with all the lessons of public instruction which are remembered. He is with them in sickness. The knowledge of distress is the only call for which he waits. He is present to enter into the causes of distress, to devise measures for relief, to sooth the sufferer, to point to the realities of that blessed world which sickness cannot invade, and in prayer, to bring the mind before God in the exercise of submission, hope, and trust. He is with his people in seasons of bereavment. When parents weep because their children are not; when children are made or phans; when husbands and wives, in the bitterness of their souls complain; lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness, they want their minister, and he wants to be with them. In all their afflictions he is afflicted; his soul labors after such views of the gospel as are suited to their case, and with all the interest which a fellow feeling can impart, he carries them to a throne of grace. He is with them, also, in seasons of rejoicing. They desire, through him, to give thanks. In connexion with the most joyful eras in all the families of his flock, is he remembered. The blessings which flow from the most interesting relations of life recall the affectionate remembrance of him. In the most confident intercourse of friendship the faithful minister is with his people. They mutually desire to associate as friends, as well as in the relation they sustain to each other-to reciprocate kind offices and mingle their social feelings. All these circumstances go to render very strong the ties of friendship which unite minister and people. - I add that the things of which a faithful minister is instrumental have the same tendency. Who can we love, if not our spiritual benefactors those who have borne with our waywardness-who could encounter, it may be, opposition and reproach from us in the prosecution of measures for our benefit who could patiently labor to enlighten our dark minds who could pray for us when we had no heart to pray for ourselves, and to whom we are indebted, under God, for being plucked as brands from the burning? Who can we love, if not those who have opened to us sources of light and comfort in affliction, who have explained to us the principles of the divine government, who have been the means of revealing to us the Son of man in the furnace, and of causing afflictions to work for us the peaceable fruits of righteousness, weaning us from the world, strengthening our attachment to things above, imparting to us clear. er evidence, and raising us to nearer intercourse with our Heavenly Father? Who can we love if not those who have instructed us in the way of truth, who have reproved our wandering, whose sympathies have diminished our sorrows and added to our joys? O my hearers, in view of the ties of friendship dissolved by the death of a faithful minister, the event is to be regarded as deeply afflictive-ties rendered strong by the object of his labors, by the in |