Letter XXXV. To my Lady Kenmure, on the death of a child.
(GOD MEASURES OUR DAYS – BEREAVEMENTS RIPEN US FOR THE HARVEST.)
MADAM,
All submissive and dutiful obedience in our Lord Jesus remembered. I trust I need not much entreat your Ladyship to look to Him who hath stricken you at this time; but my duty, in the memory of that comfort I found in your Ladyship’s kindness, when I was no less heavy (in a case not unlike that), speaketh to me to say something now. And I wish I could ease your Ladyship, at least with words.
I am persuaded your Physician will not slay you, but purge you, seeing He calleth Himself the Chirurgeon [sic. “Surgeon”], who maketh the wound and bindeth it up again; for to lance a wound is not to kill, but to cure the patient (Deut. xxxii. 39). I believe faith will teach you to kiss a striking Lord; and so acknowledge the sovereignty of God (in the death of a child) to be above the power of us mortal men, who may pluck up a flower in the bud and not be blamed for it. If our dear Lord pluck up one of His roses, and pull down sour and green fruit before harvest, who can challenge Him? For He sendeth us to His world, as men to a market, wherein some stay many hours, and eat and drink, and buy and sell, and pass through the fair, till they be weary; and such are those who live long, and get a heavy fill of this life. And others again come slipping in to the morning market, and do neither sit nor stand, nor buy nor sell, but look about them a little, and pass presently home again; and these are infants and young ones, who end their short market in the morning, and get but a short view of the Fair. Our Lord, who hath numbered man’s months and set him bounds that he cannot pass (Job xiv. 5), hath written the length of our market, and it is easier to complain of the decree than to change it.
I verily believe, when I write this, your Lord hath taught your Ladyship to lay your hand on your mouth. But I shall be far from desiring your Ladyship, or any others, to cast by a cross, like an old useless bill that is only for the fire; but rather would wish each cross were looked in the face seven times, and were read over and over again. It is the messenger of the Lord, and speaks something; and the man of understanding will hear the rod, and Him that hath appointed it. Try what is the taste of the Lord’s cup, and drink with God’s blessing, that ye may grow thereby. I trust in God, whatever speech it utter to your soul, this is one word in it, “Behold, blessed is the man whom God correcteth” (Job v. 17); and that it saith to you, “Ye are from home while here; ye are not of this world, as your Redeemer, Christ, was not of this world.” There is something keeping for you, which is worth the having.
All that is here is condemned to die, to pass away like a snowball before a summer sun; and since death took first possession of something of yours, it hath been and daily is creeping nearer and nearer to yourself, howbeit with no noise of feet. Your Husbandman and Lord hath lopped off some branches already; the tree itself is to be transplanted to the high garden. In a good time be it. Our Lord ripen your Ladyship. All these crosses (and indeed, when I remember them, they are heavy and many, peace, peace be the end of them!) are to make you white and ripe for the Lord’s harvest-hook. I have seen the Lord weaning you from the breasts of this world. It was never His mind it should be your patrimony; and God be thanked for that. Ye look the like one of the heirs. Let the movables go; why no? They are not yours. Fasten your grips upon the heritage; and our Lord Jesus make the charters sure, and give your Ladyship to grow as a palm-tree on God’s mount Zion; howbeit shaken with winds, yet the root is fast. This is all I can do, to recommend your case to your Lord, who hath you written upon the palms of His hand. If I were able to do more, your Ladyship may believe me that gladly I would. I trust shortly to see your Ladyship. Now He who hath called you confirm and stablish your heart in grace, unto the Day of the Liberty of the Sons of God.
Your Ladyship’s at all submissive obedience in his sweet Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Antwoth, April 29, 1634.
Rutherford, Samuel Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2006), 97-99. (I edited the text for ease in reading)
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 09, 2009
The Thorny Hedge of Daily Grief, Loss of Children
Letter IV. To the Elect and Noble Lady, my Lady Kenmure, on occasion of the death of her infant daughter.
(TRIBULATION THE PORTION OF GOD’S PEOPLE, AND INTENDED TO WEAN THEM FROM THE WORLD.)
MADAM,
Saluting your ladyship with grace and mercy from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,
I was sorry, at my departure, leaving your Ladyship in grief, and would still be grieved at it, if I were not assured that ye have One with you in the furnace, whose visage is like unto the Son of God. I am glad that ye have been acquainted from your youth with the wrestlings of God, and that ye get scarce liberty to swallow down your spittle, being casten from furnace to furnace, knowing if ye were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much of Him, He would not spend so much physic upon you.
All the brethren and sisters of Christ must be conform to His image and copy in suffering (Rom. viii. 29). And some do more vively resemble the copy than others. Think, Madam, that it is a part of your glory to be enrolled among those whom one of the elders pointed out to John, “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Behold your Forerunner going out of the world all in a lake of blood, and it is not ill to die as He did. Fulfil with joy the remnant of the grounds and “remainders of the afflications of Christ” in your body (Col. i. 24).
Ye have lost a child: nay she is not lost to you who is found to Christ. She is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star, which going out of our sight doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere. Ye see her not, yet she doth shine in another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time that she hath gotten of eternity; and ye have to rejoice that ye have now some plenishing up in heaven. Build your nest upon no tree here; for ye see God hath sold and forest to death; and every tree whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end we may fly (In the earlier editions it is given “fly” throughout; not “flee.”) and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. What ye love besides Jesus, your husband, is an adulterous lover.
Now it is God’s special blessing to Judah, that He will not let her find her paths in following her strange lovers. “Therefore, behold I will hedge up her way with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them” (Hos. ii. 6, 7). O thrice happy Judah, when God buildeth a double stone wall betwixt her and the fire of hell!
The world, and the things of the world, Madam, is the lover ye naturally affect beside your husband Christ. The hedge of thorns and the wall which God buildeth in your way, to hinder you from this lover, is the thorny hedge of daily grief, loss of children, weakness of body, iniquity of the time, uncertainty of estate, lack of worldly comfort, fear of God’s anger for old unrepented-of sins. What lose ye, if God twist and plait the hedge daily thicker? God be blessed, the Lord will not let you find your paths. Return to your first husband. Do not weary, neither think that death walketh towards you with a slow pace. Ye must be riper ere ye be shaken. Your days are no longer than Job’s, that were “swifter than a post, and passed away as the ships of desire, and as the eagle that hasteth for the prey” (ix. 25, 26, margin). There is less sand in your glass now than there was yesternight.
This span-length of ever-posting time will soon be ended. But the greater is the mercy of God, the more years ye get to advise, upon what terms, and upon what conditions, ye cast your soul in the huge gulf of never-ending eternity. The Lord hath told you what ye should be doing till He come. “Wait and hasten,” saith Peter, “for the Coming of our Lord.” All is night and is here, in respect of ignorance and daily ensuing troubles, one always making way to another, as the ninth wave of the sea to the tenth; therefore sigh and long for the dawning of that morning, and the breaking of that day of the Coming of the Son of Man, when the shadows shall flee away. Persuade yourself the King is coming; read His letter sent before Him, “Behold, I come quickly” (Rev. iii. 11). Wait with the wearied night-watch for the breaking of the eastern sky, and think that ye have not a morrow. As the wise father said, who, being invited against to-morrow to dine with his friend, answered, “Those many days I have had no morrow at all.” I am loth to weary you.
Show yourself a Christian, by suffering without murmuring, for which sin fourteen thousand and seven hundred were slain (Numb. xvi. 49). In patience possess your soul. They lose nothing who gain Christ. Thus remembering my brother’s and my wife’s humble service to your Ladyship, I commend you to the mercy and grace of our Lord Jesus, assuring you that your day is coming, and that God’s mercy is abiding you. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours in the Lord Jesus at all dutiful obedience.
S. R.
Antworth, Jan. 15, 1629
Rutherford, Samuel Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2006), 40-42. (I edited the text for ease in reading)
(TRIBULATION THE PORTION OF GOD’S PEOPLE, AND INTENDED TO WEAN THEM FROM THE WORLD.)
MADAM,
Saluting your ladyship with grace and mercy from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,
I was sorry, at my departure, leaving your Ladyship in grief, and would still be grieved at it, if I were not assured that ye have One with you in the furnace, whose visage is like unto the Son of God. I am glad that ye have been acquainted from your youth with the wrestlings of God, and that ye get scarce liberty to swallow down your spittle, being casten from furnace to furnace, knowing if ye were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much of Him, He would not spend so much physic upon you.
All the brethren and sisters of Christ must be conform to His image and copy in suffering (Rom. viii. 29). And some do more vively resemble the copy than others. Think, Madam, that it is a part of your glory to be enrolled among those whom one of the elders pointed out to John, “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Behold your Forerunner going out of the world all in a lake of blood, and it is not ill to die as He did. Fulfil with joy the remnant of the grounds and “remainders of the afflications of Christ” in your body (Col. i. 24).
Ye have lost a child: nay she is not lost to you who is found to Christ. She is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star, which going out of our sight doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere. Ye see her not, yet she doth shine in another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time that she hath gotten of eternity; and ye have to rejoice that ye have now some plenishing up in heaven. Build your nest upon no tree here; for ye see God hath sold and forest to death; and every tree whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end we may fly (In the earlier editions it is given “fly” throughout; not “flee.”) and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. What ye love besides Jesus, your husband, is an adulterous lover.
Now it is God’s special blessing to Judah, that He will not let her find her paths in following her strange lovers. “Therefore, behold I will hedge up her way with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them” (Hos. ii. 6, 7). O thrice happy Judah, when God buildeth a double stone wall betwixt her and the fire of hell!
The world, and the things of the world, Madam, is the lover ye naturally affect beside your husband Christ. The hedge of thorns and the wall which God buildeth in your way, to hinder you from this lover, is the thorny hedge of daily grief, loss of children, weakness of body, iniquity of the time, uncertainty of estate, lack of worldly comfort, fear of God’s anger for old unrepented-of sins. What lose ye, if God twist and plait the hedge daily thicker? God be blessed, the Lord will not let you find your paths. Return to your first husband. Do not weary, neither think that death walketh towards you with a slow pace. Ye must be riper ere ye be shaken. Your days are no longer than Job’s, that were “swifter than a post, and passed away as the ships of desire, and as the eagle that hasteth for the prey” (ix. 25, 26, margin). There is less sand in your glass now than there was yesternight.
This span-length of ever-posting time will soon be ended. But the greater is the mercy of God, the more years ye get to advise, upon what terms, and upon what conditions, ye cast your soul in the huge gulf of never-ending eternity. The Lord hath told you what ye should be doing till He come. “Wait and hasten,” saith Peter, “for the Coming of our Lord.” All is night and is here, in respect of ignorance and daily ensuing troubles, one always making way to another, as the ninth wave of the sea to the tenth; therefore sigh and long for the dawning of that morning, and the breaking of that day of the Coming of the Son of Man, when the shadows shall flee away. Persuade yourself the King is coming; read His letter sent before Him, “Behold, I come quickly” (Rev. iii. 11). Wait with the wearied night-watch for the breaking of the eastern sky, and think that ye have not a morrow. As the wise father said, who, being invited against to-morrow to dine with his friend, answered, “Those many days I have had no morrow at all.” I am loth to weary you.
Show yourself a Christian, by suffering without murmuring, for which sin fourteen thousand and seven hundred were slain (Numb. xvi. 49). In patience possess your soul. They lose nothing who gain Christ. Thus remembering my brother’s and my wife’s humble service to your Ladyship, I commend you to the mercy and grace of our Lord Jesus, assuring you that your day is coming, and that God’s mercy is abiding you. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours in the Lord Jesus at all dutiful obedience.
S. R.
Antworth, Jan. 15, 1629
Rutherford, Samuel Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2006), 40-42. (I edited the text for ease in reading)
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Let God Have His Own
Letter II. To a Christian Gentlewoman on the death of her daughter.
(CHRIST’S SYMPATHY WITH, AND PROPERTY IN US – REASONS FOR RESIGNATION.)
MISTRESS,
My love in Christ remembered to you. I was indeed sorrowful at my departure from you, especially since ye were in such heaviness after your daughter’s death. Yet I do persuade myself, ye know that the weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you lieth upon your strong Saviour; for Isaiah saith, “In all your afflictions He is afflicted” (Isa. lxiii. 9). O blessed Second who suffereth with you! and glad may your soul be even to walk in the fiery furnace with one like unto the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God. Courage! up your heart! When ye do tire, He will bear both you and your burden (Ps. lv. 22). Yet a little while and ye shall see the salvation of God. Remember of what age your daughter was, and that just so long was your lease of her. If she was eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years old, I know not; but sure I am, seeing her term was come, and your lease run out, ye can no more justly quarrel your great Superior for taking His own at His just term day, than a poor farmer can complain that his master taketh a portion of his own land to himself when his lease is expired.
Good mistress, if ye would not be content that Christ would hold from you the heavenly inheritance which is made yours by His death, shall not that same Christ think hardly of you if ye refuse to give Him your daughter willingly, who is a part of His inheritance and conquest? I pray the Lord to give you all your own, and to grace you with patience to give God His also. He is an ill debtor who payeth that which he hath borrowed with a grudge. Indeed, that long loan of such a good daughter, an heir of grace, a member of Christ (as I believe), deserveth more thanks at your Creditor’s hands, than that ye should gloom and murmur when He craveth but His own. I believe you would judge them to be but thankless neighbours who would pay you a sum of money after this manner. But what? Do you think her lost, when she is but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty? Think her not absent who is in such a friend’s house. Is he lost to you who is found to Christ? If she were with a dear friend, although you should never see her again, your care for her would be but small. Oh, now, is she not a dear Friend? and gone higher, upon a certain hope that ye shall, in the Resurrection, see her again, when (be ye sure) she shall neither be hectic nor consumed in body? You would be sorry either to be, or to be esteemed, an atheist; and yet, not I, but the Apostle, thinketh those to be hopeless atheists who mourn excessively for the dead (Thess. iv. 13).
But this is not a challenge on my part. I do speak this only fearing your weakness; for your daughter was a part of yourself; and, therefore, nature in you, being as it were cut and halved, will indeed be grieved. But ye have to rejoice, that when a part of you is on earth, a great part of you is glorified in heaven. Follow her, but envy her not; for indeed it is self-love in us that maketh us mourn for them that die in the Lord. Why? Because for them we cannot mourn, since they are never happy till they be dead; therefore we mourn for our own private respect. Take heed, then, that in showing your affection in mourning for your daughter, ye be not, out of self-affection, mourning for yourself.
Consider what the Lord is doing in it. Your daughter is plucked out of the fire, and she resteth from her labours; and your Lord, in that, is trying you and casting you in the fire. Go through all fires to your rest; and now remember that the eye of God is upon the bush burning and not consumed; and He is gladly content that such a weak woman as you should send Satan away, frustrate of his design.
Now honour God, and shame the strong roaring lion, when ye seem weakest. Should such an one as ye faint in the day of adversity? Call to mind the days of old. The Lord yet liveth. Trust in Him, although He should slay you. Faith is exceeding charitable, and believeth no evil of God (So in his “sermon before the House of Lords,” 1645: “Faith thinketh no evil of Christ.” Also Letterrs XX. and XCIL. : “Love believeth no evil.”). Now is the Lord laying, in the one scale of the balance, your making conscience of submission to His gracious will, and in the other, your affection and love to your daughter. Which of the two will ye then choose to satisfy? Be wise, then; and as I trust ye love Christ better than a sinful woman, pass by your daughter, and kiss the Lord’s rod. Men do lop the branches off their trees round about, to the end they may grow up high and tall. The Lord hath this way lopped your branch in taking from you many children, to the end you should grow upward, like one of the Lord’s cedars, setting your heart above, where Christ is, at the right hand of the Father. What is next, but that your Lord cut down the stock after He hath cut the branches? Prepare yourself; you are nearer your daughter this day than you were yesterday. While ye prodigally spend time in mourning for her, ye are speedily posting after her. Run your race with patience. Let God have His own; and ask of Him, instead of your daughter which He hath taken from you, the daughter of faith, which is patience; and in patience possess your soul. Lift up your head: ye do not know how hear your redemption doth draw, Thus recommending you to the Lord, who is able to establish you, I rest, your loving and affectionate friend in the Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Antworth, April 23, 1628.
Rutherford, Samuel Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2006), 34-36.
(CHRIST’S SYMPATHY WITH, AND PROPERTY IN US – REASONS FOR RESIGNATION.)
MISTRESS,
My love in Christ remembered to you. I was indeed sorrowful at my departure from you, especially since ye were in such heaviness after your daughter’s death. Yet I do persuade myself, ye know that the weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you lieth upon your strong Saviour; for Isaiah saith, “In all your afflictions He is afflicted” (Isa. lxiii. 9). O blessed Second who suffereth with you! and glad may your soul be even to walk in the fiery furnace with one like unto the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God. Courage! up your heart! When ye do tire, He will bear both you and your burden (Ps. lv. 22). Yet a little while and ye shall see the salvation of God. Remember of what age your daughter was, and that just so long was your lease of her. If she was eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years old, I know not; but sure I am, seeing her term was come, and your lease run out, ye can no more justly quarrel your great Superior for taking His own at His just term day, than a poor farmer can complain that his master taketh a portion of his own land to himself when his lease is expired.
Good mistress, if ye would not be content that Christ would hold from you the heavenly inheritance which is made yours by His death, shall not that same Christ think hardly of you if ye refuse to give Him your daughter willingly, who is a part of His inheritance and conquest? I pray the Lord to give you all your own, and to grace you with patience to give God His also. He is an ill debtor who payeth that which he hath borrowed with a grudge. Indeed, that long loan of such a good daughter, an heir of grace, a member of Christ (as I believe), deserveth more thanks at your Creditor’s hands, than that ye should gloom and murmur when He craveth but His own. I believe you would judge them to be but thankless neighbours who would pay you a sum of money after this manner. But what? Do you think her lost, when she is but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty? Think her not absent who is in such a friend’s house. Is he lost to you who is found to Christ? If she were with a dear friend, although you should never see her again, your care for her would be but small. Oh, now, is she not a dear Friend? and gone higher, upon a certain hope that ye shall, in the Resurrection, see her again, when (be ye sure) she shall neither be hectic nor consumed in body? You would be sorry either to be, or to be esteemed, an atheist; and yet, not I, but the Apostle, thinketh those to be hopeless atheists who mourn excessively for the dead (Thess. iv. 13).
But this is not a challenge on my part. I do speak this only fearing your weakness; for your daughter was a part of yourself; and, therefore, nature in you, being as it were cut and halved, will indeed be grieved. But ye have to rejoice, that when a part of you is on earth, a great part of you is glorified in heaven. Follow her, but envy her not; for indeed it is self-love in us that maketh us mourn for them that die in the Lord. Why? Because for them we cannot mourn, since they are never happy till they be dead; therefore we mourn for our own private respect. Take heed, then, that in showing your affection in mourning for your daughter, ye be not, out of self-affection, mourning for yourself.
Consider what the Lord is doing in it. Your daughter is plucked out of the fire, and she resteth from her labours; and your Lord, in that, is trying you and casting you in the fire. Go through all fires to your rest; and now remember that the eye of God is upon the bush burning and not consumed; and He is gladly content that such a weak woman as you should send Satan away, frustrate of his design.
Now honour God, and shame the strong roaring lion, when ye seem weakest. Should such an one as ye faint in the day of adversity? Call to mind the days of old. The Lord yet liveth. Trust in Him, although He should slay you. Faith is exceeding charitable, and believeth no evil of God (So in his “sermon before the House of Lords,” 1645: “Faith thinketh no evil of Christ.” Also Letterrs XX. and XCIL. : “Love believeth no evil.”). Now is the Lord laying, in the one scale of the balance, your making conscience of submission to His gracious will, and in the other, your affection and love to your daughter. Which of the two will ye then choose to satisfy? Be wise, then; and as I trust ye love Christ better than a sinful woman, pass by your daughter, and kiss the Lord’s rod. Men do lop the branches off their trees round about, to the end they may grow up high and tall. The Lord hath this way lopped your branch in taking from you many children, to the end you should grow upward, like one of the Lord’s cedars, setting your heart above, where Christ is, at the right hand of the Father. What is next, but that your Lord cut down the stock after He hath cut the branches? Prepare yourself; you are nearer your daughter this day than you were yesterday. While ye prodigally spend time in mourning for her, ye are speedily posting after her. Run your race with patience. Let God have His own; and ask of Him, instead of your daughter which He hath taken from you, the daughter of faith, which is patience; and in patience possess your soul. Lift up your head: ye do not know how hear your redemption doth draw, Thus recommending you to the Lord, who is able to establish you, I rest, your loving and affectionate friend in the Lord Jesus,
S. R.
Antworth, April 23, 1628.
Rutherford, Samuel Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2006), 34-36.
Pray for Pastors Today
This morning's "Morning by Morning" is a really good encouragement to us to pray for pastors. Check it out, and pray for your pastors:
July 7
Brothers, pray for us
1 Thessalonians 5:25
This one morning in the year we reserved to remind each reader of the importance of praying for ministers, and we earnestly implore every Christian household to heed this request first uttered by Paul and now repeated by us. Brothers, our work is solemnly momentous, involving good or ill to thousands; we deal with souls for God on eternal business, and our word is either a savor of life unto life or of death unto death. A very heavy responsibility rests upon us, and it will be no small mercy if at the last we be found clear of the blood of all men. As officers in Christ's army, we are the special target of the hostility of men and devils; they watch for our faltering and work to trip us at the heels. Our sacred calling involves us in temptations from which you are exempt; above all it too often draws us away from our personal enjoyment of truth into a ministerial and official consideration of it. We meet with many difficult cases, and our wits are at a quandary; we observe very sad backslidings, and our hearts are wounded; we see millions perishing, and our spirits sink. We wish to encourage you by our preaching; we desire to be a blssing to your children; we long to be useful both to saints and sinners. Therefore, dear friends, intercede for us with our God. We are miserable men if we miss the help of your prayers, but happy are we if we live in your supplications. You do not look to us but to our Master for spiritual blessings, and yet how many times has He given those blessings through His ministers; ask then, again and again, that we may be the earthen vessels into which the Lord may put the treasure of the Gospel. We, the whole company of missionaries, ministers, and students, do in the name of Jesus beseech you: "Brothers, pray for us."
Spurgeon, Charles H. Morning by Morning Revised and updated by Alistair Begg (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007), 201.
Monday, July 06, 2009
On the Death of Children
My last post of Chalmers' letter to Mrs. M'Corquodale reminded me of this excerpt from a new book that the Founders Ministry has put out. Below is the chapter by Basil Manly, Sr.
Reflections on the uncertainty of human prospects, and the brevity of life chasten our worldly attachments.
As pilgrims we are reminded that this is not our rest, and are forbidden to love the world or the things of it...
Whith regard to children, particularly, as so large a portion of their lives is spent in helplessness, and so much of their future well-being depends on the care which is bestowed on their infancy and youth, God has opened two abundant fountains in nature to supply the streams of affection.
They are a part of our selves. They take our names, wear our features, and our blood runs in their veins...
The care and attention bestowed on their helpless years endear and strengthen affection - and for the same reason that benevolence is a stronger affection than gratitude...the love of a parent to a child is greater than that of a child to a parent.
Bereavement of children therefore is on this account more poignant and at the same time, the disparity of grief is further increased by the fact that parents have fewer mitigations than children for the most part have.
As to the death of parents, the course of nature leads us to anticipate their departure and the expectation diminishes the shock of this final fall.
But that of children is unexpected. We did not think to survive them, had hoped to be proffered in declining years to live again [with] them, and thus to mingle...with future generations.
Add to this, that in almost every instance there is some peculiarly touching circumstance which is affecting to a parent's mind, more than to that of any other relation...
We are not surprised therefore at the feelings which some have manifested - David for Absalom; Jacob for Joseph - It is what many feel.
This however was immoderate - Jacob afterwards was brought to a better mind. Under more complicated evils of the same kind he said, "If I be bereaved, etc."
Let it be so - explained by Esther 4:16; Acts 21:14.
How shall we hope to arrive at such a state of mind?
Passing by those considerations which are a common relief to all the afflicted, we shall notice those which seem to have contributed to Jacob's resignation.
1. A perception of the hadn of God as our Father in it. In the supposed of loss of Joseph, the peculiar circumstances turned his mind more to the immediate causes. Now he sees the hand of God. Wise, good, merciful, all-sufficient, etc. "I was dumb, etc."
2. The subduing affect of repeated affliction. At first he was like a bullock unaccustomed. What could have persuaded him when he said, "My son shall not go," that he could be brought to consent? The Lord knows how to make us bow to receive the yoke.
3. The conviction that in dismissing Benjamin he was acting out of a sense of duty, as pointed out by Providence. It would seem Jacob had a view to the welfare of them all and probably might not have been without some expectation that the promise of Abraham was now to be fulfilled. Genesis 15:13-14. It is true to some as Joseph said, God sends our children before to save life... They go before to people the new celestial country, and wait to welcome us to our final home.
Let us cease to weep.
1. Moderate attachment - make not food for grief.
2. As Joseph said to Rachel, God with more propriety may say to us, "Am not I better than 10 sons?"
[Marginal note: Preached on Sabbath after the death of my dear little John, who died November 6, 1830 at 1/4 past 6 of Saturday evening. I was absent at the time. This was preached Sabbath, November 14, 1830]
[Marginal note: To this sermon Mrs. Ker Boyce (mother of Dr. J. P. Boyce) referred her conversion. (Sarah Manly)]
[Basil Manly, Sr., "Bereavement of Children," sermon preached on November 14, 1830, Basil Manly Manuscripts Sermons and Notes, James P. Boyce Centenniel Library Archives, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky. Manly based this sermon for John Waldo Manly (see prior chapter in Soldiers of Christ ed. Haykin, Duke, Fuller), on Genesis 43:14, "If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved."]
Manly Sr., Basil Soldiers of Christ: Selections from the Writings of Basil Manly, Sr., & Basil Manly, Jr. (Cape Coral: Founders Press, 2009), 79-81.
The Evanescence of Our Present World
No. CCCLXL - To Mrs. M'Corquodale
St. Andrews, 17th October 1827
My Dear Madam,
I very sincerely condole with you on the heavy bereavement which you have been called upon to suffer, the first loss I understand in your family, and which, in the absence yet of all personal experience myself upon the subject, I should regard as far more trying to nature than the dissolution of any other relationship. Affection points more strongly downwards - as from a parent to children - than in any other direction; and when I think of the suddenness of your daughter's death, her interesting age, and the many cares and attentions which the delicacy of her health has required from you, and which all go to strengthen affections and add to its tenderness - the shock you have experienced must be of no common severity. And what other comfort has one liable to the same visitations to offer, but those considerations which are familiar to all, though practically felt by few, even the evanescence of our present world, and the bliss and brightness of that invisible Heaven, where sorrow and separation are unknown.
We hear on these occasions of melancholy of the healing influence of time, and refuge is often taken in such expedients, as business, variety, and entertainments. These may soothe, but they do not sanctify. They drown the painful recollection; whereas the recollection should be kept alive and made the instrument of weaning our desires and expectations from a scene so transitory. The worldly would stifle the thought - the Christian softens it by pointing his eye upwards to God and forwards to eternity.
I am, yours, &c.,
Thomas Chalmers
Chalmers, Thomas Letters of Thomas Chalmers (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2007), 468.
St. Andrews, 17th October 1827
My Dear Madam,
I very sincerely condole with you on the heavy bereavement which you have been called upon to suffer, the first loss I understand in your family, and which, in the absence yet of all personal experience myself upon the subject, I should regard as far more trying to nature than the dissolution of any other relationship. Affection points more strongly downwards - as from a parent to children - than in any other direction; and when I think of the suddenness of your daughter's death, her interesting age, and the many cares and attentions which the delicacy of her health has required from you, and which all go to strengthen affections and add to its tenderness - the shock you have experienced must be of no common severity. And what other comfort has one liable to the same visitations to offer, but those considerations which are familiar to all, though practically felt by few, even the evanescence of our present world, and the bliss and brightness of that invisible Heaven, where sorrow and separation are unknown.
We hear on these occasions of melancholy of the healing influence of time, and refuge is often taken in such expedients, as business, variety, and entertainments. These may soothe, but they do not sanctify. They drown the painful recollection; whereas the recollection should be kept alive and made the instrument of weaning our desires and expectations from a scene so transitory. The worldly would stifle the thought - the Christian softens it by pointing his eye upwards to God and forwards to eternity.
I am, yours, &c.,
Thomas Chalmers
Chalmers, Thomas Letters of Thomas Chalmers (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2007), 468.
To Lean Upon the World is to Lean Upon a Foundation of Dust
No. CCCLIX.
On Visiting a Family in which a Sudden Death had Occurred.
My Dear Sir,
I am so particularly taken up by previous arrangements to-day, and, I fear, also to-morrow, that I shall not be able to see you again so soon personally as I could wish. But the scene of last night makes me very desirous of communicating with you some way or other. I was very thankful you invited me to witness it, for it was a truly impressive one, and eminently fitted to stir up in the heart of every behold a salutary feeling of the vain and transient character of our present pilgrimage; and I trust I felt that it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for that is indeed the end of all men, and that the living may lay it to heart. In a disaster so big, and at the same time so sudden and unlooked for as that which has come upon yourself and family, it is impossible to minister any effectual consolation without you go to the root of the matter - everything short of that argument which embraces the great elements of religion, and eternity, and the soul, and its meetness for th eenjoyment of God in Heaven, is but superficial and vain.
The healing influence of time will bring round the mind an afflicted man even without Christianity to its wonted tone; but how desirable that our comfort should be secured on a better foundation, that it should come to a place int he heart not by the mere wearing away of sorrow, but by the firm suggestions of an understanding exercising itself on the realities of faith, and fetching from the Divine Word such considerations as will bring peace and the peaceable fruits of righteousness along with them.
You feel now what you never felt so nearly and so experimentally before, that the world ought never to be counted a place of rest. It is indeed a great delusion ever to feel otherwise; but still it is a delusion which is always hanging about us, and that attaches to the fallen and estranged state of our natures from God. At this moment the delusion is in your case for a time broken up. I prophesy that it will again return if there be no visitation of grace from on high - no anointing which remaineth - no favourable and abiding demonstration of the Spirit of God to advance your present feeling into a practical habit and principle of the soul. You are at this moment made most intimately and effectually to understand, that to lean upon the world is to lean up on a foundation of dust; that to build your tabernacle here, is to build your house upon the sand; and that nothing will fill and satisfy the soul and enable it to stand all the changes and vicissitudes of this eventful pilgrimage, but a renouncing of the world as our home, and taking the inheritance that endureth for ever as our portion.
I know nothing that more effectually hinders a man from venturing his all on Christ than that divided state of affections in either of which he would like to reserve a portion to himself. "You will not come unto me that you may have life." You never, my dear Sir, were in more favourable circumstances for an unqualified resignation of all into His hands than at this moment; to whom else, alas, can you go?
You never got so buried to the world as now when the dearest of all its objects has been torn away from you - when the desire of your heart has been cut down by a stroke - when your family are all in sad grief, desponding under the pressure of a great unlooked for and overwhelming visitation. Do improve the favourable season with all your might to be a new creature in Christ Jesus; let all old things be done away, andd all things become new; the very retirement will animate and bear you up under the heaviness of your present circumstances, and present calamity will indeed be a blessing in disguise if it lead you to a close alliance with Him who, though a God, is also a Saviour.
I am, &c.,
Thomas Chalmers
Chalmers, Thomas Letters of Thomas Chalmers (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2007), 464-466 [I edited this for clarity in reading.]
On Visiting a Family in which a Sudden Death had Occurred.
My Dear Sir,
I am so particularly taken up by previous arrangements to-day, and, I fear, also to-morrow, that I shall not be able to see you again so soon personally as I could wish. But the scene of last night makes me very desirous of communicating with you some way or other. I was very thankful you invited me to witness it, for it was a truly impressive one, and eminently fitted to stir up in the heart of every behold a salutary feeling of the vain and transient character of our present pilgrimage; and I trust I felt that it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for that is indeed the end of all men, and that the living may lay it to heart. In a disaster so big, and at the same time so sudden and unlooked for as that which has come upon yourself and family, it is impossible to minister any effectual consolation without you go to the root of the matter - everything short of that argument which embraces the great elements of religion, and eternity, and the soul, and its meetness for th eenjoyment of God in Heaven, is but superficial and vain.
The healing influence of time will bring round the mind an afflicted man even without Christianity to its wonted tone; but how desirable that our comfort should be secured on a better foundation, that it should come to a place int he heart not by the mere wearing away of sorrow, but by the firm suggestions of an understanding exercising itself on the realities of faith, and fetching from the Divine Word such considerations as will bring peace and the peaceable fruits of righteousness along with them.
You feel now what you never felt so nearly and so experimentally before, that the world ought never to be counted a place of rest. It is indeed a great delusion ever to feel otherwise; but still it is a delusion which is always hanging about us, and that attaches to the fallen and estranged state of our natures from God. At this moment the delusion is in your case for a time broken up. I prophesy that it will again return if there be no visitation of grace from on high - no anointing which remaineth - no favourable and abiding demonstration of the Spirit of God to advance your present feeling into a practical habit and principle of the soul. You are at this moment made most intimately and effectually to understand, that to lean upon the world is to lean up on a foundation of dust; that to build your tabernacle here, is to build your house upon the sand; and that nothing will fill and satisfy the soul and enable it to stand all the changes and vicissitudes of this eventful pilgrimage, but a renouncing of the world as our home, and taking the inheritance that endureth for ever as our portion.
I know nothing that more effectually hinders a man from venturing his all on Christ than that divided state of affections in either of which he would like to reserve a portion to himself. "You will not come unto me that you may have life." You never, my dear Sir, were in more favourable circumstances for an unqualified resignation of all into His hands than at this moment; to whom else, alas, can you go?
You never got so buried to the world as now when the dearest of all its objects has been torn away from you - when the desire of your heart has been cut down by a stroke - when your family are all in sad grief, desponding under the pressure of a great unlooked for and overwhelming visitation. Do improve the favourable season with all your might to be a new creature in Christ Jesus; let all old things be done away, andd all things become new; the very retirement will animate and bear you up under the heaviness of your present circumstances, and present calamity will indeed be a blessing in disguise if it lead you to a close alliance with Him who, though a God, is also a Saviour.
I am, &c.,
Thomas Chalmers
Chalmers, Thomas Letters of Thomas Chalmers (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2007), 464-466 [I edited this for clarity in reading.]
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Nothing More Disorderly than Applause
P. H. Mell was the president of the Southern Baptist Convention for fifteen years. I was at the SBC annual convention this year and it was a wonderful time, but taking into account how the assembly gave applause for everything and gave standing ovations to most things I think, based upon the following quote from his biography, P. H. Mell would roll over in his grave if he witnessed the business meeting of the SBC today:
"In the chair sat the venerable Dr. Mell, whose piercing eye, gray hair, tall, straight person, indicated penetration, thought and firmness. The prince of parliamentarians, he rules the body with measured ease. 'I appeal from the decision of the chair,' is becoming beautifully less, and Dr. Mell, in the Southern Baptist Convention, is almost instinctively recognized as President without the vote of acclamation. Upon motion of Rev. G. A. Nunnally, of Georgia, Dr. P. H. Mell was elected President by acclamation. The result was heard with applause, whereupon the President suggested that nothing is more disorderly than applause in a religious assembly."
Mell, Jr., P. H. The Life of Patrick Hues Mell (Harrisonburg: Gano Books, 1991), 165.
Bruised Reed
In Richard Sibbes' little book The Bruised Reed he meditates on what it means to be a bruised reed in a list of eight qualities. Check it out and pray that God would help us to see how we are bruised reeds with a Savior who will not break us.
But how shall we know whether we are such as may expect mercy?
(1) By the bruised here is not meant those that are brought low only by crosses, but by such as, by them, are brought to see their sin, which bruises most of all. When conscience is under the guilt of sin, then every judgment brings a report of God's anger to the soul, and all lesser troubles run into this great trouble of conscience for sin. As all corrupt humours run to the diseased and bruised part of the body, and as every creditor falls upon the debtor when he is once arrested, so when conscience is once awaked, all former sins and present crosses join together to make the bruise more painful. Now, he that is thus bruised will be content with nothing but with mercy from him who has bruised him. He has wounded, and he must heal (Hos. 6:1). The Lord who has bruised me deservedly for my sins must bind up my heart again.
(2) Again, a man truly bruised judges sin the great evil, and the favour of God the greatest good.
(3) He would rather hear of mercy than of a kingdom.
(4) He has poor opnions of himself, and thinks that he is not worth the earth he treads on.
(5) Towards others he is not censorious, as being taken up at home, but is full of sympathy and compassion to those who are under God's hand.
(6) He thinks that those who walk in the comforts of God's Spirit are the happiest men in the world.
(7) He trembles at the Word of God (Isa. 66:2), and honours the very feet of those blessed instruments that bring peace unto him (Rom. 10:15).
(8) He is more taken up with the inward exercises of a broken heart than with formality, and is yet careful to use all sanctified means to convey comfort.
Sibbes, Richard The Bruised Reed (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2008), 10-11. And/or Sibbes, Richard Works of Richard Sibbes Volume One The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2001), 46-47.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
The Camel Method Part 2
This is a follow-up to a post I did back in 2007, The Camel Method.
Here is a good 9Marks book review of it. Check it out if you are interested and have the time.
Here is a good 9Marks book review of it. Check it out if you are interested and have the time.
Book Review by Doug Coleman of The Camel
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