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DISCOURSES AND SERVICES 
 
 ON OCCASION OL 
 
 THE DEATH 
 
 OF THE LATH 
 
 REY. RALPH WARDLAW. D.I). 
 
 A. FULLAETOX AND CO. : 
 
 LONDON. EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN. 
 
 1854. 
 
J3/rzt>o 
 
 . UJ3<95'J75~ 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 FTTLLARTON AND MACNAB, PRINTERS, LEITH WALK, 
 

 
 ST 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 i. 
 
 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL, 
 
 BY PROFESSOR THOMSON, GLASGOW. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS IN THE PROSPECT OF 
 DEATH, ...... 
 
 BY JOHN BROWN, D.D., EDINBURGH. 
 
 15 
 
 III. 
 
 ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH, . . . . 45 
 
 BY WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER. D.D., EDINBURGH, 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE NATURE OF FUTURE HAPPINESS, 
 
 BY REV. NORMAN M'LEOD, GLASGOW. 
 
 V. 
 
 TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW, .... 137 
 
 BY JOHN MACFARLANE, LL.D,, GLASGOW 
 
ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 
 
ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 
 
 [The Funeral Service was held in West George 
 Street Chapel, on December 23, 1853, and com- 
 menced a few minutes after 12 o'clock. The lower 
 part of the chapel was filled by a large body of 
 ministers of all denominations, and male members of 
 the church and congregation, together with others; 
 while the galleries were completely occupied by 
 ladies. 
 
 A part of Psalm ciii. having been sung, the Rev. 
 A. Fraser, minister of Nile Street Congregational 
 Church, read Psalm xc. and 1 Thess. iv. 13 to end; 
 after which he engaged in prayer. 
 
 The last three verses of Paraphrase liii. were then 
 sung, and the Rev. Dr. Smyth of Free St. George's 
 Church read 2 Cor. v., and the last part of Rev. vii. ; 
 and offered prayer.] 
 
 The Rev. Professor Thomson then delivered the 
 following Address: 
 
4 address at the funeral. 
 
 Christian Friends and Fellow-Mourners, 
 
 Were I to be guided by the na- 
 tural promptings of my own feelings on this occasion, 
 I should certainly keep silence. There are thoughts 
 and emotions in my own bosom at this time, as there 
 must be in the bosoms of many who are present, that 
 can find no utterance in words, — that shrink from 
 expression, and refuse to come forth from the sacred 
 recesses of the heart. You will therefore readily 
 believe me when I say, that nothing would have in- 
 duced me to occupy my present position, and to open 
 my lips in the language of address, but the request 
 of those who had a right to expect that their request 
 should be regarded, and the desire to show to him, 
 whose departure we mourn, the last token of reverence 
 and honour on this side the grave. I felt that I could 
 not decline the duty to which I was summoned, since 
 I was not only bound, in common with all who knew 
 him, to yield him my esteem and reverence; but had 
 ever been conscious that my partial association with 
 him in labour, was the highest honour of which I 
 could boast, — an honour of which I freely confess 
 myself unworthy; while the relations of intimate 
 friendship into which he had received me, had formed 
 a happiness, the greatness of which is now measured 
 too well by the sorrow attending its loss. But I do 
 not come forward to sketch his character or to pro- 
 nounce his eulogy: this hour of vivid sorrow, — this 
 solemn pause, preceding our conveyance of his re- 
 mains to the tomb, is not the time for such a task. 
 I would only seek, as your fellow-mourner, to guide 
 
BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 5 
 
 your thoughts to those topics of meditation which 
 should engage the mind of a Christian in connexion 
 with such a solemnity. By directing the mind to 
 these, we may prevent it from being distracted by 
 contending currents of emotion, and may take advan- 
 tage of the tide of sorrow to bear it onwards with 
 greater force to the apprehension and contact of un- 
 seen realities. 
 
 We appear here as mourners, and we have cause 
 for mourning. Our sorrow should flow in sympathy 
 with the irreparable bereavement sustained by the 
 honoured widow and family of God's servant; whose 
 feelings this day who can conceive? Theirs was 
 once a happiness accorded to few, of beholding 
 in their domestic circle the rarest exhibition of 
 Christian graces and attractions, crowning the emi- 
 nence of intellect — of all that could charm and 
 satisfy the heart, and instruct and elevate the mind. 
 With their joy a stranger might not intermeddle; 
 and now their heart knoweth its own bitterness. 
 May the supplications we have offered on their 
 behalf be heard! May He who alone can fully esti- 
 mate their loss, be their gracious and sympathizing 
 comforter ! But our mourning is not that of sym- 
 pathy only. We are conscious this day of a personal 
 loss. The loss we have sustained is vast, and varied 
 in its relations, even as the services and excellencies 
 were varied, of him who has been taken away. That 
 he, who was the Pastor of this church for half a cen- 
 tury, and who gathered around him in this place so 
 many delighted hearers, eager to catch from his lips 
 the pure stream of the truths of the Grospel; who 
 
6 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 
 
 occupied the Theologic chair with such distinction, 
 training a long succession of faithful men for the 
 ministry; who by his writings, and by the influence 
 of his spirit and personal character, filled so large a 
 space in the attention and profound regard of the 
 Christian community throughout the world; that he 
 should be — gone, how great the blank! how chilling 
 the sense of bereavement it produces! It is true 
 that we possessed him long, — that we received from 
 him the largest amount of service we could ask for, 
 — that we could not expect to retain him much 
 longer, or wish to delay the reward of his toils; but 
 the heart will not own such arguments. All these 
 things but gave him a stronger hold on our affections ; 
 and make it the more difficult for us to apprehend 
 the reality of our loss. We can hardly believe it to 
 be true that we have seen him — that we have heard 
 him, for the last time; that his manly form, with its 
 movements of graceful dignity, will never be seen 
 ascending this place of instruction again ; that those 
 sweet persuasive tones, so familiar to our ears, shall 
 charm them no more; that our hearts shall not glow 
 in accompanying his accents of devotion, or thrill be- 
 neath the power of his arguments and appeals. The 
 sorrow which these reflections bring with them is a 
 natural and a reasonable sorrow : it would argue an 
 unworthy misappreciation of the privilege we enjoyed, 
 did we not feel it. And they who knew what 
 charms his friendship could add to all the claims of 
 his acknowledged worth — who knew what tender 
 and confiding affection his simple, candid, noble na- 
 ture could exhibit; — they have a sorrow of their 
 
BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 7 
 
 own — a sorrow proportioned to the greater extent 
 and depth of their bereavement. For where shall 
 they turn to find a counsellor at once so wise and so 
 kind — a helper so considerate and so faithful ? Truly 
 we have cause for mourning. We mourn a loss sus- 
 tained by the entire household of faith, — a loss to 
 that section of the Church whose main pillar and 
 ornament he was, — a loss to our country, — a loss to 
 this city and its best institutions, — an afflictive loss 
 to this church and congregation, — and such a loss as 
 can never be repaired to the friends he cherished and 
 the family he loved! 
 
 Our mourning then is reasonable and well-grounded, 
 and, by the highest principles we profess, it is not 
 only permitted — it is sanctioned and hallowed. When 
 we put on the Christian, we do not put off the man. 
 The elements and laws of our nature are not abol- 
 ished, but purified, regulated, and dignified by our 
 faith. For He who came from heaven to save us, 
 came not in strange and awful guise, owning no 
 community with the weakness of our being — himself 
 pure spirit, and condemning and abrogating in his 
 followers whatever had connexion with a frail and 
 perishable constitution. No ; though he came as " a 
 quickening spirit/' to vivify and transform our pro- 
 strate humanity — it was as a spirit robed in flesh: — 
 He not only embraced this humanity of ours, ap- 
 proaching it from without with the caresses of his 
 love, but He entered into it as His Tabernacle and 
 place of abode, and sojourned in it as a home while 
 He dwelt among us. Nor did He simply endure 
 with calm impassiveness, the storms of sorrow that 
 
8 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 
 
 might shake that Tabernacle, folding around Him its 
 majestic curtains to forbid their entrance ; but He 
 opened its recesses to their power, and bent beneath 
 their violence. He permitted grief to plough its 
 furrows on his brow — and tears to wear their chan- 
 nels on his cheek — and the groans of anguish to heave 
 and rend his breast. Nor y when in these things he 
 was most the Son of Man, was he less the Son of 
 God. The brightness and the power of his Divinity, 
 shone through and transfigured the very weakness 
 and sufferings of his humanity. Weakness and sor- 
 row, — tears and groans, — became endowed with a 
 sacred dignity, and impregnated with a heavenly 
 power through their association with His Spirit. As 
 the sun will tinge the clouds that gather round him 
 with attractive splendour, or flashing upon the morn- 
 ing mists, dissolve them into dew; so He who is the 
 Sun of Righteousness — the Life which is the light of 
 men, has given to sorrow a new character of beauty ; 
 has made it an appropriate and seemly garb for his 
 people; and assigned to suffering a gracious influ- 
 ence to open and subdue the heart to the reception 
 of truth and grace. Are we then sensible of an 
 overwhelming loss, so great that as yet we cannot 
 comprehend it ? It is God who is calling us to mourn, 
 that we may become more truly and consistently the 
 followers of Him who was " a man of sorrows and 
 acquainted with grief." He calls us to mourn in 
 our church relations, and because of the rupture of 
 those ties that had their origin and strength in the 
 spiritual life of His own family. 
 
 Such bereavements and sorrows form a most impor- 
 
BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 9 
 
 tant part of the discipline by which the church of 
 Christ is to be trained and perfected. They bring us 
 most nearly into connexion with our Head. Not 
 without such experience can our minds be wrought 
 into conformity with our Lord's. Though He was in 
 pre-eminent dignity the Son of God, yet he stooped 
 to learn obedience by the things he suffered : not that 
 our learning the lesson might be superseded, but that 
 it might be facilitated and confirmed. To suffer, to 
 weep, to feel that we are solitary, in the absence from 
 our midst of one whom we loved and revered ; all 
 these things, bitter and humiliating in themselves, are 
 now become parts of a blessed process that is to edu- 
 cate us to maturity — to produce in us a resemblance to 
 the Lord of glory. We do not then shrink from the 
 position we have to occupy to-day. As we stand be- 
 side the grave that shall hide from us the beloved re- 
 mains of our pastor and friend, let us think of Him 
 who linked himself by ties of friendship to a dying 
 man, that he might learn the pang that attends their 
 rupture ; and that he might fully know it, would not 
 avert the mortal termination of sickness. See Him 
 as he comes at length weeping, and asks, Where have 
 ye laid him ? Groaning in himself, he is conducted 
 to the place. w It was a cave, and a stone lay upon 
 it." Simple words, but how sad and full their sig- 
 nificance ! A cave, and a stone lay upon it. The 
 description is sufficient : we know the abode. It is 
 the house appointed for all living. It is the long 
 home, to which many of us have consigned the ob- 
 jects of our dearest affections. It is thither we our- 
 selves are journeying. But ere we are called to en- 
 
10 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 
 
 ter it, with what longing and tearful eyes do we sur- 
 vey the stone that lies upon it. Beyond — beneath 
 that stone, what treasures of the heart lie buried! 
 what treasures has it yet to cover ! And who stands 
 before it, clothed in poverty, a lowly, weak and 
 weeping man, groaning in himself ? Hear Him as he 
 speaks, in the midst of his tears and groans, from be- 
 fore that silent and close-barred sepulchre — speaks to 
 his mourning people through all succeeding time: — 
 " I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth 
 in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and 
 whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." 
 Friends and fellow-mourners, if Christ has thus en- 
 tered into our griefs, that he might become fully united 
 to his people ; let us, by means of our bereavements, — 
 by the gracious and filial endurance of them, enter into 
 his experience, that we may know the power of his 
 life and resurrection. 
 
 Yes, it is at the very threshold of the grave, as we 
 stand weeping there and think of all that we have 
 lost, that we find ourselves in closest proximity, and 
 should be able most fully to realize our union, with 
 our glorious Redeemer. For this is the spot which 
 he chose as the arena of his conflict — this is the 
 scene of his consummated triumph — here he has 
 planted the trophies and standard of victory. The 
 titles of honour and renown which he claims for him- 
 self — what are they but these? — " that through death 
 he has destroyed him that had the power of death, 
 that is, the devil ; and delivered them who through fear 
 of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage," 
 — that " he hath abolished death, and hath brought 
 
BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 11 
 
 life and immortality to light through the gospel." 
 Hear the proclamations of this Regal Conqueror, ex- 
 ulting in the recovery of the spoil — " I will ransom 
 them from the power of the grave: I will redeem 
 them from death : O death, I will be thy plagues ; O 
 grave, I will be thy destruction! repentance shall be 
 hid from mine eyes." From the upper sanctuary, 
 from amidst the seven golden candlesticks, he speaks, 
 saying: " Fear not; I am the first and the last; I am 
 he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive 
 for evermore, Amen ; and have the keys of the unseen 
 world and of death/' Surrounded by these hopes — 
 penetrated by these quickening and consoling truths, 
 we feel that we are in the region of life; the bitter 
 root of our sorrow bears a blossom of unfading joy : 
 the cloud of death which has rapt away our honoured 
 friend, is seen to be dark only with the shadows of 
 earth thrown upon it — its farther side is illumined 
 by the light of immortality. We weep not for him 
 — with him all weeping is ended. The glories and 
 delights of which we have heard him speak, in earnest 
 anticipation of them — on this very spot; he knows 
 them now in rapturous experience that shall never 
 end. " The wonders of another world " — " The 
 glories of the Lamb amidst the throne" — to which 
 he referred in broken exclamations amidst the 
 sufferings of his dying hours: he sees them all — the 
 sources of his ineffable bliss — the object of his ecstatic 
 adoration ! My Brethren, you who shared his in- 
 structions with me — did we love to look upon him, 
 to listen to him, to cling to his side? Let us follow 
 him thither! Let us seek to join with him there in 
 
12 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 
 
 ascribing all blessing and honour to the Lamb that 
 was slain! 
 
 Might I address one word to my brethren in the 
 ministry, — and to my younger brethren, who are 
 this day mourning the loss of an invaluable in- 
 structor and guide? Surely to those of us who are 
 connected with that sacred work, this event has a voice 
 of peculiar solemnity. We have now witnessed in 
 the case of a most eminent servant of God, the close 
 of his race — such a race as is seldom run ; the end of a 
 good fight — the completion of a long life's labour and 
 testimony for Christ. We have no regrets to utter 
 for services unfinished — for purposes prematurely 
 broken off — for rich promises but partially fulfilled: 
 — he perfected the circle of his endeavours, including 
 within it all the objects and fruits of usefulness that 
 met the wants and demands of his time. Emphati- 
 cally may we say of him, that " he served his gener- 
 ation by the will of God/' working while it was day; 
 yea, as long as the last lingering streak of light illu- 
 mined his evening sky. What an example has he 
 left us of patient, faithful, indefatigable exertion! of 
 courageous and self-denying resolution, tempered with 
 wisdom and meekness ! Some of you delighted to fight 
 in the ranks by his side: all of you must have 
 honoured him as a noble fellow-combatant in the 
 contest of truth and right, with error and evil. He 
 has left the field for the throne ; he has laid aside the 
 sword and shield for the crown and the palm. Surely 
 the very removal — the empty place — of him, with 
 whose form in the foremost rank we were so familiar, 
 should speak to us who are left with unwonted power. 
 
BY PROFESSOR THOMSON. 13 
 
 When we feel the shock of such a bereavement, it 
 should be like an electric influence from another sphere, 
 from the vast Infinite which we see not, but which 
 has innumerable lines of sympathetic communication 
 with our spirits. The hand of God has but to touch 
 these, and our inmost souls quiver and thrill. Is not 
 his hand touching them now, causing us to start and 
 look up from our lethargic dreaming, that we may- 
 be conscious where we stand — what we are doing — 
 what it is we are hastening to. We stand on the 
 field of conflict between the hosts of light and 
 the powers of darkness, we have arrayed ourselves 
 on the side of the Lord against the mighty ; the issues 
 at stake are our own salvation and the salvation of all 
 to whom we may minister, issues that stretch into 
 eternity, immeasurable, overwhelming! The decision 
 is at hand — the Judge standeth at the door. We 
 shall soon behold those eyes which are as a flame of 
 fire: we shall soon have to give account of our 
 stewardship. Shall we then hear him say — " Well 
 done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of 
 thy Lord?" — Let this event rouse us to renewed 
 earnestness, vigilance and fidelity. God and his 
 cause have need of all our powers : the Kedeemer is 
 worthy of them all. Let us have our loins girt about 
 and our lamps burning, and be as servants waiting 
 for their master. " Blessed is that servant whom his 
 Lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a 
 truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over 
 all that he hath/' These are the words of the Master 
 — of Him who is the truth and the life, and who hath 
 said, " Surely I come quickly." May we be enabled 
 
14 ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL. 
 
 to reply without misgivings — " Even so, come, Lord 
 Jesus." 
 
 [The last three verses of Ps. xvi. were then sung, 
 and the Kev. Dr. Bobson, of Wellington St. United 
 Presbyterian Church, concluded with prayer.] 
 
THE 
 
 AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 
 
 BY JOHN BROWN, D.D. 
 
THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS IK 
 THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 
 
 II. PETEE i. 12—21. 
 
 " Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remem- 
 brance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in 
 the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this 
 tabernacle, to stir you up, by putting you in remembrance ; knowing 
 that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle,, even as our Lord 
 Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover, I will endeavour that ye 
 may be able after my decease to have these things always in remem- 
 brance. For we have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when 
 we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from 
 God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to 
 him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
 well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, 
 when we were with him in the holy mount. "We have also a more 
 sure word of prophecy : whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as 
 unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and 
 the day-star arise in your hearts : knowing this first, that no pro- 
 phecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the pro- 
 phecy came not in old time by the will of man ; but holy men of 
 God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
 
 There is a peculiar interest attached to the dying 
 thoughts and last sayings of wise and good men. 
 That interest belongs in a high degree to the para- 
 graph now read. The apostle, when he wrote these 
 
 B 
 
18 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 words, was "now such an one as Peter the aged." 
 Calling to mind the words of his Lord, in which he 
 had signified to him " by what death he should glo- 
 rify God," — " when thou wast young thou girdedst 
 thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but 
 when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch out thy 
 hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee 
 whither thou wouldest not;" — and, anticipating the 
 speedy accomplishment of the oracular prediction — 
 " Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt fol- 
 low me afterward," with the cross full in his view 
 and near at hand, he in spirit goes forth to take it 
 up, that he may "bear it after Jesus;" saying in 
 effect with his beloved brother Paul, when waiting in 
 prison in daily expectation of the stroke of the heads- 
 man's sword, " I am now ready to be offered, and the 
 time of my departure is at hand." It is striking to 
 notice with what unruffled tranquillity, not unmixed 
 with the " desire to depart," the two Apostles look 
 forward to martyrdom, and how similar are their 
 employments in the immediate prospect of it: Paul 
 urging his beloved son, Timothy, to " endure afflic- 
 tions, do the work of an evangelist, and give full 
 proof of his ministry;" and Peter, stirring up "the 
 pure minds" of the brethren "by way of remem- 
 brance," that even " after his decease, they might 
 be able" to be " mindful of the holy commandment 
 delivered unto them by the apostles of the Lord and 
 Saviour." 
 
 The paragraph presents us with two great topics 
 for consideration, — the Apostle's resolutions, and 
 the grounds on which these resolutions are based. 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 19 
 
 The consideration of these resolutions of an aged 
 minister of Christ in the prospect of near approach- 
 ing death, will not be an inappropriate employment 
 in our present circumstances, especially as we have 
 such abundant evidence that they were the resolu- 
 tions formed and executed, by that revered aged 
 minister of Christ whose departure into the world 
 of spirits, though not untimely, has excited a senti- 
 ment of such deep regret not only in this congrega- 
 tion, but throughout the churches in our own and 
 in other lands. 
 
 The Apostle's PvESOLtjtioxs are two. First, to be 
 " always, so long as he was in this tabernacle, stir- 
 ring them up, by putting them in remembrance" of 
 the truths stated in the previous context ; and 
 secondly, to " endeavour that after his decease they 
 might still be able to have these things always in 
 their remembrance." 
 
 The grounds on which these resolutions rest are 
 three: First, a deep sense of the truth and import- 
 ance of the statements he had just made in the pre- 
 ceding paragraph, indicated in the word "wherefore." 
 Secondly, a knowledge founded on an intimation 
 made to him by his Lord, that his death was near at 
 hand — "knowing that shortly I must put off this 
 my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath 
 showed me ; " and, Thirdly, a firm conviction, grounded 
 on miracle and prophecy, that in teaching the doc- 
 trine of Christ he and his brethren had only declared 
 divinely-revealed truth — " We have not followed 
 cunningly-devised fables, when we made known to 
 you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 
20 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he re- 
 ceived from God the Father honour and glory, when 
 there came such a voice from the excellent glory, 
 This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 
 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, 
 when we were with him in the holy mount. We 
 have also a more sure word of prophecy," or rather 
 we have the prophetic word more confirmed, " where- 
 unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light 
 shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the 
 day-star arise in your hearts : knojving this first, that 
 no prophecy of the Scripture is of private inter- 
 pretation. For the prophecy came not in old time 
 (or as it is in the margin — at any time) by the will 
 of man; but holy men of God spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost." As the Apostle's sense 
 of the truth and importance of the statements made 
 in the preceding context, and his knowledge that 
 his death was near at hand, owe all their aptitude 
 as grounds of his resolutions to keep them in re- 
 membrance of those things while he lived, and to 
 make provision for their not being forgotten after 
 his death, to his conviction that in teaching the 
 doctrine of Christ he was only declaring divinely- 
 revealed truth — there is an obvious propriety in 
 giving the first place in the illustration of these 
 grounds to that which is last mentioned by the Apos- 
 tle. Such is the outline I wish to fill up in the 
 sequel of the discourse, and this sketch, rude as it is, 
 may be of use in guiding my thoughts and assisting 
 your apprehension and memory. 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 21 
 
 Let us then, in the first place, briefly attend to 
 the Apostle's resolutions. 
 
 And first, he resolves to stir up, so long as he 
 lived, those to whom he was writing, by putting 
 them in remembrance of the statements made in the 
 preceding context, — " I will not be negligent to put 
 you always in remembrance of these things, though 
 ye know them, and be established in the present 
 truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this 
 tabernacle, to stir you up, by putting you in remem- 
 brance."" 
 
 In looking at this resolution our attention is natu- 
 rally turned, first, to what the Apostle resolves to do, 
 " to put them in remembrance " of the things he had 
 stated, which he calls " the present truth," " though 
 they knew them and were established in them;" then 
 to the object for which he meant to do this, " to stir 
 them up ; " then to the manner in which he was de- 
 termined to do it,— not perfunctorily, but diligently, 
 " I will not be negligent," — not occasionally, but 
 habitually, " always, 5 ' — not for a limited time, but 
 during life, " as long as I am in this tabernacle ; " 
 and finally, to the felt propriety of his forming and 
 executing such a resolution, " I think it meet." A 
 few words on each of these will suffice for the illus- 
 tration of this part of the subject. 
 
 As to what the Apostle resolves to do, it is, as he 
 says, " to put them in remembrance of these things." 
 The expression, " these things," plainly refers to the 
 things spoken of in the preceding paragraph, the 
 things respecting their peculiar character and condi- 
 tion as Christians; persons " who had obtained like 
 
22 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 precious faith with the apostles, in the righteousness 
 of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (v. 1.); per- 
 sons " who had received grace and peace through the 
 knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord;" 
 and who needed to have this grace and peace " mul- 
 tiplied" to them (v. 2.) ; persons who had been " call- 
 ed" (v. 3.), "and elected" (v. 10.) by God; respect- 
 ing their duty, to " make their calling and election 
 sure" (v. 10.) ; respecting the manner in which this 
 was to be done, by " adding to faith, virtue, and 
 knowledge, and temperance, and patience, and god- 
 liness, and brotherly-kindness, and charity" (v. 5 — 
 7.) ; and respecting the varied and powerful motives 
 which urge them to the discharge of this duty in this 
 way ; the abundant provision which had been made 
 for this purpose (v. 3, 4.), the unhappy consequences 
 which would result from neglecting this duty, and 
 the happy consequences which would result from per- 
 forming it (ver. 7 — 11.). 
 
 The statements made on these subjects are termed 
 " the present truth." It has been common to sup- 
 pose that the force of this phrase is, ' that truth which 
 owing to peculiar circumstances is at the present time 
 specially interesting and important,' and that the 
 apostle refers to the doctrine ' that final salvation is 
 to be sought by, and expected in, a constant continu- 
 ance in well-doing,' a doctrine which, important at all 
 times, had a superadded importance imparted to it at 
 this time, from the antinomian dogmas and practices 
 which the false teachers, so graphically described in 
 the second chapter, had extensively introduced. It 
 does not seem possible to bring this sense out of the 
 
IX THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 23 
 
 original expression, which just means ' the truth which 
 is present with you/ being nearly equivalent with the 
 apostle Paul's phrase, " the gospel, which I have 
 preached unto you, which also ye have received, and 
 wherein ye stand." 
 
 The persons to whom the Apostle wrote knew 
 these truths, and they were established in them. 
 They had been taught them, and they had, on what 
 appeared to them satisfactory evidence, believed 
 them, and continued to believe them. They " stood 
 in the true grace of God," which they had received 
 not in vain. But they needed to be cautioned, " lest 
 any of them," like so many others, " being led away 
 with the error of the wicked, should fall from their 
 steadfastness : " for men may forget what they now 
 know, they may be brought to doubt what they now 
 believe, the truth and its evidence may slip out of 
 mind, and then they are, as to influence, as if they 
 did not exist. The anxieties, the labours, the plea- 
 sures, the afflictions of the world, are in danger of 
 drawing the mind from the truth. What is not 
 thought of cannot influence, and is in danger of be- 
 ing forgotten. Evidence needs to be often reviewed 
 to secure permanent power over the mind; and in 
 consequence of neglecting such a review, and allowing 
 objections to enter into the mind and remain there 
 unchallenged, what once was felt as absolutely cer- 
 tain begins to be thought of as doubtful, and ere 
 long appears as if it were but a hallucination or a 
 dream. The apostle was aware of all this, and hence 
 he resolved to keep those to whom he was writing 
 in mind of the truth and its evidence, on subjects 
 
24 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 so closely connected with their most important duties 
 and highest interests. He was convinced with his 
 brother Paul, who, though persuaded that the Koman 
 Christians were " full of goodness, filled with all 
 knowledge, able also to admonish one another," writes 
 boldly to them, to " put them in mind" that the gospel, 
 to exert its saving efficiency, must be kept in memory. 
 " Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, 
 line upon line, line upon line ;" where this is neglected, 
 men who have had the gospel very plainly taught them, 
 may after a season, which, had it been well improved, 
 might have fitted them to be "teachers of others, 
 need some one to teach them again what be the first 
 principles of the oracles of God." 
 
 Ministers of the gospel should imitate the Apostle. 
 They are not to deal in constant reiteration of the 
 same things ; they do not need to do so, for the topics 
 necessary to the right discharge of their functions as 
 teachers are very numerous and varied. They have a 
 wide field to expatiate in — they have inexhaustible 
 stores out of which they may bring things new as well 
 as old ; but they are not to seek to gratify the love of 
 novelty either in themselves or in their hearers, at the 
 hazard of incurring the disapprobation of their Mas- 
 ter, or endangering the souls of their people. It is a 
 weighty observation of the honest and judicious Scott 
 — " The frequent discussion of practical subjects does 
 not prove acceptable to the majority in some congre- 
 gations where the doctrines of grace are preached : so 
 that ministers will often be tempted to omit them, or 
 to hurry them over in a general and superficial manner, 
 which exceedingly tends to deceive souls and to dif- 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 2D 
 
 fuse a false and loose religion." Woe to the minis- 
 ter who falls before such a temptation. Yours never 
 did. For Christian ministers to speak the same things 
 in reference to the doctrine and law of Christ, to 
 them ought not to be grievous, for, for their hearers 
 it is not only safe but necessary. Wherever any thing 
 is to be thoroughly learned and permanently remem- 
 bered, there must be much repetition. 
 
 The object which the Apostle had in view in thus 
 putting those to whom he wrote in remembrance 
 was, that they might be stirred up. "I think it 
 meet thus to stir you up by putting you in remem- 
 brance." " I stir up your pure minds by way of 
 remembrance." Action is the end of knowledge. 
 To know truth is in order to do duty. The Apostle's 
 object in stating and restating divine truth was not to 
 make men ingenious speculators and dexterous con- 
 troversialists. It was to make them active in doing, 
 patient in suffering, the will of Grod — good soldiers of 
 Jesus Christ — to waken them out of the dreams into 
 which the stupifying influence of that most potent 
 of all enchantresses, " the present evil world," is apt 
 to make men indulge — to banish the languor of sloth 
 — to prevent them from becoming weary in well-doing 
 — to make them " give all diligence" towards the dis- 
 charge of all duty — to make them " abound in the 
 work of the Lord," " forgetting the things which are 
 behind, reaching forth towards those that are before, 
 pressing towards the mark for the prize of the 
 high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Such was the 
 object of the Apostle in his resolution to put those to 
 whom he wrote in mind of the great principles of 
 
26 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 Christian truth. It was to stir up every principle of 
 action, gratitude, and regard to interest, hope and 
 fear into active vigorous exercise, that the great end 
 might not be lost, the abundant entrance into the 
 everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 As to the manner in which the Apostle was deter- 
 mined to put them in remembrance that he might 
 thereby stir them up, it was to be, first, not perfunc- 
 torily, but diligently, and with all his heart: " I will 
 not be negligent," i. e. not merely, I will not neglect 
 to do it, but I will not be negligent in doing it. He 
 was determined to seize every opportunity for this 
 purpose. He was resolved to exemplify Paul's ex- 
 hortation to Timothy as to the right way of preach- 
 ing the word, " be instant in season and out of sea- 
 son/' to press it on men's attention whether they 
 were willing or unwilling to listen — " whether they 
 would hear or whether they would forbear" — i. e. re- 
 fuse to hear. The duties of the Christian ministry 
 must be performed, and energetically performed. The 
 minister must throw his whole soul and heart into 
 them. If he would have his hearers " give diligence," 
 " give all diligence" to do their duty, he must not be 
 negligent in doing his. He is not likely to stir up 
 men who seems in danger himself of falling asleep. 
 
 Peter had too strong a sense of the authority of 
 his Master, and too deep a sympathy with the haz- 
 ards and miseries of immortal men, to be negligent in 
 the discharge of his duties. And as he was deter- 
 mined to perform them not perfunctorily but dili- 
 gently, so was he to perform them, not only occa- 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 27 
 
 sionally, but habitually, constantly: " I will put you 
 always in remembrance " — I will not only now and 
 then call your attention to these things, but they 
 shall be the staple article of my teaching. What is 
 essential to the salvation of the sinner and the edifi- 
 cation of the saint, should be the ordinary theme of 
 the Christian minister. There is something very 
 far wrong in a Christian teacher's estimate of his du- 
 ties and responsibilities, if he can be heard even for a 
 very few Sabbaths in succession, without our being put 
 in mind of the great elementary principles of Chris- 
 tian faith and duty, by which both saints and sinners 
 are most likely to be stirred up, the things whereby 
 men live and in which is the life of our souls. Of 
 such a deficiency those who had the privilege of en- 
 joying the ministry now so honourably finished, 
 never had reason to complain. 
 
 Still further, the Apostle determines to execute the 
 resolution to stir up men's minds by putting them in 
 remembrance, not only diligently and habitually, but 
 perseveringly, — " As long as I am in this tabernacle 
 I will stir you up by putting you in remembrance." 
 " So long as I am in this tabernacle/' is a beautiful 
 figurative expression for ' so long as I continue to live 
 in this frail mortal body.' " Our earthly house of 
 this tabernacle," is by the Apostle Paul contrasted 
 with the resurrection body — " the building of God, a 
 house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
 The expression before us is just equivalent to ' So long 
 as I live I will stir you up by putting you in remem- 
 brance.' Peter had not long to live, and he knew 
 this. He was old and feeble. But whatever strength 
 
28 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 he had, whether of body or of mind, he was disposed 
 to devote it to the service of God and his church. 
 His jubilee, had he arrived at it, would not have found 
 him, as it did not find your minister, desirous of eman- 
 cipation from his Master's service. He had nailed his 
 ear to his door-post, and wished to be his servant for 
 ever. His desire was that the executioner might find 
 him engaged in putting the brethren in remembrance 
 of the law of the Lord. It is not for us to choose for 
 ourselves, yet I believe the true-hearted minister of 
 Christ cannot help wishing that he may be allowed to 
 die at his post, that as the excellent Flavel has it, 
 " Our life and our labour may end together." So 
 long as he has a voice, he would wish it employed in 
 warning sinners, and in stimulating, directing, com- 
 forting, saints. " Were I but able for it," said a dying 
 minister of Christ, "I would willingly work as a 
 common labourer six days of the week to be allowed 
 to preach Christ on the seventh/' Every Christian 
 minister who at all deserves the name cordially sym- 
 pathises in the sentiment still more strikingly express- 
 ed by our great Apostle : " To me who am less than 
 the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should 
 preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ." What a privilege to be allowed to commend 
 Christ's excellences on earth down to the very period 
 when we shall be allowed to commence our eternal 
 celebration of them in heaven ! 
 
 There is yet another thought expressed in the 
 Apostle's statement of his first resolution, and that is, 
 his sense of the propriety of his forming such a 
 resolution — " I think it meet to stir you up by put- 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 29 
 
 ting you in remembrance." Meet for you, — meet for 
 me. Meet for you — for you need, very much need, 
 to be stirred up by being put in remembrance. You 
 are in great danger of letting slip the things you 
 have heard — of becoming weary and faint in your 
 minds. Meet for me, — for " should not the shepherd 
 feed the flock?" should not the steward superintend 
 the household, and "give every one his portion of 
 suitable food in due season?" Meet especially for me, 
 to whom the Lord said again and again, " Feed my 
 sheep — Feed my lambs," " putting you in mind be- 
 cause of the grace," the high favour of apostleship, 
 " that is given me of God." Meet for me so long as 
 I am in this tabernacle, for what is the use of life to 
 me who am His but to serve Him. He is the Lord, 
 my Lord. I am his servant, and yours for his sake. 
 In honouring him, in edifying you, I wish to live and 
 to die. So much for the illustration of the Apostle's 
 first resolution. 
 
 His second resolution is that he should endeavour 
 that they " might be able after his decease to have 
 these things in remembrance." It is a great comfort 
 to an old Christian minister anticipating near ap- 
 proaching dissolution, that his death is to make little 
 or no difference to the cause of Christ. The under- 
 shepherds are "not suffered to continue by reason of 
 death," but " the Chief Shepherd," though he once 
 too was dead, blessed be God, " dieth no more." 
 Death can never again have dominion over Him. 
 " All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the 
 flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower 
 thereof falleth away ; but the word of the Lord en- 
 
30 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 dureth for ever." The residue of the Spirit is with 
 Him, to whom the Father hath given the Holy Ghost 
 not by measure. The God of Elijah can endow 
 Elisha with a sevenfold measure, if he so wills it, of his 
 Master's gifts — and Solomon may accomplish what 
 David felt it high honour, true happiness, to have 
 been permitted and enabled to make preparation for. 
 
 "Though mortal shepherds dwell in dust, 
 
 The aged and the young ; 
 The watchful eye in darkness clos'd, 
 
 And mute the instructive tongue : 
 The Eternal Shepherd still survives, 
 
 New comfort to impart ; 
 His eye still guides us, and his voice 
 
 Still animates our heart." 
 
 So I doubt not thought and felt Peter when within a 
 short way of his bloody grave and his heavenly rest. 
 " Behold I die, but God will be with you." " Jesns 
 is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever/' Yet 
 love to his Master and the church whom he purchased 
 with his own blood, a desire to honour Him and 
 edify them, makes him wish to speak even from the 
 tomb and from the skies. 
 
 It is a wonderful thing that by means of certain 
 arbitrary characters impressed on suitable materials, 
 the thoughts and feelings of men may be embalmed, 
 not dead, but alive — and for age after age to the 
 end of time, if there was originally enough of life in 
 them, continue to instruct and delight the successive 
 generations of men. Peter's spirit, not uninfluenced 
 by the Holy Spirit, determined, by the use of this won- 
 drous art, that the Christian brethren whom he loved 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 3i 
 
 should " be able after his decease to have these things 
 always in their remembrance;" and in his two golden 
 epistles he has for eighteen centuries been uttering 
 his "testimony and his exhortation" (1st Ep. v. 12.) 
 to the churches of the saints. Who can compute the 
 amount of heavenly light and influence which during 
 these centuries have streamed forth from these holy 
 letters into the minds and hearts of the saints ! As 
 the dead whom Samson slew at his death were more 
 than those he slew in his life, so the number that 
 Peter has converted and edified since he left the 
 earth is incomparably greater than the seals of his 
 apostolic ministry on earth, though he did what no 
 man probably has ever done since — numbered three 
 thousand converts on a single day by a single sermon. 
 And who can tell how Peter's happiness in heaven is 
 still to be increased by the knowledge of how his holy 
 resolution is continuing to serve its object in promot- 
 ing the edification and comfort of a world full of 
 Christians during the lightsome ages of millennial 
 glory? 
 
 Nor is the desire expressed in the Apostle's reso- 
 lution peculiar to him. It originates in principles 
 which lie deep in the bosom of every right-hearted 
 Christian minister — of every right-hearted Christian 
 man. It has been justly remarked that, "when a 
 Christian grows old and draws near to death, his 
 sense of the value of divine truth by no means di- 
 minishes."* As he approaches the eternal world, 
 and from its borders surveys the past and looks on to 
 
 * Barnes. 
 
32 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 what is to come, when he remembers the benefits which 
 the truths of religion have conferred on him in life, 
 and feels the good hope through grace with which 
 they inspire him as he stands on the brink of the 
 grave — -in the neighbourhood of the judgment-seat 
 — and thinks what the gospel universally known 
 and believed would do, in transforming earth into 
 paradise, and in making its inhabitants fit to be par- 
 takers of the inheritance of the saints in light, the 
 desire that the light of that truth may soon become 
 universal, like the light of the sun, swells into a 
 passion which finds its vent in David's last words, 
 " Let the whole earth be filled with his glory." 
 And this desire naturally enough expresses itself in 
 more than words. He will, with the Apostle, " en- 
 deavour that after his decease, men may have in re- 
 membrance " those words of truth and grace which 
 were to him " spirit and life." He will do what he 
 can that his children and children's children, to the 
 latest generation, may know them, and love them, 
 and live by them. He will by the .communication 
 of his substance contribute to the support of mis- 
 sionaries and the circulation of Bibles. He may not 
 be able to write books, but by contributing to asso- 
 ciations for the publication and distribution of the 
 best books he may be extensively and permanently 
 useful. 
 
 " Every man," to borrow the language of a living 
 writer, " Every man who can write a good book owes 
 it to the church and to the world to do it." If it be a 
 very good book the world will not willingly let it die, 
 and it may not perish but in the funeral pile of the 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 33 
 
 earth ; and even though like many good books it should 
 perish, during its life it may wipe away many a tear, 
 relieve many a doubt, soothe many a sorrow, save 
 souls from death, and hide multitudes of sins. 
 Ministers of Christ especially should be animated 
 with Peter's spirit. They should, as a matter of duty, 
 from an early period of their ministry begin to lay up 
 what may be a valuable and availing treasure to 
 their congregation, to the church, and to the world, 
 when they put off this their tabernacle, seeking to 
 polish and purify it to the uttermost. This would 
 have a good influence on their own minds. It would 
 add to the edification of their people even now : and 
 the number of really good books, by no means too 
 great, would be increased. 
 
 It is not an unworthy ambition to seek to share, 
 though in far more limited measure, in the holy delight 
 which, in the knowledge that in heaven they are still on 
 earth honouring God in conducing to the salvation of 
 men, must refresh such spirits of just men made perfect, 
 as wore on earth the ever-to-be-honoured names of 
 Owen, and Baxter, and Howe, and Bunyan, and 
 Henry, and Doddridge, and Watts, and Erskine, 
 and Edwards, and Newton, and Fuller, and 
 Wardlaw, whose usefulness is likely to grow with 
 the ever extending range of the English language till 
 the end of time. Who can tell of how much good a 
 little tract like that of M'Laurin " On glorying in 
 the cross of Christ," instinct with the living fire of 
 genius, taught by Christianity, has been, may yet be, 
 productive. Ay, who can estimate the benefit which 
 the nameless author of that incomparable narrative of 
 c 
 
34 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 Poor Joseph has conferred and will yet confer on 
 mankind. " This little Epistle of Peter/' as Barnes 
 well says, "has shed light on the path of men for 
 eighteen centuries, and will continue to do so until 
 the second coming of the Saviour. It goes to soften 
 the pang of separation between a Christian pastor and 
 his flock — (I believe your pastor felt this, and so do 
 you now amid your deep sorrow), — when he knows that 
 after his decease they will be able to remember the 
 things which he has taught them — and when they 
 know that even when dead he will continue to speak 
 to them, the pages strangely as they peruse them re- 
 flecting a countenance and form hid in the grave, and 
 echoing back a voice which they must hear no more 
 for ever." 
 
 So much for the illustration of the apostle's twofold 
 resolution — that he would not be negligent to stir 
 them up by putting them always in remembrance 
 of the great principles of Christian truth and law, 
 so long as he was in this tabernacle ; and that he 
 would endeavour that they might be able after his 
 decease to have these things always in remembrance. 
 
 I should now proceed to consider the grounds on 
 which the Apostle rests these resolutions. These are, 
 as you are aware, three: His deep-felt sense of the 
 truth and importance of those things which he had 
 stated, and which he was determined to keep them in 
 mind of as long as he lived, and not to let them for- 
 get after his death; — his knowledge received by 
 communication from his Master that his death was at 
 hand; — and his firm conviction, from the evidence of 
 miracles and prophecy, that in preaching the gospel 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 35 
 
 of Jesus Christ he and his apostolic brethren were not 
 following cunningly devised fables, but were declaring 
 divinely revealed truth. — The solidity of the first two 
 grounds obviously depends on the solidity of the 
 third. For if the Apostle and his brethren had followed 
 cunningly devised fables, no depth of conviction of the 
 truth of what was indeed false, of the importance of 
 what in that case was vain and empty as a dream, — no 
 supj)osed knowledge of near approaching death, which 
 in that case must be delusion, could be a good ground 
 for the two resolutions which he announces. The 
 third ground comes then for these reasons to be first 
 considered. — I have not time to unfold the meaning 
 of the verses in which this ground is stated. Indeed 
 these verses contain in them one or two phrases which 
 have occasioned perhaps as much discussion and con- 
 troversy as any equal number of phrases in the sacred 
 volume. Even to point out their difficulty would be 
 singularly discordant with your state of feeling. Let 
 it suffice to remark that this seems to me the general 
 train of the Apostle's thoughts : — ' We know the gospel 
 revelation respecting Jesus Christ as a divine mes- 
 senger and the promised Messiah, Him who should 
 come, to be the very truth most sure — for we have 
 seen miracles — and we have also witnessed the pro- 
 phetic word concerning the Messiah confirmed by 
 accomplishment, to which prophetic word, fulfilled 
 and unfulfilled, it is wise in Christians to pay careful 
 attention as to a heaven-kindled light in this dark 
 world, till they reach the world of perfect light; 
 and they ought thus highly to regard, thus humbly 
 to follow, these prophetic scriptures — for what they 
 
36 THE AGED MINISTER^ RESOLUTIONS 
 
 contain is not the spontaneous outpouring of the 
 writers' own mind. No; none of these prophetic 
 oracles are the offspring of human will — they are all 
 the expression of the divine mind; for the holy men 
 who uttered them, spoke under the inspiring influence 
 of the Holy Ghost/ — That is a plain consistent enough 
 statement, and forming a very secure ground both 
 for the Apostle's resolutions and the other two grounds 
 on which in subordination to this he bases them. This 
 is so far satisfactory. Whether the Apostle's words will 
 bear this interpretation, I must leave you to examine 
 for yourselves. 
 
 Meanwhile I conclude with a single reflection, 
 which seems naturally enough to rise out of the state- 
 ments we have made. How benignant is the spirit 
 of genuine Christianity as manifested in the character 
 of the Apostle Peter as that is developed in the passage 
 we have been illustrating ; how benignant in its 
 influence on himself, how benignant in its outgoings 
 towards the church, and the world! Peter was now 
 an old — it may be a very old man. His life had been 
 throughout a laborious one. His trials had been 
 many and severe, and he was living every day in the 
 expectation of a most painful and ignominious death. 
 Yet how tranquil, how happy is he ! How calmly 
 does he speak of putting off his tabernacle ! The old 
 worn-out Apostle is one of the happiest men out of 
 heaven . He would not exchange places with the Roman 
 Cesar. Happy in doing his Master's work, — happy 
 in the hope of soon entering into his Master's joy, 
 though it must be through the agonies of crucifixion. 
 The steady look he takes of the cross, most solemn 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 37 
 
 but unblanehing, when he says, " Even as our Lord 
 Jesus Christ hath showed me," speaks plainer than 
 words, " None of these things move me, neither count I 
 my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my 
 course with joy, and the ministry which I have 
 received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of 
 the grace of Grod." Past labours and sufferings 
 excite no regrets, — death at hand, in its most terrific 
 form, no terrors. Who can unfold, who can under- 
 stand the benignant power of the principle, which in 
 such circumstances can secure calm composure — 
 entire satisfaction both in the retrospect and the 
 prospect! Christ — known, dwelling in the heart by 
 faith, trusted in, loved, enjoyed, was that living 
 principle ; and what are the external circumstances of 
 destitution and suffering and alarm, amid which that 
 principle which made Peter the aged so happy, can- 
 not sustain and comfort ! 
 
 And the spirit of Christianity proves its benignity 
 not only by its influence on the Apostle's personal 
 comfort, but by the dispositions with which it filled 
 him in reference to the church and the world. 
 How has it counteracted the tendency to that indis- 
 position to benevolent exertion, that selfish indifference 
 to the happiness of others, which is often the unamiable 
 character of old age ! How warm are his affections — 
 how ready to expend his waning energies in the 
 service of his brethren ! 
 
 Peter is a proper model for aged Christians, and 
 especially for aged Christian ministers. We admire, 
 we love, the benevolent, strong-hearted, active-minded 
 old Apostle. Let us glorify Grod in Him, and ac- 
 
38 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 knowledge, what he was always ready to acknowledge, 
 By the grace of God he was what he was. 
 
 We profess to be of the same religion as the apostle 
 Peter. Have we really drunk into its spirit? Is the 
 mind, is the heart in us, that was in him? Are we, 
 like him, ready in love to serve one another as breth- 
 ren? in seeking to stir up one another by putting us 
 in remembrance what we are all too apt to forget? 
 Have we, like him, a regard not only to the present 
 but to coming generations of men and of Christians ? 
 Are we desirous of serving our own generation by 
 the w r ill of God, and of even, when we have fallen 
 on sleep, still exerting a beneficial influence on those 
 who are to come after us ? It is only in the degree in 
 which we are animated by such dispositions that we 
 are Christians. 
 
 If we would be happy useful Christians like Peter, 
 we must like Peter seek to have a familiar and in- 
 timate acquaintance with our common Lord and 
 Master. That was the secret of his satisfied review 
 of a life so full of labour — his composed anticipation 
 of a death so full of torture and of shame; — He is 
 worthy for whom I have suffered, for whom I am to 
 suffer, all this. In the exercise of faith in a devotional 
 perusal of the Evangelical History we may do much 
 to obtain such an acquaintance. Let us in this way 
 company with Peter and the other apostles all the 
 time that the Lord Jesus went out and in among 
 them. Let us follow him from the manger to the 
 cross — to the throne. Let us seek to be with him in 
 the holy mount contemplating the honour and glory 
 he there received from the Father, and listening to 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 39 
 
 the voice from the most excellent glory, u This is my 
 beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye 
 him." Let us go with him to Gethsemane, not to 
 sleep, but to watch and weep with him there. Let 
 his words, Follow me, never be forgotten by us. Let 
 us hear it from the cross — let us hear it from the 
 throne. It is because we forget him that we neglect 
 our duty and lose our comfort. We cannot be as 
 happy, as amiable, as useful as Peter, except by be- 
 coming like him thoroughly Christian, 
 
 And oh how happy, how amiable, how useful 
 might we be in life, — how calm, resigned, hopeful, 
 triumphant in death, — were we but as thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with our Lord Jesus as with our means of 
 knowing him, in the revelations of his word, in the 
 influences of his Spirit, we might be! When we look 
 at Christianity as it appears in such men as Peter and 
 Paul, and then look inward, who can help saying — 
 'If this be Christianity, am I a Christian?' Much 
 reason have we to be ashamed; but no reason have 
 we to despair. Christ is the same as ever. The 
 Holy Spirit is the same as ever. The gospel is 
 the same as ever. Human nature is the same as ever. 
 Peter and Paul were just renewed men. It was not 
 their miraculous gifts, or high office, that made them 
 so holy and so happy. And he who created them 
 anew in Christ Jesus to good works can create us 
 anew in him also. There is no height of Christian 
 happiness, holiness, amiableness, usefulness to which it 
 is presumption in any of us to aspire ; and if we wish 
 to know how these aspirations are likely to be gratified, 
 we have but to look at the last verse of the Epistle — 
 
40 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 " Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and ever. 
 
 Amen." 
 
 Christian brethren of this church, I need not ap- 
 ply the preceding illustrations to the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances in which you are placed ; I am persuaded 
 you have applied them yourselves already, and 
 while I have been speaking have been thinking fully 
 as much on the aged minister, whom amid so deep 
 regrets you lately laid in the grave, as on the aged 
 Apostle whose words have been the subject of dis- 
 course. It would be strange if it were otherwise. 
 
 Had your venerated and beloved pastor expressed 
 his resolutions with regard to you — resolutions ever 
 growing in strength as he approached the termination 
 of his labours, where, even with all his singular feli- 
 city in clothing his beautiful thoughts in fitting 
 language, could he have found more appropriate words 
 than those of the text ? "I will not be negligent to 
 put you always in remembrance of these things, though 
 ye know them, and be established in the present 
 truth. Yea, I think it meet as long as I am in this 
 tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remem- 
 brance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my 
 tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed 
 me. Moreover, I will endeavour that ye may be able 
 after my decease to have these things always in re- 
 membrance — for we have not followed cunningly de- 
 vised fables." 
 
 And did he not carry these resolutions into effect? 
 " For the space of more than fifty years he ceased 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 41 
 
 not to teach and warn you, serving the Lord with all 
 humility of mind, keeping back nothing that was 
 profitable to you, not shunning to declare to you the 
 whole counsel of God." Not carelessly, but with 
 elaborate preparation and affectionate zeal, — not occa- 
 sionally, but habitually, — not fitfully, but persever- 
 ingly — down to the very close of his life and ministry, 
 with a clear perception and deep feeling of what was 
 meet in him from his relations to his Master, to you, 
 to the church at large, and to the world, did he 
 " stir you up by putting you in remembrance ; ' of 
 the doctrine and laws of Christ, and " endeavour 
 that after his decease you might have these things 
 always in remembrance." And like the Apostle, one of 
 his last and best works was his giving to you, and the 
 church, and the world — a most complete and satisfac- 
 tory exhibition of the evidence that in believing "the 
 power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ," " we 
 have not followed cunningly devised fables." 
 
 What a remarkably favoured church have you been 
 to have enjoyed, for so long a season, such ministra- 
 tions! What a clear, pure, full, faithful, impressive, 
 persuasive, dispensation of Christian doctrine and 
 law, have you received from his lips! How per- 
 spicuously did he state, how powerfully defend the 
 truth! More than most men a master of " the words 
 of man's wisdom," how simply did he yet unfold to you 
 the .oracles of God ! Having " espoused you to one 
 husband/' how "jealous over you was he with a 
 godly jealousy that he might present you as a chaste 
 virgin to Christ !" How did he preach " Christ cruci- 
 fied" for you, and " Christ in you the hope of glory 
 
42 THE AGED MINISTER'S RESOLUTIONS 
 
 warning every man, and teaching every man, in all 
 wisdom, that he might present every man perfect in 
 Christ Jesus!" And what a precious legacy has he 
 left to the church, and to the world, especially to 
 you, in those numerous elaborate treatises on so many 
 points relating to the evidence and doctrine, and 
 law and institutions of our Lord Jesus, in which he 
 has so successfully endeavoured, that ye may be able 
 after his decease to have those things which he taught 
 you always in remembrance ! — In these, though dead, 
 he lives — though silent, he speaks. 
 
 I am persuaded, my brethren, that you highly 
 valued his ministrations. You have given too many 
 and too substantial proofs of this, to allow it to be 
 the subject of reasonable doubt. Yet suffer the word 
 of exhortation.— Solemnly inquire if you have im- 
 proved under these ministrations in the degree in 
 which you ought. He has given in his account — and 
 ere long you must give in yours. Carefully use the 
 means he has at such an expense of time and thought 
 prepared for you that you might be able after his de- 
 cease to keep in memory what he taught you. The 
 advantages and the responsibilities of the enjoyment 
 of his ministry are in an unusual degree permanent. 
 " Look to yourselves that he lose not the things which 
 he has wrought, but that he " and you together " may 
 receive a full reward." 
 
 In these concluding sentences I have intentionally 
 confined myself to what seemed naturally to rise out 
 of the subject of discourse. I dare not trust myself 
 to speak of my personal feelings in reference to your 
 deceased pastor, the object of my cordial esteem, love, 
 
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. 43 
 
 and admiration for more than fifty years. Indeed this 
 is not the place for the expression of such feelings ; and 
 all that the circumstances call for, in reference to the 
 delineation of his public character in all its various 
 phases, as a ripe scholar, a learned and judicious 
 theologian, a faithful and affectionate pastor, a most 
 accomplished preacher, a highly qualified and success- 
 ful tutor of students for the Christian ministry, an 
 elegant and most useful writer, a fair and most cour- 
 teous antagonist, — an active and disinterested philan- 
 thropist, and an enlightened public spirited citizen, 
 will be much better done than I could do it, by my 
 esteemed friend and brother on whom with such 
 obvious propriety this duty has been devolved. 
 
 Brethren, farewell ! — " Eemember him who had the 
 rule over you, who has spoken unto you the word of 
 the Lord — whose faith follow, considering the end of 
 his conversation, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to- 
 day, and for ever/' — " And we desire that every one 
 of you do show the same diligence to the full assur- 
 ance of hope to the end, that ye be not slothful, but 
 followers of them who through faith and patience in- 
 herit the promises. " " Farewell. Be perfect — be of 
 good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the 
 God of love and peace will be with you " supplying 
 " all your need according to the riches of his glory 
 in Christ Jesus," " to whom be glory for ever and 
 ever. Amen." 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH: 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED OK LORD'S DAY, THE 25TH OF DECEMBEE, 1853, 
 
 IX WEST GEORGE STREET CHAPEL, GLASGOW, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 OCCASION OE THE DECEASE OE 
 
 THE REV. DR. WARDLAW. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D. 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 
 
 II. KINGS ii. 12. 
 
 "And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My Father, my Father! the 
 chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." 
 
 One of the principal lessons which the Bible is de- 
 signed to teach man is that he should look for his 
 supreme felicity and his best inheritance in God. 
 Perhaps we should rather say that this is the great 
 ultimate lesson of the Bible, to the hearty and full 
 reception of which it is the design of all its other 
 lessons to bring man. God has so made us that it is 
 only as we consciously live and move and have our 
 being in Him that we can be truly blessed ; and the 
 result to which the Bible would bring us is that, in 
 grateful and intelligent acknowledgment of this, we 
 should "yield ourselves unto God," not only in a 
 dutiful obedience to his will, but in a loving, trusting, 
 joyful and unreserved dependence upon Him. It 
 would bring us to the point of seeing in Him all that 
 is lovely, and finding out of Him nothing that is truly 
 desirable. It would teach us to feel that " all our 
 springs are in Him." It would bring us to such a 
 continual sense of his fulness and his tenderness that 
 we shall say as the daily experience of our hearts, 
 
48 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is 
 none in all the earth that I desire besides thee. My 
 flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength 
 of my heart, and my portion for ever." 
 
 In teaching us this lesson the Bible aims at bring- 
 ing us under an influence directly antagonist to that 
 which sin has exercised upon us. The great lesson 
 which sin has worked into the soul of man is one of 
 distrust of God and aversion from God. It makes 
 us think of him as our enemy. It breeds doubts of 
 his kindness, his benevolence, nay of his fairness and 
 equity, in our bosoms. It fosters in our hearts a 
 spirit of pride, a sense of independence, a disposition 
 to magnify self and to lean upon our own resources. 
 Under the influence of this discipline the mind is 
 carried, with ever accelerated rapidity, away from 
 God. Even experience of our own weakness and 
 ignorance and helplessness fails to offer any effectual 
 counteractive to this downward course ; the depraved 
 mind recovers from the momentary disappointment 
 only to build a new altar to its idol, or to call to its 
 help another taken from among the creatures around. 
 The true object of worship is forgotten. The foun- 
 tain of living waters is deserted. Men cast the 
 knowledge of God out of their thoughts. And 
 though living in a world which God has made and 
 which teems with evidences of his being and perfec- 
 tions, they are in that world " without God/' 
 
 The only effectual cure for this evil state of mind 
 is that which Christianity offers. By revealing to us 
 " God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, 
 not imputing to men their trespasses," it corrects our 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 49 
 
 false conceptions of God, it soothes the asperity of 
 our rebellious nature, it wins us to be at peace with 
 Him, and it shows us the path by which we may 
 regain his lost favour and likeness. Imbued with 
 its lessons, permeated by its influence, we turn unto 
 the Lord and seek our portion in him. With a pro- 
 found consciousness of want, we are led to cleave 
 unto him as the Being who alone can understand 
 our case and relieve our necessities. And as the 
 power of that religion which the Bible reveals be- 
 comes more deeply and extensively felt by us, we 
 are brought ever nearer and nearer unto God, are 
 led ever more and more to place all our dependence 
 upon him, are drawn to seek all our delight in him, 
 and are taught to be willing to part with all that is 
 earthly, with all that is created, if thereby we may 
 be more fully occupied with God. 
 
 In order, however, to learn this great lesson and 
 experience this high moral renovation, it is not neces- 
 sary that we should overlook or undervalue the 
 objects of interest which are around us. One of the 
 peculiar excellences of the Bible lies in this, that it 
 proposes to wean us from earth and self and man, by 
 a process which leaves us free to render to all of these 
 the whole amount of respect and attention that they 
 deserve. Mere human wisdom has never been able 
 to hit upon any method of raising the moral condi- 
 tion of the race but by teaching men to play the 
 ascetic ; — to escape temptation by rushing into soli- 
 tude, to conquer passion by treating the body as an 
 enemy and in itself evil, to shun man-worship by 
 indulging misanthropy, and to rise nearer to God by 
 
 D 
 
60 ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 
 
 neglecting the duties which God in his Providence 
 has laid upon us. The folly and mischief of all such 
 schemes have been abundantly demonstrated wher- 
 ever they have been tried : the experiment has inva- 
 riably ended in only making the individual more 
 intensely selfish than before, and adding to his origi- 
 nal ungodliness tempers and dispositions which render 
 him the enemy of his fellows. It is not thus that 
 the Bible proposes to recover us to God. It unfolds 
 to us a deeper philosophy and brings to bear upon 
 us a mightier discipline. It teaches us to rise above 
 the world by teaching us to take a just and compre- 
 hensive estimate of the worth of the things of earth, 
 and to use them so as not to abuse them. It weans 
 us from self by delivering us from morbid and dis- 
 torted views of our own personal importance, and 
 showing us how a sound and enlightened self-love 
 will lead us to seek our supreme happiness in the 
 great centre of Light and Love. And it saves us 
 from putting our trust in man, not by teaching us to 
 despise our race, not by leading us to dwell in bit- 
 terness and scornfulness on the faults or the failings 
 of those around us, not by bidding us withhold our 
 admiration for the noble, the beautiful or the good 
 that may display itself in the characters of men, but 
 by impressing upon us the great ethical truth that as 
 all the excellences that adorn the creature are de- 
 rived immediately from God, it behoves us to admire 
 these not so much in themselves as in their relation 
 to Him — to see the Giver in the gift — and from the 
 lustre that is reflected by the creature to ascend to 
 some worthier conception of the exceeding glory of 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 51 
 
 him who is "the Father of lights, and from whom 
 every good gift and every perfect gift cometh 
 down." 
 
 It is on this ground that it becomes right for us to 
 do homage to men of worth and genius whilst they 
 live, and to hold them in grateful and honourable 
 remembrance when they are gone. So long as we 
 do not put them in the place of God or suffer our 
 admiration of them to seduce us from that supreme 
 and unreserved worship of God which is the first of 
 all duties, our sense of respect for them can hardly 
 be too high. There is nothing more beautiful, 
 nothing more noble, nothing more godlike out of 
 heaven than a fine intellect in alliance with holiness 
 and goodness. And when God permits one so gifted 
 to dwell amongst us for a season, and to shed on us 
 the rays of his intelligence, and to quicken and charm 
 us by his virtues, it would be alike contrary to the 
 highest and finest impulses of our nature, and un- 
 grateful to the author of all good, were we to turn 
 from the spectacle with indifference, or to experience 
 the withdrawal of such an one from amongst us 
 without sorrow and lamentation. 
 
 If authority is wanted for the indulgence of such 
 feelings we have it abundantly in the Bible. Is it 
 not written there that " the memory of the just is 
 blessed ?" * Are we not told that " the righteous 
 shall be held in everlasting remembrance ? " f Does it 
 not stand there recorded as a curse pronounced upon 
 the wicked that " they shall not lament for him, say- 
 
 * Prov. x. 7. f Psalm cxii. 6. 
 
52 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 ing, Ah my brother, or ah sister ! They shall not 
 lament for him saying, Ah Lord, or ah his glory ?" * 
 Was it not from the lips of our Lord himself that the 
 noble eulogy on his forerunner John the Baptist fell : 
 " He was a burning and a shining light, and ye were 
 willing for a season to rejoice in his light ?"f Has 
 not Christ himself showed us that holy and sinless 
 tears may be shed over the grave of departed worth ? 
 When Stephen the first martyr of the cross fell, did 
 not " devout men carry him to his burial and make 
 great lamentation over him ?" J And does not the 
 Apostle, whilst unfolding a revelation concerning the 
 blessed estate of those that are asleep, in order that 
 we may not " sorrow for them as others who have no 
 hope,"§ by that very language intimate that if our 
 grief be not such as to cast discredit on our princi- 
 ples we may legitimately indulge it ? No ; a morbid 
 fanaticism or a haughty stoicism may teach men that 
 there is virtue in being unmoved by the loss of the 
 loved or the venerated ; but Christianity, ever true 
 to that nature it has been designed to restore, incul- 
 cates no such lesson. It rather dignifies sorrow and 
 gives sacredness to tears, — commanding us as a reli- 
 gious duty to " weep with those that weep," and only 
 forbidding us that excess in sorrow which would 
 unfit us for duty or be unworthy of those to whom 
 " life and immortality have been brought to light/' 
 
 It was in this spirit of chastened but genuine sor- 
 row that Elisha uttered the lamentation recorded in 
 
 * Jer. xxiir 18. t J °hn v. 35. | Acts viii. 2. 
 
 § 1 Thess. iv. 13, 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 53 
 
 my text. Suddenly, and yet not altogether unex- 
 pectedly, had his master and teacher been taken from 
 him. Forewarned by prophetic impulses that his 
 departure was at hand, Elijah had withdrawn with 
 his attendant and destined successor, who would not 
 leave him, to a solitary place beyond Jordan. There 
 they had entered into earnest conference respecting 
 coming events, and Elisha feeling that he had fallen 
 upon evil times and foreseeing that a career of dan- 
 ger, difficulty and toil lay before him, had asked of 
 Elijah that a double portion of his spirit might rest 
 upon him : — that is, as I apprehend, not that Elisha 
 might have twice as much of the prophetic spirit as 
 Elijah, but that in the farewell benediction of the 
 Father-prophet he might occupy the place of the 
 eldest son, and receive of that spirit which Elijah was 
 to leave as a legacy to his sons the prophets, a por- 
 tion twice as large as that of any of the others. To 
 this request Elijah gave a conditional answer, and 
 they resumed their conference and their journey; 
 when suddenly they were arrested and separated 
 from each other by the miraculous apparition of a 
 chariot of fire and horses of fire. By this Elijah was 
 carried up into heaven, " changed in a moment, in 
 the twinkling of an eye," realising the wish of the 
 Apostle by " being not unclothed " by the hand of 
 death but " overclothed with his house which is from 
 heaven," not passing to life through death but having 
 " mortality swallowed up of life." It was then that 
 Elisha, feeling all his desolation now that that strong 
 spirit on which he had been accustomed to lean was 
 taken from him, uttered the cry of my text, "My 
 
54 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and the 
 horsemen thereof." 
 
 These words express at once Elisha's reverence 
 for Elijah and his sense of personal and public loss 
 sustained by his removal. 
 
 He recognised in Elijah a Father. This title has 
 reference to the relation in which the departed pro- 
 phet had stood to him as his teacher. It was cus- 
 tomary among the Jews for scholars so to designate 
 their instructors ; and that, not merely as a mark of 
 respect, but as an acknowledgment of the formative 
 influence of their teaching upon the opinions and 
 modes of thought of their scholars. Elisha owed 
 much, we might say owed all that he had in this 
 respect, to Elijah. The latter had found him at the 
 plough, had been the instrument of calling him to 
 the prophetic office, had retained him as his imme- 
 diate attendant, and had bestowed upon the forming 
 and the filling of his mind more pains, perhaps, than 
 on any other of the sons of the prophets. A grateful 
 sense of the kindness thus showed occupied the mind 
 of the younger prophet, and therefore his first impulse 
 when Elijah was carried away from him was to give 
 vent to his private sorrows, and cry after him, " My 
 Father, my Father!" 
 
 But private sorrow must yield to public calamity. 
 Whatever Elijah had been to Elisha he had been far 
 more to Israel, and however great had been the loss 
 to Elisha personally occasioned by the removal of 
 Elijah, it had, in that day of darkness and danger, 
 been far greater to the nation. For many years 
 Elijah had been the rallying point for all that was 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 55 
 
 left of piety in Israel. He was the bulwark of the 
 cause of true religion against the bold assaults of 
 idolatry, and the tyrannical oppression of idolatrous 
 kings. When it seemed as if every knee throughout 
 the land had bowed to Baal, that stern front was 
 still reared aloft ; and from those lips, which no kiss 
 of the idol had polluted, there rolled the fearless 
 challenge and the awful denunciation of the prophet 
 of Jehovah. Never faltering, never compromising ; 
 retiring, it is true, when the tide was too strong for 
 him to withstand, but retiring only to gather fresh 
 strength and wait for a fitting opportunity to renew 
 the conflict; standing often to all human appearance 
 alone; opposed by all the power of the throne and 
 all the influence of the mob ; this noble man had, 
 with undaunted courage, maintained for many years 
 a determined stand for the cause of God and truth, 
 and sought to preserve his country from the evils of 
 unmitigated idolatry. He had thus, as Elisha well 
 knew, proved himself Israel's greatest benefactor and 
 strongest defence. His efforts and his prayers had 
 done more to protect the state from utter ruin than 
 all the chariots and horsemen which, contrary to the 
 divine command, these idolatrous princes had accu- 
 mulated. The flame of piety and purity, which he 
 had kept burning, had alone preserved the land from 
 being overspread with a very " horror of darkness." 
 The vilest idolatry, celebrated with the most pollut- 
 ing rites, had usurped the place of that worship which 
 the One living and true God had instituted for him- 
 self; and only the little band, which the zeal and 
 fortitude of Elijah had kept together, resisted the 
 
56 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 influence under which the nation had sunk. Like a 
 green island in the midst of a black and stormy 
 ocean, it alone smiled and bore fruit; whilst around 
 it the tempest raged and every billow threatened to 
 engulph it. What was to become of it when Elijah 
 was gone ? Who now was to take hold of spear and 
 buckler and stand in the breach for the defence of 
 the endangered church? To Elisha, on whom the 
 lot had fallen to step into his master's place, the pros- 
 pect seemed dark indeed. His personal sorrows 
 were lost in the more appalling calamity that had 
 befallen his people and his cause. To him there had 
 been the loss of a friend and a Father ; but they had 
 lost their glory and their defence. Their bulwark 
 was removed just when it seemed he could least be 
 spared. I think I can see the look of wan despair 
 with which Elisha beheld Elijah swept away from 
 him in his chariot of fire. I think I can hear the 
 accents of piercing grief with which he exclaimed 
 after him, " My Father, my Father, the chariot of 
 Israel and the horsemen thereof." I think I see him, 
 when the dread certainty that he should look on that 
 loved and honoured form no more burst upon his 
 mind, taking hold of his clothes and rending them 
 by one convulsive effort into two pieces. His was a 
 manly sorrow for an irreparable loss ; honourable 
 alike to him who showed it and to him by whose 
 departure it was occasioned. 
 
 From these cursory illustrations of my text I must 
 now turn to that which forms the special occasion 
 of my at present addressing you from this place. I 
 have chosen to introduce what I have to offer re- 
 
ELISHA's CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 57 
 
 specting the character and claims of your late revered 
 pastor by a reference to this part of Scripture for two 
 reasons, the one of a simply accidental and personal 
 kind, the other arising from a conviction that there is 
 a certain fitness in it to the circumstances in which 
 we find ourselves this clay. 
 
 It is nearly nineteen years since I sat listening to 
 an exposition of the narrative from which my text is 
 taken, delivered by him whose recent departure from 
 amongst us has clothed us this day in the garb of 
 mourners. The occasion was to me one of peculiar 
 interest. I had just been ordained to the pastorate 
 of the church over which I now preside, and Dr. 
 Wardlaw had tarried over the Sabbath to introduce 
 me to my charge, and to lend me the influence and 
 encouragement of his great name in my new and re- 
 sponsible sphere. What led him to discourse from 
 this passage I know not; nor do I now remember 
 what particular application he made of it in reference 
 to the occasion. But I remember well my own feel- 
 ings as I sat and listened to him. When I looked up 
 to that dignified and graceful form; when I watched 
 the play of that exquisitely chiseled brow and calm 
 yet animated countenance; when I caught the light 
 of that mild and benignant eye, and felt the gentle 
 and strengthening influence of those sweetly modu- 
 lated tones stealing over my spirit; when I remem- 
 bered that he who was then speaking was my father's 
 friend as well as my own, and that his name had been 
 in my father's family " as a household word ; n I felt 
 my soul link itself to him with an almost filial affec- 
 tion, and I inwardly cherished the conviction that if 
 
58 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 I might but walk through life, and labour in the min- 
 istry, in the train of such a leader, mine would be a 
 happy and an honourable career. Since then my am- 
 bition has been, according to my opportunities, " as a 
 son with a father to serve with him in the gospel/ ' 
 Our intercourse has not been frequent, in consequence 
 of the distance of our respective spheres of labour, but 
 it has ever been free and cordial. No shadow at any 
 time came down upon our friendship. I truly loved 
 and honoured him, and 1 believe he returned all my 
 love with increase. I do not know that I ever gave 
 him any offence; certain I am he never said or did 
 anything to me that occasioned one moment's pain. 
 We did not always agree in our opinions : there were 
 diversities of mental constitution, education, tempera- 
 ment and habit which rendered that next to impos- 
 sible : but our differences were never such as to ex* 
 cite unkindly feelings, and they never led to even a 
 momentary suspension of our friendship. I look back 
 upon our intercourse with the liveliest sense of grate- 
 ful satisfaction. The retrospect is to me all bright 
 and cloudless ; and I feel it to be one of the greatest 
 blessings of my life that I was permitted to possess 
 and to retain to the last such a friend. 
 
 Under such circumstances you will not be surprised 
 that the first feeling that took possession of my mind, 
 when I heard of his decease, was a deep and poignant 
 sense of my own personal loss ; nor will you be sur- 
 prised that my first impulse this day is to speak to 
 you of his character as a friend. On this theme my 
 heart would fain let itself out. I could dilate on it 
 long and earnestly and with ease. I could dwell 
 
ELTSHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 59 
 
 upon his amiable manners, his sweet temper, his 
 kindly accents, his delicate regard for the feelings of 
 others, his dignified cheerfulness, his prompt appre- 
 ciation of whatever was interesting to those whom he 
 loved, his quick and warm sympathy with them in all 
 that grieved or gladdened them, his generous delight 
 in all their successes, and his unhesitating readiness to 
 serve them in whatever way lay in his power. I could 
 tell how much they seemed to be in his mind — how 
 accurate was his recollection of all their affairs so far 
 as these were known to him — how easy it was to 
 touch the springs of emotion in him by any allusion 
 to them — and with what a personal interest he en- 
 tered into all that concerned them or theirs. I could 
 tell of many instances in my own experience when 
 the promptness of his sympathy took me by surprise, 
 whilst the wise and kindly words in which he ex- 
 pressed it went down into the heart, increasing the 
 joy of prosperity and alleviating the pang of sorrow. 
 It is all fresh before me. I seem still to feel the 
 warm pressure of his hand. I seem to see the mild 
 beaming or the melting tenderness of his eye. I 
 seem to hear his voice in tones of cheerful congratu- 
 lation or soothing sympathy speaking to my heart. I 
 could linger on the scenes that memory calls up of 
 our past intercourse. But it must not be. I am not 
 here to indulge personal affection or to dwell upon 
 private sorrows. Let me turn to contemplate our de- 
 parted friend and father in his public relations as a 
 man and as a minister of the word. 
 
 I have spoken of my text as appropriate to the cir- 
 cumstances in which we find ourselves this day. I 
 
60 ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 
 
 allude to the loss which this church, which the reli- 
 gious denomination of which this church forms a part, 
 and which the cause of Christ generally has sustained 
 in the removal of your late pastor. It will not be 
 supposed for a moment that I mean to claim for him 
 the dignity of a prophet, or to insinuate that any such 
 issues hung upon his life as hung upon that of Elijah. 
 I find the point of analogy merely in the prominence 
 of his position as a minister of Christ, and in the sense 
 of great loss which presses itself upon us this day not 
 in relation to ourselves individually so much as in 
 relation to the cause in which we are embarked. Of 
 this Christian society Dr. Wardlaw was the founder, 
 under his administration it has grown from small be- 
 ginnings to its present strength, and for more than 
 fifty years his teaching has supplied to its members 
 the main portion of their spiritual nutriment. Of 
 the denomination to which he belonged Dr. Ward- 
 law was one of the earliest adherents, and he has for 
 many years been its chief ornament and its strongest 
 pillar. And in the church at large he stood forth as 
 one of its most gifted teachers, to whom many eyes 
 were turned, and for whose prowess in defence of her 
 cardinal doctrines and success in the propagation of 
 her principles many hearts were grateful. When such 
 a man is taken away who shall blame those to whom 
 the loss comes home most pungently, or charge them 
 with extravagance, if they cry after him, " My father, 
 my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen 
 thereof?" 
 
 Ealph Wardlaw was born at Dalkeith on the 22d 
 December 1779. Six months after his birth he was 
 
ELISHA'S CRT AFTER ELIJAH. 61 
 
 removed to Glasgow where the rest of his life was 
 spent. His father was long known and esteemed in 
 this city as a merchant of high respectability, and a 
 Christian who adorned his profession, at once by the 
 steadfast uprightness of his conduct, and the serene 
 cheerfulness of his manners; and who, for several 
 years, filled, with credit to himself and acceptance to 
 his fellow-citizens, the office of a magistrate of the city. 
 By the mother's side, Dr. Wardlaw was descended 
 from Ebenezer Erskine, the Father of the Secession 
 Church, and a man of whom Scottish Christianity is 
 justly proud, as one of the noblest of its confessors. 
 
 When nearly eight years of age, Dr. Wardlaw was 
 sent to the Grammar School of Glasgow, where he 
 continued for four years. His next step was to the 
 University of Glasgow, which he entered in October 
 1791, when not quite twelve years of age. 
 
 Having finished the usual academical curriculum, 
 he entered the Theological Seminary of the Secession 
 Church — with which religious body he was then con- 
 nected — for the purpose of prosecuting such studies 
 as were requisite in order to the sacred office. His 
 instructor here was the venerable Dr. Lawson of Sel- 
 kirk. 
 
 Whilst Dr. Wardlaw was prosecuting his studies 
 under Dr. Lawson, Scotland was the scene of consi- 
 derable excitement, in consequence of the secession, 
 from the Established Church, of the Kev. Messrs. 
 Evring and Lines, followed by large numbers of pious 
 and some influential people. From this arose the 
 Congregational Churches of Scotland; for nearly all 
 who left the Establishment with Messrs. Ewing and 
 
62 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 Lines adopted Congregational views of church polity 
 — views which, previously to that time, were little 
 known, and perhaps proportionately abhorred, by the 
 good people of the North. The circumstance of two 
 ministers voluntarily relinquishing their livings to 
 embrace these views, the zeal which they and their 
 adherents manifested in the cause in which they had 
 embarked, and the efforts they put forth for the spiri- 
 tual benefit of their countrymen, created no small stir 
 in various parts of the country. Some were filled 
 with indignation ; others expressed contempt ; but 
 not a few were led in earnest to attend to the subject 
 of religion, and many good and able men united 
 themselves to the rising sect. Amongst others was 
 the yet youthful Wardlaw. Already had he finished 
 his preparatory studies, and was about to take license 
 as a preacher, when his views on church polity under- 
 went a change, and he found himself at one with a 
 party whose sudden rise had disturbed the previously 
 almost unbroken reign of Presbyterianism in the 
 North. He accordingly joined the church which had 
 been formed in Glasgow, under the pastoral care of 
 Mr. Ewing, and determined to exercise his ministry 
 as a Congregationalist. Shortly after, a chapel hav- 
 ing, with the aid of a few of his friends, been erected 
 by him in Albion Street, in that city, the building 
 was, for the first time, occupied for worship on the 
 occasion of his being ordained as the pastor of a 
 church which had been recently formed, in fraternity 
 with that of which Mr. Ewing was pastor. This took 
 place on the 16th of February 1803, when Mr. Ewing 
 offered the ordination prayer, and gave the charge. 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 63 
 
 The cordiality with which Mr. Ewing witnessed the 
 formation of the new church, and welcomed his youth- 
 ful associate to the pastorate of it, was an auspicious 
 omen, which the subsequent experience of nearly 
 forty years of close intimacy and hearty co-operation 
 amply verified. 
 
 In 1811, Dr. Wardlaw was placed in a still closer 
 official connection with Mr. Ewing, as one of the 
 tutors in the Theological Academy, instituted that 
 year for the training of suitable persons for the work 
 of the ministry amongst the Congregationalists of 
 Scotland. 
 
 The popularity which Dr. Wardlaw acquired as a 
 preacher, was not of that mushroom sort which springs 
 up hastily, and as hastily passes away. His qualities 
 in the pulpit were all of the substantial order ; and 
 hence only those who were really in search of reli- 
 gious improvement would be likely to frequent his 
 ministry. So many such, however, had gathered 
 around him, that in 1819 Albion Street Chapel be- 
 came too small to accommodate the congregation, 
 and the necessity of providing a larger place led to 
 the erection of the house in which we are now assem- 
 bled. This building was opened for divine worship 
 on the 25th of December 1819, just thirty-four years 
 ago this very day. 
 
 As pastor of this church and Theological Tutor in 
 the Academy, Dr. Wardlaw laboured with growing- 
 success and reputation. Not long after he came to 
 officiate in this place his attainments as a theologian 
 were appropriately acknowledged by an honorary de- 
 gree of D.D., from one of the most distinguished of 
 
64 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 the colleges of the United States — a merited honour 
 which it could have been wished his own Alma Mater 
 had had the credit of conferring. In February of 
 this present year he reached the 50th anniversary of 
 his pastorate, an event which was appropriately cele- 
 brated by services and deeds which must still be fresh 
 in the remembrance of all whom I address. For some 
 months after this his health continued firm and he 
 was enabled to discharge the functions of his office. 
 But in the month of August last he began to suffer 
 in a way that occasioned anxiety to those around 
 him. All means that skill or affection could devise 
 were tried, but failed to subdue the severity of the 
 pain under which he suffered; and at length, after 
 several months of acute agony and diminishing strength 
 endured with the utmost patience and cheerfulness, 
 his naturally strong constitution sank under the pres- 
 sure of disease, and he was taken to his rest on Sat- 
 urday the 17th of December 1853, having all but 
 completed his 74th year. A high testimony to the 
 esteem in which he was held was furnished at his 
 funeral when his remains were conveyed to their final 
 resting-place by hundreds of his fellow-citizens, in- 
 cluding the Lord Provost, Magistrates and Council of 
 this city, and the clergy of all denominations. 
 
 The position to which Dr. Wardlaw attained in the 
 church and in the estimation of the general public 
 was due entirely, under Grod, to his own ability, 
 fidelity and diligence. He was not indebted for it 
 to any of those happy accidents which sometimes con- 
 fer an adventitious celebrity upon men whose real 
 merits would never have helped them out of obscu- 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 65 
 
 rity. He fairly and honestly earned for himself all 
 the honours and all the influence he possessed. 
 
 His natural endowments both of mind and of man- 
 ner were of no ordinary kind. His mental develop- 
 ment was at once large and symmetrical. He united 
 strength and grace in a degree seldom exemplified. 
 His faculties were diversified, but all acted in har- 
 mony and under excellent control. He was master 
 of them; not they of him. Even those powers which 
 were most largely developed in him, and which he 
 was most fond of indulging, were never permitted to 
 carry him off into excess or irregularity. Over all 
 there ever presided a calm but regal Will that had 
 respect to principle and purpose. Hence he could at 
 any time bring all his powers to bear upon his sub- 
 ject, with a singular concentration and intensity. He 
 had no occasion to wait for the afflatus or inspiration 
 of genius. The whole man with all his powers was 
 there, ready to apply himself with full force to the 
 work in hand. From this arose at once his power to 
 do so much, and the fact that he always did his work 
 like himself. Whilst another man might have been 
 labouring to bring himself to the point of beginning, 
 Dr. Wardlaw was already in full work, his whole 
 mind concentrated on what was before him, and his 
 facile pen speeding in graceful and uniform charac- 
 ters across the page. I do not know that he was ever 
 behind with any work which he had undertaken to 
 do : he might often be hard pressed to accomplish it, 
 but he always did it, and that in a manner worthy of 
 himself. There was nothing eruptive, nothing fitful 
 in the action of his mind. It was not the volcano 
 
 E 
 
66 ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 
 
 bursting after long intervals of repose into tempests 
 of flame and shaking the earth with its thunder ; it 
 was the quiet and steadfast star that always shines in 
 the same place with the same lustre, and to which 
 men learn to look as to a guide that never is unsteady 
 and never disappoints. 
 
 The most prominent feature of Dr. Wardlaw's 
 mind lay in his rare powers of analysis and ratiocina- 
 tion. His intellect was eminently dialectic and dia- 
 critical. Those faculties which lead men to be his- 
 torians, or naturalists, or poets, or men of science, he 
 either did not largely possess or did not care to cultivate. 
 He was not given to the minute observation or care- 
 ful collection of mere facts. His mind did not readily 
 occupy itself with deductive processes, whether exer- 
 cised upon concrete phenomena or on the abstract 
 relations of number and space. He had little of the 
 creative faculty, and was at all times more disposed 
 to note the distinctions of things than to trace their 
 analogies or resemblances. His peculiar walk was 
 that of the philosopher and the critic. The qualities 
 that go to furnish men for these departments he pos- 
 sessed and had cultivated to a high degree. His 
 power of analysis was great: he could separate an 
 entangled mesh of thought with marvellous perspi- 
 cacity, and discriminate conceptions from each other 
 with a fineness of perception that was sometimes too 
 acute for ordinary faculties to follow. He had no 
 pleasure in seeing things hazily or merely in the 
 mass ; it was needful for him to ascertain them with 
 precision and to mark clearly both their individual 
 proportions and their relative bearings. On this he 
 
elisha's CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 67 
 
 thought no pains too great to be spent ; and when 
 he was satisfied that the subject was one on which 
 no amount of penetration or research that he could 
 put forth would secure for him clear and definite 
 conceptions regarding it, he judged it better to let it 
 altogether alone than to have only a confused, illogi- 
 cal and incogitable notion of it. To this power and 
 this love of analytical investigation he added compre- 
 hensiveness of survey and sagacity of decision. 
 There are men whose acuteness is wonderful, but 
 whose mental eye is merely microscopic: men who 
 can make great discoveries among the Infusoria of 
 thought, but for whom the field occupied by the 
 larger objects is too extensive to be included within 
 their survey. It was not so with Dr. AVardlaw. His 
 view was penetrating, but it was also extensive. He 
 deliberated as well as analysed; and calmly contem- 
 plated the whole field of observation before he ven- 
 tured upon a decision. His induction was wide no 
 less than discriminating. With patient diligence he 
 collected all that could be ascertained upon any sub- 
 ject, weighed the whole in the scales of a nicely-bal- 
 anced judgment, and refused to come to a conclusion 
 until he was satisfied that every thing that ought to 
 have entered into his estimate had received due at- 
 tention. And in coming to his decision he was aided 
 by strong native sagacity and shrewdness, which pre- 
 vented his being easily imposed upon by the mere 
 appearances of things, or being readily drawn into 
 the error of overestimating the premises on which his 
 conclusion was built. Hence the logical accuracy 
 which formed such a marked characteristic of his 
 
68 ELISHA'S CRT AFTER ELIJAH. 
 
 reasonings, and the solidity and soundness which 
 usually recommended his judgments. 
 
 A mind thus endowed was naturally fitted for the 
 investigation and exposition of moral and religious 
 truth ; and to this department Dr. Wardlaw from an 
 early period devoted his best energies. He found 
 peculiar delight in the exercise of his reasoning- 
 powers upon those questions which are to be deter- 
 mined by a weighing of probable evidence ; and it 
 was beautiful to see the skill with which he appor- 
 tioned to each scale its proper contents, and the 
 steadiness with which he held the balance that was 
 to determine which had the preponderance. Had he 
 been led to devote himself to the legal profession he 
 would undoubtedly have risen to high distinction, 
 and his name might have gone down to posterity 
 with those of Mansfield or Denman as one of the 
 most perspicacious and at the same time most refined 
 of judges. But he had chosen another and in the 
 most weighty respects a higher sphere of labour, 
 where there was also ample scope for the exercise of 
 his peculiar abilities. Here he shone with few to rival 
 him. When some difficult or intricate question in 
 which he was interested, came to be handled by him, 
 his treatment of it was sure to be such as to afford to 
 all who could enter into it a logical treat ; and though 
 this in itself was a tendency capable of being used 
 for evil as well as for good, there were certain moral 
 qualities associated with it in the mind of Dr. Ward- 
 law which made its operation in him ever lean to the 
 better side. He had a sincere love of truth for its 
 own sake, and an honest desire to apprehend it. He 
 
ELISHA's CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 69 
 
 was calm and candid in his estimate of opposing pro- 
 babilities. He exercised great caution in coming to 
 a conclusion ; and was almost timid in expressing an 
 opinion where he had not enjoyed the fullest oppor- 
 tunities of judging. By these influences, combined 
 with his strong religious sense of responsibility, he 
 was, though a singularly dexterous controversialist, and 
 disposed to find peculiar gratification in the exercise 
 of his reasoning powers, preserved from that mere 
 intellectual gladiatorship, and that craving for victory 
 rather than love of truth which too often ensnare 
 the expert disputant and lead to a mischievous abuse 
 of his powers. 
 
 But whilst the ratiocinative and critical faculties 
 constituted the main strength of Dr. Wardlaw's mind, 
 there were other qualities which lent grace and re- 
 finement to all his intellectual exercises. He was 
 gifted with an exact and elegant taste. His sense of 
 the becoming and the beautiful both in reality and 
 in sentiment was quick and just. His fancy, if not 
 rich or copious, was lively, natural and refined. Like 
 many men of acute intellectual powers he possessed 
 also a felicitous and playful wit ; the exercise of 
 which, however, he reserved for moments of social 
 hilarity — never using it as an instrument of assault, 
 never indulging it for mere purposes of display, never 
 making any use of it when business of serious import 
 was in hand, and never in his most unrestrained 
 moments allowing it to trespass beyond the limits 
 which the strictest propriety of taste and feeling im- 
 posed. 
 
 To a character thus strong and graceful by natural 
 
70 ELISHA ? S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 
 
 endowment were added those advantages which 
 education and religion confer. The child of intelli- 
 gent and godly parents, he was from his earliest years 
 brought under influences calculated to improve his 
 mind and sanctify his heart. Nor were these pious 
 efforts fruitless. In all those branches of knowledge 
 which are usually studied at our Scottish schools and 
 universities Dr. Wardlaw had made respectable pro- 
 ficiency, and in some his attainments were greatly 
 beyond the average. Without pretending to be a 
 profound scholar he was familiar with the learned 
 tongues; and though his natural tastes and tenden- 
 cies did not lead him to pay much attention to natural 
 science, he was not indifferent to the importance of 
 that department of knowledge, nor ignorant of the 
 splendid advances which the genius and methods of 
 its votaries have of late years enabled them to make. 
 In philosophy and polite literature, however, he was 
 most at home ; and with nearly all the great English 
 writers in these departments he was well acquainted. 
 I believe Cowper was his favourite among our poets, 
 and Dugald Stewart among our philosophers. All 
 our great ethical writers had been carefully studied 
 by him ; but with none df them was he fully satisfied, 
 for which he has himself stated his reasons in one of 
 his published writings. In theology his reading, if 
 not very extensive, had been carefully selected; and 
 every part of the field minutely and anxiously sur- 
 veyed. The writings of Dr. Edward Williams, An- 
 drew Fuller, Archibald M'Lean, and some of our 
 older Scottish divines such as Ricaltoun, he held in 
 peculiar estimation, and upon them many of his own 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 71 
 
 opinions were formed. But his tastes were not con- 
 tracted in this department; he was ready to receive 
 further light from whatever quarter it might come; 
 and to the last was fond of seeing whatever new ac- 
 cessions had been made to the stores of biblical or 
 theological learning. 
 
 At what period Dr. Wardlaw became the subject 
 of a saving change I am not informed ; but it must 
 have been whilst he was yet young that the seeds of 
 parental instruction began to germinate in his soul. 
 During his lengthened public career his piety formed 
 a conspicuous feature of his character. It was marked 
 by cheerfulness, simplicity, humility and earnestness. 
 There was nothing morbid, artificial, affected, inflated, 
 or morose in his religious development. Firmly con- 
 vinced of the truth of what he held, and earnestly 
 realizing his own personal interest in the doctrines of 
 the gospel, he " lived a life of faith upon the Son of 
 God " which exerted a congenial and plastic influence 
 upon his whole demeanour and deportment. The 
 fountain of his religion was within, and its streams 
 mingled with and gave a character to all the issues of 
 his life. And as he grew older — as he advanced fur- 
 ther into the valley of the shadow of death, and felt 
 himself approaching the end of his earthly activity, it 
 was manifest to all that his mind was becoming ever 
 more and more affected by spiritual influences. He 
 was not less cheerful, not less interested in what was 
 going on around him; he only seemed to look at 
 things from a loftier point and to estimate them by a 
 more heavenly standard. " The powers of the world 
 to come" had laid a more entire arrest upon all his 
 
72 elisha's cry after Elijah, 
 
 energies, but they had cast no shadow upon his spirit. 
 The pleasant light beamed in him, clear and joyous 
 as before; it was only more mellowed in its lustre, 
 and, it may be, more continuous in its shining. 
 
 The qualities of intellectual and moral worth that 
 belong to a man may command for him the admira- 
 tion or draw forth to him the love of those by whom 
 they are beheld; but it depends upon the uses to 
 which a man puts his powers and his resources 
 whether we shall truly and permanently honour him. 
 In this respect Dr. Wardlaw's merits will bear to be 
 tested by the loftiest standard of mere human excel- 
 lence. As a Member of society, as a Minister of the 
 gospel, as an Ecclesiastic, as a Theological Professor, 
 and as an Author, he has established for himself a 
 place in the estimation of the church and of the world 
 such as (to use the words of Milton), " God and good 
 men have consented shall be the reward of those 
 whose labours advance the good of mankind." 
 
 In general society Dr. Wardlaw was distinguished 
 by a dignified courtesy that had in it somewhat of 
 the manners of a bygone age. In his perfect self- 
 possession, the somewhat measured grace of his move- 
 ments, the blandness of his manners, his undeviating 
 politeness, and his graceful way of saying pleasant 
 things, he always reminded me of those agreeable and 
 polished specimens of the gentleman of the old school 
 of whom one reads as gracing the coteries of the last 
 century, and of whom a few specimens were seen 
 even in the early part of the present. Connected 
 from his earliest infancy with this great city, he seemed 
 ever to bear himself in public as became one who felt 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 73 
 
 that he was " a citizen of no mean city/' In all that 
 concerned the wellbeing of the community among 
 which he lived, he took a lively interest. Cast upon 
 times of great public activity, he was never behind in 
 the demands made upon him as one of the leaders of 
 public opinion and action. In him all good and bene- 
 ficent causes found a willing as well as able advocate. 
 Without for a moment forgetting what was due to his 
 position as a minister of Christ, he was ready to lend 
 his influence to all movements which he thought cal- 
 culated to advance the interests of his country or the 
 race. He was a steadfast friend of the education of 
 the people at a time when the education of the peo- 
 ple was not so popular as it has since become. He 
 was the advocate* of all measures calculated to pro- 
 mote civil and religious liberty at home and abroad. 
 He stood forth the stanch and uncompromising oppo- 
 nent of slavery in all its forms. He was found in 
 his place when the nation rose to utter its firm but 
 constitutional protest against measures which imposed 
 fetters upon the commercial energies of the empire, 
 and restricted the food of the people. His was a 
 true patriot's heart : he loved his country without 
 being blind to her defects ; and he sought her good 
 not by flattering her prejudices but by striving, 
 through good report or through bad report, to pro- 
 mote her real welfare. 
 
 He who was thus interested in schemes of general 
 beneficence was, as might be expected, still more so 
 in operations of a more strictly Christian character. 
 To the Bible Society important services were from 
 an early period rendered by him ; and in the cause of 
 
74 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 Missions to the heathen he was warmly and profoundly 
 interested. To this sacred cause he not only devoted 
 the best energies of his intellect and effort, but gave it 
 far dearer pledges of his attachment. Not fewer than 
 three of his children were freely, may I not say joy- 
 fully? — surrendered by him to labour personally on 
 the field, one of whom was called to precede him to 
 the land of rest, while another still occupies his im- 
 portant sphere of labour in the East, a devoted and 
 useful missionary, and a third returned some years 
 ago a widow with her children to reside under the 
 paternal roof. 
 
 As a Minister of the gospel Dr. Wardlaw's claims 
 rest upon his services as Pastor of this Christian 
 flock, and as a Preacher of the Truth in this city. On 
 the former of these topics I feel that it is not for me to 
 dilate, in the presence of those whose own recollec- 
 tions will furnish them with far more just and vivid 
 impressions derived from personal intercourse with 
 Dr. Wardlaw in this relation, than I as a mere 
 observer can supply. To you, Brethren, it was given 
 to observe, through a long series of years, how faith- 
 fully he acquitted himself of the duties of his office 
 among you, For more than half-a-century he was 
 permitted to go in and out before this church as its 
 Pastor. You have fully known his doctrine, manner 
 of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, and pa- 
 tience. Ye are witnesses how holily, and justly, and 
 unblameably he behaved himself among you that be- 
 lieve. You have seen (and seeing must have admired) 
 how wisely and skilfully he administered our peculiar 
 and somewhat delicate church polity amongst you; 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 75 
 
 how gently and yet how firmly he admonished the 
 backsliding, reproved the transgressor, and warned 
 the careless; how judiciously he counselled the per- 
 plexed, how tenderly he assisted the weak, how af- 
 fectionately he comforted the sorrowing, and how, for 
 these many years, he has been indeed as a Father 
 among you in all wisdom and in all affection. You 
 know how he refused again and again to leave you 
 when he was not merely invited but solicited to occu- 
 py spheres of larger emolument as well as of greater 
 ease and dignity; esteeming it a duty and a privilege 
 to continue to break among you the bread of life so 
 long as God should be pleased to spare him. To you 
 therefore I need not to speak of his worth as a pas- 
 tor; but let me borrow the advantage of your expe- 
 rience to tell the world that in most of the finest 
 features of the pastoral character he had no superior 
 and very few equals. 
 
 As a Preacher Dr. Wardlaw acquired true fame 
 rather than popularity. His discourses were for many 
 years past invariably read, and though he read as few 
 men can read, with an ease, a vivacity and a rythm 
 which effectually prevented all appearance of heavi- 
 ness in his delivery, yet there can be no doubt that 
 this habit was disadvantageous to him as respected his 
 access to the popular mind. He made use of very 
 little action in the pulpit, — of none indeed, beyond a 
 very slight and somewhat regulated motion of the 
 hands, with an occasional step backwards when some- 
 thing more than usually emphatic was to be uttered. 
 His sermons too were more didactic than oratorical 
 in their construction; being characterised rather by 
 
76 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 the gravity of their matter, the perspicuity and force of 
 the reasoning, the grace of the diction, and the per- 
 suasiveness of his intonation, than by anything like 
 rhetorical brilliancy or vehement declamation. His 
 main strength lay in his extensive and exact acquaint- 
 ance with Scripture, in his argumentative distinctness 
 and dexterity, in his refined taste and felicitous ex- 
 pression, in his unimpeachable good sense, in the 
 practical sagacity with which he detected the relation 
 of his subject to the personal interests and respon- 
 sibilities of his audience, and in the wise and affec- 
 tionate earnestness with which he pressed that upon 
 their attention. He seldom indulged in any orna- 
 ment or in any play of fancy : he never sought such 
 for its own sake, and beyond the occasional introduc- 
 tion of some select figure or comparison, he never re- 
 sorted to it even for the sake of illustration. He was 
 never dull or commonplace ; but his vivacity was that of 
 the understanding rather than that of the imagination. 
 Sometimes when handling suitable themes a burst of 
 feeling would escape him, which was felt to be per- 
 fectly genuine, and which seldom failed to communi- 
 cate its contagion to the hearers; but he spent no 
 time on sentimentalities, and showed no ambition to 
 provoke a tear except as that might be the sign of his 
 arrow having reached the heart. His chief aim seemed 
 always to be to convey fully, clearly, and forcibly to 
 the mind of his audience the truth presented by the 
 part of Scripture from which he was discoursing. 
 Hence he was eminently textual as a preacher, and 
 scrupulously faithful as an expositor. Hence also the 
 practical character of his discourses. With all his 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 77 
 
 dialectical skill and philosophical tendencies, he 
 never made the pulpit the place for mere metaphysi- 
 cal disquisition, or abstract speculation. He was far 
 above the paltry ambition of seeking to attract notice 
 by clothing his thoughts in an obscure, fanciful or 
 strange phraseology ; he never verged into the region 
 of transcendentalism; he never amused his hearers 
 by adroit defences of fantastic hypotheses, by dreamy 
 picturings of ill-defined conceptions, or by gymnastic 
 displays of logical subtilty. He was always serious, 
 solid, earnest, practical ; and though it often required 
 an effort of continuous attention on the part of the 
 hearer in-order fully to appreciate the train of his 
 reasonings and illustrations, everything was so well 
 arranged and so perspicaciously brought out, that 
 such an effort was sure to be rewarded by a large 
 accession of sound and scriptural knowledge. 
 
 In his intercourse with Christians of other deno- 
 minations Dr. Wardlaw aimed at uniting conscien- 
 tious attachment to his own peculiar views of doc- 
 trine, polity and order, with catholicity of affection 
 towards all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sin- 
 cerity and truth. He was a very decided Congrega- 
 tionalism He believed that for all the essential ele- 
 ments of that form of church polity he could furnish 
 undoubted authority from the ISTew Testament. He 
 consequently regarded the maintenance of it in 
 theory and in practice in the light of a sacred duty 
 from which he was not at liberty to shrink. But 
 with all this he was able not only to concede to 
 others a liberty of differing from him in opinion, but 
 very cordially to esteem even those who differed from 
 
78 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 him most widely, and to rejoice in all their success, 
 provided they were at one with him on the great 
 fundamental truths of Christianity. For those who 
 denied what he firmly believed to be essential to the 
 religion of Christ, he was too honest and firm a man 
 to profess any other feelings than those which cour- 
 tesy and humanity dictated; but within the circle of 
 those "who hold the head," he wished to esteem 
 every man as " a brother beloved in the Lord/' He 
 was first a Christian, then a Congregationalist. His 
 heart was open to all good men, even when they held 
 opinions on subordinate points, or belonged to insti- 
 tutions which he could not but regard as ^decidedly 
 unscriptural. It was not possible for one, naturally 
 so amiable and generous, to have given up "to a 
 party what was meant for mankind," even had he by 
 any accident been taught to think that proper. And 
 the charity and brotherly -kindness which he thus 
 showed to others was largely returned to him by all 
 good and honourable men. Christians of every 
 evangelical denomination held him in esteem, and 
 were ready to co-operate with him. In the heat of 
 controversy or in moments of great public excite- 
 ment there might be an estrangement of feeling pro- 
 duced between him and some whose opinions he op- 
 posed; but it never lasted long on either side, and 
 when the immediate occasion had passed away old 
 ties and old feelings speedily resumed their hold. 
 When an attempt was made on one memorable occa- 
 sion to injure his fair fame by the most unrighteous 
 aspersions, Christians and Christian ministers of all 
 parties rallied round him, and felt that the vinclica- 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 79 
 
 tion of his reputation was a common cause ; and 
 when a few days ago he was carried to his burial, 
 there were devout men not a few of all denomina- 
 tions to make lamentation for him and to attest their 
 respect for one who in controversy was not more 
 remarkable for his ability and prowess than for his 
 fairness, charity and amiableness. 
 
 As a Theological Professor, Dr. Wardlaw has laid 
 the denomination to which he belonged under obli- 
 gations which it is impossible to over-estimate. It 
 was an immense advantage to have one so singularly 
 fitted for theological investigation placed at the foun- 
 tain-head of the professional training of our ministry ; 
 and it was no small matter to enjoy the distinction 
 of having, as the President of our theological school, 
 one whose reputation as a divine was spread almost 
 as widely as the language in which he wrote. In 
 this part of his work Dr. Wardlaw had great delight, 
 and he devoted to it a large share of his best efforts. 
 His lectures were admirable specimens of acute dis- 
 quisition, perspicacious reasoning, and solid conclu- 
 sion. Their aim was principally directed to the elu- 
 cidation and defence of that system of truth which 
 their author believed to be revealed in the Scrip- 
 tures. His theology was primarily biblical, second- 
 arily polemical: he sought first to reach the mind of 
 the Spirit as unfolded in the written word, and hav- 
 ing satisfied himself on this point he summoned all 
 the resources of his logic to defend the judgment he 
 had formed from cavil or objection. Beyond this he 
 did not go much into the region of systematic or his- 
 torical theology; while of the speculations of mere 
 
80 ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 
 
 philosophical theologians he took little note, as 
 either lying beyond the sphere which he had pre- 
 scribed for himself, or not likely to be directly useful 
 to those whom it was his ambition to train to be 
 "able ministers of the New Testament." To those 
 who were privileged to attend his prelections, they 
 were valuable not only for the amount of sound 
 theological knowledge which they imparted, but also 
 as models of theological disquisition, and as affording 
 an excellent discipline for the faculties of those who 
 were destined to teach others. Nor let it be for- 
 gotten that for the greater part of the time he filled 
 the theological chair in our institution his services 
 were rendered gratuitously, and that when at length 
 a salary was paid to him it was so small as to be in 
 no sense a remuneration for his labours; indeed it 
 little more than sufficed to cover the expenses to 
 which the discharge of his duties exposed him. If 
 any shall say that this was not creditable to the 
 denomination whose interests he thus so largely 
 served, I can only plead in extenuation that our 
 means were limited, and the demands upon us for 
 the sustenance of our denominational institutions 
 heavy. We were far from being insensible either to 
 the great value of his services, or to the disinterested 
 fidelity with which they were rendered. 
 
 In addition to his pastoral and professorial exertions, 
 Dr. Wardlaw was frequently before the public as an 
 author. His writings may be classed under three 
 heads — Theological, Homiletical, and Biographical. 
 To the first belong his Discourses on the Socinian 
 Controversy, his Christian Ethics, his volume on the 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 81 
 
 Atonement, his Letters to the Society of Friends, his 
 Treatises on Baptism and Congregationalism, his 
 Lectures on Ecclesiastical Establishments, and his 
 Essay on Miracles, the latest but not the least im- 
 portant of his published writings. Under the second 
 head may be ranked his Sermons, of which, besides a 
 connected series in a volume, a great number were 
 published separately, his Expository Lectures on 
 Ecclesiastes, his Lectures on Prostitution, and his 
 Exposition of the narrative of the last days of Jacob, 
 and the Life of Joseph. To the third class belong 
 his Memoir of Dr. M'All of Manchester prefixed to 
 flie Collected Discourses of that eminent pulpit orator, 
 his Introductory Essay to an edition of Bishop Hall's 
 Contemplations, and his Memoir of his son-in-law the 
 Rev. John Reid, late of Bellary. Besides these he 
 contributed many articles to religious periodicals, 
 chiefly of a practical kind. He was the author also 
 of several hymns, which in correctness of sentiment, 
 beauty of expression, and sweetness of rythm, have 
 few to equal them in our language, and will long 
 hold a primary place in our collections of sacred 
 verse. 
 
 As a Writer Dr. Wardlaw was distinguished by the 
 same characteristics as were most conspicuous in him 
 as a preacher. All his works are marked by clear- 
 ness of conception, cogency of reasoning, soundness 
 of judgment and elegance of style. If he does not 
 startle us by the originality of his opinions, he never 
 offends us by idle extravagances, ill-digested crudi- 
 ties, or vague and inane speculations. All is sober, 
 judicious and intelligible : the production of one in 
 
 F 
 
82 ELISHA's CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 
 
 whom " the spirit of a sound mind " was allied with 
 a penetrating judgment and a correct taste. He may 
 not have made great additions to the domain of 
 Theological science ; but no man in our day has done 
 so much accurately to define some parts of its bound- 
 aries or to determine with precision the relation in 
 which each of these parts stands to the rest. As 
 a controversialist he was perhaps without an equal, 
 certainly without a superior among his cotemporaries. 
 In calmness, sagacity, acumen, and logical adroitness 
 he was pre-eminent ; whilst the perfect absence of all 
 bitterness and personality from his writings invests 
 them with a moral worth and an exemplary useful- 
 ness to which the productions of but too few polemics 
 can lay claim. Not many men have been so much in 
 controversy as he was ; and the annals of theological 
 literature present the name of no one who in conduct- 
 ing controversy less violated the claims of courtesy 
 and fairness than he. 
 
 In the above sketch I have purposely confined my- 
 self to Dr. Wardlaw's character and conduct as a 
 public man. I have forborne to speak of him in his 
 private and domestic relations, deeming that a sphere 
 too sacred at this season of recent sorrow to be invad- 
 ed, in the presence of a public assembly, with how- 
 ever reverent a step. Suffice it to say that in all the 
 private relations of life Dr. Wardlaw acquitted him- 
 self so as to draw around him the strongest ties of 
 relative affection ; that he grew old amid an ever- 
 deepening tide of domestic love and reverence; and 
 that he has carried with him to the grave as large a 
 share of veneration and esteem from those who knew 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 83 
 
 him best, as can be expected to fall to the lot of man 
 in this imperfect state. 
 
 Such was the man whose departure from amongst 
 us we this day thus publicly deplore. We feel that 
 in the death of one so great and so good, the church 
 of Christ in general has sustained a loss, and our 
 own body in particular has received a blow from 
 which it must, to say the least, be a long time before 
 it can recover. But I would rather direct your 
 thoughts to that large debt of gratitude which we 
 owe to the Giver of all good, that such a man was so 
 long spared to labour amongst us, than give utterance 
 to lamentations because after he had done so good a 
 day's work he should have been summoned by the 
 Master to his rest. Let the painful present be lost in 
 the beautiful retrospect of his noble career, and the glo- 
 rious prospect which his faith and his patience entitle 
 us to entertain of seeing him again, standing in his 
 high and honourable lot " at the end of the days.'' 
 I do not think of him — I do not ask you to think of 
 him — as one whose character was perfect, or whose 
 course was all bright. That he had many failings, 
 and had committed many sins in the sight of God, 
 none would have been more ready than himself to 
 acknowledge. That he was without fault even in 
 the sight of men I do not take it upon me to affirm ; 
 though, were I asked to say what his faults were, I 
 declare, as in the court of conscience, I never dis- 
 covered them. That he was called to endure severe 
 trials of various kinds, some of which, so far as the 
 instruments of them are concerned, he ought to have 
 been spared, we all know. But of these things it 
 
84 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 boots not that we should now speak. What sins 
 he had have all and for ever been washed away in 
 that atoning blood, on which his own hopes of 
 eternal felicity were rested, and which it was the 
 main business of his life to commend to others. The 
 afflictions that were sent upon him by his heavenly 
 Father are now all forgotten in that fulness of joy 
 which is in God's presence ; or remembered only as 
 occasions of thanksgiving for the blessed effects which 
 he now sees to have been the fruit of the discipline 
 they occasioned. And as for those maligner influences 
 that were put forth, if haply they might overcloud 
 the evening of his days, they never rested upon his 
 fame, and God suffered them not to cast a shadow 
 upon his spirit; and now that he has gone to that 
 place where there are no shadows and no enemies 
 let us pass them by, and try for ever to forget them. 
 When I look back upon his career and try to realise 
 its true character, the beautiful similitude of Scripture 
 rises in my mind: " The path of the just is as the 
 shining light, that shineth more and more unto the 
 perfect day." And when I think how through his 
 long life the good hand of the Lord was upon him, 
 strengthening him for duty, helping him to bear trial, 
 and preserving him from evil until his sun went down 
 in the quiet and mellowed lustre of a cloudless evening, 
 I find in his case a fulfilment of that grand promise 
 of the Lord ; " Because he set his love on me, there- 
 fore will I deliver him; I will set him on high be- 
 cause he hath known my name. He will call upon 
 me and I will answer him; I will deliver him, and 
 
ELISHA'S CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 85 
 
 honour him : With long life will I satisfy him, and 
 show him my salvation." * 
 
 There is little fear that the worth and the claims 
 of this honoured and beloved man will soon be for- 
 gotten. His name is not likely to be overlooked in 
 the annals of this ancient city, in which his life was 
 spent and on which he has reflected so much honour; 
 it occupies a foremost place in the history of that re- 
 ligious denomination of which he was the brightest 
 ornament and the strongest pillar; and it stands 
 inseparably connected with the ecclesiastical history 
 of Scotland in the 19th century and with the theolo- 
 gical literature of Britain. His reputation is safe; 
 his monument is secure; his memory is embalmed. 
 We need concern ourselves, then, no further with 
 that; but whilst we hold him in honoured remem- 
 brance, let us take heed that we forget not the bear- 
 ing which his life and labours have upon ourselves. 
 Let us keep in mind that the privilege of having 
 had such a pastor, such a teacher, such a friend and 
 fellow- worker, brings with it corresponding responsi- 
 bilities. Let us hear the voice which says to us this 
 day with such solemn emphasis, " Be ye followers of 
 them who through faith and patience inherit the pro- 
 mises/' Let the church especially which has so long 
 enjoyed the unspeakable privilege of his pastoral and 
 ministerial labours, — the church to which his youthful 
 energies, the matured resources of his manhood, and 
 the richly ripened fruits of his old age were alike re- 
 joicingly devoted, — the church which ever shared the 
 
 * Ps. xci. 14—16. 
 
86 elisha's cry after Elijah. 
 
 warmest place in his affections, over which he alternate- 
 ly watched with a godly jealousy and rejoiced with a 
 holy joy: — let that church not only affectionately 
 cherish his memory, but see to it that they prove 
 themselves worthy of the eminent advantages which, 
 through the grace of the great Head of the church, 
 they possessed in being so many years under the 
 teaching and presidency of such a man. Let his 
 enlightened instructions, his wise counsels, his faith- 
 ful warnings be continually recalled and pondered. 
 And let it be the hallowed ambition of all so to keep 
 in memory what he preached unto them, that he shall 
 lose no part of his reward, but shall have the honour 
 and the joy, in the great day of the Lord, of present- 
 ing "every man — every man — perfect in Christ 
 Jesus/' 
 
 And oh ! if there be any who have been privileged 
 to hear his instructions, but have hitherto refused or 
 neglected that great salvation which it was his delight 
 to offer in all its fulness and in all its freeness to 
 sinners, let me entreat them by all the solemn asso- 
 ciations of this day, and by all the touching recollec- 
 tions of days gone by which it cannot but call up, 
 now at length to relinquish their obduracy, and yield 
 to the persuasions which from this pulpit he so often 
 addressed to them. Do you not remember, my friends, 
 how urgently and how tenderly he besought you to 
 be reconciled to God through his Son? Do you not 
 remember how his eye would fill with tears and his 
 voice would tremble with emotion as he warned and 
 exhorted and charged every one of you, as a father 
 doth his children, not to put away from you the 
 
ELISHA's CRY AFTER ELIJAH. 87 
 
 offers of redeeming love? That aspect of pleading 
 tenderness shall be turned upon you no more. That 
 sweet and earnest voice shall never again fall upon 
 your ear. Whatever was the tie that linked you to 
 him, it has been severed by the hand of Death. Shall 
 the separation be eternal ? It is with you to decide. He 
 cannot return to you, but you may go to him. Oh ! 
 let the words which he spake to you whilst he was 
 yet w T ith you rise in your minds this day, and with all 
 the added force which this day's solemnities give 
 them, let them plead with you to turn at his reproof, 
 to yield to his entreaty, and to embrace the salvation 
 which he offered, "What bliss would it convey even 
 to that now sainted spirit before the throne to know 
 that you too have been given to him as his joy and 
 crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord! 
 
TUE NATURE OF FUTURE HAPPINESS. 
 
 THE REY. NORMAN M'LEOD. 
 
THE NATURE OF FUTURE HAPPIXESS. 
 
 PSALM xvi. 11. 
 
 "In thy presence is fulness of joy." 
 
 Christian Brethren ! I have selected as the sub- 
 ject of our meditations this evening, the nature of that 
 happiness which is partially enjoyed now by God's 
 saints above, and which shall be perfectly enjoyed by 
 them in all its fulness after the resurrection. I have 
 been led to choose this topic of discourse, not merely 
 because an intelligent apprehension of the glory of 
 the people of Grod is calculated to cheer and comfort 
 us when suffering for a time from their loss ; and tends 
 to quicken our desires, and strengthen our resolutions 
 to follow their example : but also because this formed 
 the subject of a long conversation which I had with 
 your revered pastor the last time I was privileged 
 to meet him ; when all my present views on this 
 deeply interesting subject were both enlightened and 
 confirmed by his own. 
 
 May Jesus Christ, the ever-living Head of the 
 church universal, be with us, and enable us by his 
 Spirit to seek for truth with uprightness, to receive 
 it in love, and to bring forth fruit with patience! 
 
92 THE NATURE OF 
 
 In entering upon the consideration of the truth ex- 
 pressed in the text, I shall not pause to defend my- 
 self against the charge which might possibly be brought 
 against me by hearers less intelligent and less care- 
 fully instructed than those now before me ; — of seeking 
 to be wise above what is written, or prying with a 
 fleshly mind into things unseen. Without con- 
 sciously indeed saying anything which can justify 
 such a charge, neither shall I fear it in my desire to 
 impress you with such ideas of the happiness of 
 heaven as are more in accordance with the nature of 
 man and the word of God, than, I am inclined to 
 think, obtain among many sincere Christians, who ac- 
 cordingly are deprived of encouragements in duty, 
 comforts in sorrow, and bright hopes to cheer them 
 amid the world's darkness, which they might other- 
 wise possess. 
 
 In what then shall consist the believer's " fulness 
 of joy" in God's presence? Now it will greatly aid 
 us in answering this question regarding our true life 
 in eternity, if we first consider one pertaining to our 
 true life in time : viz., what would constitute the ful- 
 ness of joy now of a man in the full enjoyment of 
 all his mental and bodily powers, and in the best pos- 
 sible circumstances, perfectly fulfilling upon earth 
 God's purpose in creating him? 
 
 In endeavouring to solve this question, I remark, 
 that man may be viewed as a sentient, intellectual, 
 moral, social, and active being;* and that the "ful- 
 
 * I find this classification in one of my note-books as given 
 by Dr. James Buchanan of Edinburgh, but in which of his 
 works I do not now remember. 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 93 
 
 ness of his joy" consists in the gratification of every 
 part of this his many-sided nature. Thus, for instance, 
 enjoyment might be derived through his senses, 
 though his intellect were comparatively weak, and his 
 moral being depraved ; or he might experience joy 
 in the exercise of his intellect, or in the possession 
 of holiness, while the body was racked by pain ; or 
 delight might be poured through all those channels, 
 but yet if he was a solitary being without any one 
 with whom he could communicate or share his glad- 
 ness ; or if enjoying this sympathy, in addition to 
 every other source of happiness, he was nevertheless 
 prevented from expressing the thoughts and desires 
 of his soul within, by any labour without, and thus 
 gratifying his inherent love of action ; — the result in 
 either of these supposed cases would not be "fulness 
 of joy." But, on the other hand, if we can imagine a 
 man with his whole nature in a state of perfect health : 
 each portion demanding and obtaining its appropriate 
 nourishment ; and all his powers beautifully balanced 
 and in perfect harmony with the plan of Grod, " ac- 
 cording to the effectual working of the measure in 
 every part : " the senses ministering to the most refined 
 tastes ; the intellect full of light in the apprehension 
 of truth, and strong in its discovery ; the moral being 
 possessing perfect holiness and unerring subjection to 
 the will of Grod ; the love of society able to rest upon 
 fitting objects, and to find a full return for its sym- 
 pathies in suitable companionships ; while ample scope 
 was afforded for activity by labours congenial to the 
 whole man: — then must we perceive how a state so 
 perfect would be "fulness of joy" in God's presence 
 
94 THE NATURE OF 
 
 here below. I do not of course allege that every part 
 of our being has the same capacity to afford us happi- 
 ness ; or that the flood can pour itself into the soul with 
 the same fulness by each of the channels I have men- 
 tioned; as that we depend, for instance, in the same 
 degree upon our sentient as we do upon our intellectual 
 or moral nature for enjoyment. All I mean to assert is, 
 that whatever proportion may come through each, God 
 has so made us that " fulness of joy" is derived only 
 through all. Such is man's actual constitution as he 
 came from the hands of his Maker ; and such would have 
 been his happiness had he remained unf alien. Placed 
 as Adam was in a material world so rich in sources of 
 physical happiness, and with an intellect capable of 
 unlocking the countless treasures of science ; and with 
 a nature pure and spotless, delighting in the excel- 
 lent God ; and with society begun in a help meet for 
 him ; and with labour begun in the earthly paradise, 
 we behold the commencement of a heaven upon earth. 
 And had perfect man been translated to another 
 region, we cannot conceive his joy to have become 
 different in kind though different in degree, on the 
 supposition that he remained the same kind of being. 
 Now man's fall has not altered this fact. Sin is a 
 perversion of human nature, not its annihilation — 
 a disorder of its powers, but not a destruction of 
 them. Nor is restoration by Jesus Christ the gift of 
 a different constitution — as if he made us something 
 else than human beings — but it is the renovation of 
 the old constitution after its original type. It 
 is making the " old man " diseased, bent down, 
 paralysed, deaf, blind — a "new man," with frame 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 95 
 
 erect, limbs strong, eyes and ears open, and all his 
 powers made fresh and vigorous for immortality. 
 And therefore it is that what would be fulness of joy 
 to man were he perfect on earth will be his fulness of 
 joy, though in a higher degree, when he is made per- 
 fect in heaven, This supposition, I repeat it, only as- 
 sumes the fact that we shall be the same persons for 
 ever — that human nature will never cease to be human 
 nature, or be changed into a different species of exist- 
 ence — no more than Jesus Christ, the head of his 
 church, will ever cease to be what he is, "the man 
 Christ Jesus," with a human body and a human soul, 
 "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." 
 
 Let us then meditate on the glorious supply which 
 God has provided for filling up every part of our 
 complex nature in heaven. 
 
 I. I remark, in the first place, that there will be 
 " fulness of joy " in God's presence for man's sen- 
 tient nature. 
 
 Speaking of the materialism of heaven, Dr. Chal- 
 mers truly says : " The common imagination that 
 many have of paradise on the other side of death, 
 is that of a lofty aerial region where the inmates 
 float on ether, or are mysteriously suspended upon 
 nothing — where all the warm and felt accompani- 
 ments which give such an expression of strength, and 
 life, and colour to our present habitation, are at- 
 tenuated into a sort of spiritual element, that is 
 meagre, and imperceptible, and wholly uninviting to 
 the eye of mortals here below — where every vestige 
 of materialism is done away with, and nothing left 
 but certain unearthly scenes that have no power of 
 
96 THE NATURE OF 
 
 allurement, and certain unearthly ecstasies with which 
 it is impossible to sympathise/' The sensitiveness 
 with which many thus shrink from almost alluding to 
 the physical element of enjoyment in heaven, because it 
 is unworthy to be compared with the spiritual glory 
 that is to be revealed, arises no doubt from the half 
 suspicion that there is some necessary connexion be- 
 tween materialism and sin; thus forgetting that the 
 body, and the outward world which ministers to it, 
 are God's handiworks as well as the soul; and that 
 it is he Himself who has adjusted their relative 
 workings. And surely it is quite unnecessary to 
 remind you at any length how God has fashioned 
 our physical frame, as the medium of communi- 
 cation with the outer material world. It is the 
 eye through which the soul perceives the glories 
 of the summer sky, and searches for its midnight 
 stars ; and contemplates splendour of colour, and 
 beauty of form; and gazes on the outspread land- 
 scape of fertile field, hoary mountain, stream, and 
 forest, ocean and island, all incensed with the sweet 
 perfumes that scent the breezy air ; and by which too 
 it beholds that world of deeper interest still — the 
 human countenance of beloved parent, child, or 
 friend, bright with all the sunshine of winning 
 emotion. — It is the magic instrument which conveys 
 to the soul all the varied harmonies of sound, from the 
 choirs of spring, and the other innumerable minstrel- 
 sies of nature ; as well as from the higher art of man, 
 that soothe, elevate and solemnise. It is true 
 indeed that there are grosser appetites of the body 
 which many pervert so as to enslave the spirit; 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 97 
 
 abusing by gluttony, drunkenness, and every form of 
 sensuality, what God the merciful and wise has in- 
 trusted to man to be used for wise and merciful ends. 
 But there is already perceptible a marked differ- 
 ence even here between these and the more refined 
 tastes I have just alluded to; inasmuch as the 
 former are found in their abuse to be strictly speak- 
 ing unnatural, and destructive of man's happiness; — 
 and even in their legitimate use decay with ad- 
 vancing years, thus giving evidence that the stamp of 
 time is upon them as things belonging to a temporary 
 economy : — whereas it is not so with the others, such 
 as the perception of the beautiful in nature or in art, 
 for these abide in old age with a youthful freshness, 
 and more than a youthful niceness of discernment — 
 and so afford a presumption that they are destined 
 for immortality. To the aged saint " the trees clap 
 their hands, and the little hills rejoice, and the moun- 
 tains break forth into singing;" and when the earth 
 is to him empty of every other sentient pleasure, it is 
 yet in the beauty of its sights and sounds perceived 
 to be full of the glory of God ! 
 
 And so shall it be for ever ! The glorified saint 
 shall not be " unclothed " but " clothed upon." He 
 will inhabit " a house not made with hands, eternal 
 in the heavens.'*' The future body is called a " spir- 
 itual body " to express its pure and immortal essence ; 
 and though it will be somehow related to the present 
 body, as the risen is related to the sown grain which 
 has perished in corruption, to appear however in a 
 new and higher form ; — for " flesh and blood cannot 
 inherit the kingdom of God ! " " We shall all be 
 
 G 
 
98 THE NATURE OF 
 
 changed/' " He shall change our vile bodies, and 
 fashion them like to his own glorious body;" and 
 in this new body once sown in weakness, corruption, 
 and mortality, but raised in power, incorruption, and 
 immortality, we shall tread upon the new earth and 
 gaze on the new heavens, and walk in the paradise 
 of our God ! 
 
 And who can tell what sources of refined enjoy- 
 ment are in store for us through the medium of 
 the spiritual body in God's great palace of art, with 
 its endless mansions and endless displays of glory! 
 Well may we say of such anticipated pleasures what 
 Isaac Walton says of the singing of birds : " Lord, 
 if thou hast provided such music for sinners on earth, 
 what hast thou in store for thy saints in heaven!'' 
 If this little spot of earth is full of scenes of loveliness 
 to us inexhaustible ; if in the contemplation of these, 
 in a body buoyant with health and strength, one feels 
 it is a joy even to live and breathe ; much more when 
 in them all we see God; so that the expression of praise 
 rises to the lips, " Lord, how manifold are thy 
 works, in wisdom hast thou made them all ; the earth 
 is full of thy riches!" — O what may be spread before 
 the wondering eye throughout the vast extent of the 
 material universe, comprehending those immense 
 worlds which twinkle only in the field of the largest 
 telescope, and vanish into the far distance in endless 
 succession ! — And what sounds may greet the ear from 
 the as yet unheard music of those spheres; while for 
 ought we know other means of communication may 
 be opened up to us, by which to discover things in- 
 numerable in the outward world, ministering delight 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 99 
 
 to new tastes — things which do not exist here, or 
 elude at least the perception of our present senses. 
 Add to all this, the deliverance from all those physi- 
 cal evils and defects which are now the sources 
 of so much pain, and clog so terribly the aspiring 
 soul. For how affected are we by the slightest dis- 
 organization of our bodily frame ! A disturbance in 
 some of the finer parts of its machinery, which no 
 science can discover or rectify; a delicate fibre shad- 
 owed by a cloud passing over the sun; or a nerve 
 chilled by a lowering of the temperature of the at- 
 mosphere, will tell on the most genial temper ; relax 
 the strongest intellect ; and dim the brightest imagi- 
 nation : while other physical causes quite as mysteri- 
 ous, can make reason reel and lunacy ascendant. 
 And then there are the infirmities of old age, — 
 the constant toil required to satisfy the cravings of the 
 body for food and raiment — the wounds and bruises 
 which pain it — and often the deformity which disfigures 
 it, and cramps the spirit in a narrow and iron prison- 
 house: all forming a terrible deduction as yet from 
 that joy, which we are capable of deriving even here 
 through our physical organization. But at present 
 these things cannot be rectified. They are the 
 immediate, or more remote, consequences of man's 
 iniquity; and under Christ belong to that education 
 by which bodily pain is made the means of dis- 
 ciplining the soul for immortality. All however 
 will be rectified hereafter in the new heavens 
 and the new earth ! " There shall be no more 
 pain." The body will no longer experience fa- 
 tigue in labour ; or be subject to hurtful influences 
 
100 THE NATURE OF 
 
 from the elements; and never grow old; but be 
 glorious and beautiful as the risen body of Jesus 
 Christ ! I wonder not that Paul should exclaim along 
 with those who had the first fruit3 of the Spirit, 
 " Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for 
 the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body." 
 
 With these bright hopes let us who are now alive 
 seek to glorify God in the body which is to be 
 glorified together with Christ. " Know ye not that 
 your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost ? If any 
 man defile that temple, him will God destroy/' " When 
 Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also 
 appear with him in glory." " Mortify therefore your 
 members which are upon the earth." Let us honour 
 the body as a holy thing ; and beware how we put 
 the chains of slavery upon it, or expose it from sel- 
 fishness to hunger and nakedness. Let us endeavour 
 even to make Art, that ministers to our sense of 
 the beautiful, ever minister to our sense of the 
 true and good ; and ever to speak to us of God 
 as seen in his works ; or in " his ways among the 
 children of men ! " And finally, as we contem- 
 plate the body of a departed saint, let us behold 
 it in the light of God's own revelation. Let the 
 grave in which it lies no longer be associated 
 only with the worm and corruption and all the sad 
 memorials and revolting symptoms of mortality. Let 
 the voice of Him who is the resurrection and the life, 
 be heard in the breeze that bends the grass which 
 waves over it, and His quickening energy be seen in 
 the beauteous sun which shines upon it; and while 
 we hear the cry, " dust to dust," let us remember the 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 101 
 
 " very dust to him is dear ; " and that when He ap- 
 pears in his glory, He will repair and rebuild that 
 ruined temple, and fashion it in glory and in beauty 
 like His own ! 
 
 II. But let us, in the second place, pass to a higher 
 theme, and consider the joy which will be afforded 
 in glory to man's intellectual nature. 
 
 There are many dear saints of God who have little 
 sympathy with those who associate fulness of joy in 
 any degree with the pursuit or possession of intel- 
 lectual truth. These persons have had perhaps such 
 weak intellectual capacities as made the acquisition of 
 knowledge impossible beyond its simplest elements; 
 or they have been stunted in their early years from 
 want of education; or they have been placed in 
 the Providence of God among the " hewers of w r ood 
 and the drawers of water,'' rather than among the in- 
 tellectual princes of the people. But let us who can 
 know so little, and w T ho as yet think and speak like 
 children, not be discouraged by a conscious sense of our 
 weak intellectual grasp and scanty information : but 
 rather rejoice with Christ in the dispensation by which 
 God reveals himself not to talent but to goodness — 
 not to the giant intellect but to the babe-like spirit. 
 "I thank thee, Father, that thou hast hid these things 
 from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto 
 babes !" 
 
 God has nevertheless made the acquisition of 
 intellectual truth a source of supreme delight. You 
 w^ell know how every field in nature has been 
 searched, and every quarter of the globe ransacked, 
 and many days and nights of patient intellectual toil 
 
102 THE NATURE OF 
 
 consumed, by men who have endured incredible 
 labour, borne up by no other motive than their desire 
 of knowing. The immediate joy which is experi- 
 enced by a great discoverer when a new fact or truth 
 flashes on his mind is to others almost inconceivable. 
 We read that when Newton, after years of difficulty, 
 was just about to step on the summit of that moun- 
 tain from which he knew he was to hear such intel- 
 lectual music as never before had sounded in the mind 
 of man, and to catch a glimpse of hitherto unseen 
 glory of that new ocean of truth which he had 
 reached — for 
 
 " He was the first that ever burst 
 Into that silent sea ! " 
 
 the joy was too great for him — he sat down and wept ! 
 The passion to acquire knowledge is not one of the 
 least remarkable facts recorded of Solomon. We are 
 told that "he spake of trees, and of beasts, and of 
 creeping things/' Of God he says, " He hath made all 
 things beautiful in its time, also he hath put it into 
 mans heart to survey the world and to find out the 
 work that God maketh from the beginning to the 
 end. When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and 
 to see the business that was done on the earth, for 
 also there is that neither day nor night sees sleep 
 with his eyes; then I beheld all the work of God 
 that a man cannot find out the work that is done 
 under the sun ; because though a man labour to seek 
 it out, yet shall he not find it, — yea, though a wise 
 man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 103 
 
 find it." There was in all this no doubt " vanity and 
 vexation of spirit," for the attempt was vain to find 
 satisfaction for the soul in the knowledge of things 
 apart from the knowledge of God, or in any 
 truth rather than in Him who is true. And 
 therefore many perceiving how intellect is often with- 
 out God or against Him, and how it fails of itself to 
 ensure either goodness or happiness, are disposed to 
 deny to it the high place which God has assigned to it 
 in the soul, and the exalted delight which He affords 
 his saints and angels in its exercise. While the dei- 
 fiers of intellect are ever reminded that it alone cannot 
 deify but often demonises man, yet let those who slight 
 it remember also that it is the head without whose 
 inventive genius or directing skill the strong arms of 
 labour would be idle. Let the man of material wealth 
 or material power recollect that it is the wealth of 
 science and the power of mind, possessed perhaps by 
 unknown and lonely students, who have all their life- 
 time been struggling to obtain their daily bread, and 
 to snatch " the crumbs that fall from the rich man's 
 table," which have created our manufactures, filled 
 our warehouses, crossed our oceans, healed our diseases, 
 reared the fabric of law and government, and made 
 society what it is ! 
 
 And God, who has made the intellect the source 
 of delight to the individual and of good to so- 
 ciety here, shall give it such fulness of joy, in kind 
 and degree hereafter, as it can possibly receive. 
 Whatever its capacity may be, it shall be filled to its 
 utmost limit. It will have a clearness, vigour, and 
 precision, here unknown to the greatest thinkers. 
 
104 THE NATURE OF 
 
 All barriers to its progress shall be removed, such as 
 the gross body, the poor culture, the little time, the 
 few opportunities, the weak or sinful prejudices ; 
 and the poorest saint will shine as the sun in its 
 strength! Then again, with this increased power of 
 knowing, how inconceivably increased will be our 
 sources of knowledge ! how boundless the field ! how 
 inexhaustible its treasures ! how unlimited the time ! 
 how helpful the society ! No one surely imagines 
 that we obtain at once on entering heaven perfect 
 knowledge ? — perfect I mean, not in the sense of accu- 
 rate, but in that of possessing all that can be known. 
 This is impossible for any creature, and can be true 
 only of Deity. It may be asserted with confidence 
 that Gabriel knows more to-day than he knew yes- 
 terday. And it is not difficult for us to imagine how 
 throughout eternity, and revelling with more free- 
 dom throughout God's universe, we may be occu- 
 pied by the contemplation of new and endless dis- 
 plays of the inexhaustible wisdom and power of God 
 in His works ; and see more and more into the life 
 of all things ; and continually read new volumes of 
 that great book of nature and of truth whose first 
 letters we are now learning with difficulty to spell. 
 And could we ever be able to count the treasures 
 of all worlds, why may not new and varied crea- 
 tions be going on for ever, and grander displays 
 made of the glory and majesty of the Creator ? Be- 
 sides all this, shall not the ways of God as well as His 
 w r orks ; and the wonders of His moral government ex- 
 tending over all His creatures, and over all worlds, 
 and throughout all ages, afford inexhaustible subjects 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS: 105 
 
 wherewith to exercise the intellect of man? Is not 
 every truth, too, with which we are already acquainted 
 linked to another and a higher truth, and when shall 
 we reach the end of that awful chain which is in the 
 hand of God ? — while there are truths manifold the 
 faintest echo of which has not yet reached us from 
 the Eock of Ages ! But though for ever we shall 
 dive deeper and deeper into the Divine mind, never, 
 never shall the creature be able to measure its un- 
 fathomable depths. Though for ever we shall ascend 
 from one intellectual height to another in the eter- 
 nal range of thought, ever approaching, we shall 
 never reach, that unseen throne on which is seated 
 the i" Am, the Comprehender of all truth ; the Solver 
 of all mysteries ; but who Himself, though our Fa- 
 ther, must ever be the Mystery incomprehensible ! 
 
 In the few glimpses which we obtain in scripture of 
 angelic life, the understanding of the works and ways 
 of God evidently forms no small part of it. We read of 
 the sons of God crowding round the earth, and hear 
 those morning stars singing for joy as they beheld the 
 commencement of this new theatre of wonders added 
 to those with which they were already acquainted; 
 and I doubt not they watched with in tensest inter- 
 est the progress of the world's formation, and beheld 
 order and beauty growing out of chaotic darkness 
 and confusion ; and that during the incalculable ages 
 of the past, before man himself appeared upon the 
 scene, these intelligent beings gazed with wonder on 
 the successive creations of animal and vegetable life, 
 whose remains we now gaze at as they lie buried in 
 their rocky sepulchres. We know too the deeper in- 
 
106 THE NATURE OF 
 
 terest which the angelic host have taken in this world 
 since it became the abode of man; — how they are 
 acquainted with all its inhabitants, and have watched 
 the mystery of God's providence unfolding itself from 
 age to age ; and how a great multitude of them hovered 
 over the hills of Bethlehem at that great era when 
 " unto us a Child was born, and unto us a Saviour 
 was given, who was Christ the Lord ;" and when in 
 sympathy with God and man they ascribed " Glory to 
 God in the highest," because of the "peace" that had 
 been proclaimed to earth, and of the " good will" 
 which was expressed towards man ; and we know 
 how they have taken an active share under Jesus the 
 King, in advancing the affairs of His kingdom, pun- 
 ishing the wicked, and in ministering to the heirs of 
 salvation. And to put it beyond a doubt that scope 
 is given even here for the exercise of the intellect of 
 the angels, we are distinctly informed that all the 
 marvellous history now proceeding in this world had 
 a direct reference in its original design to the pro- 
 gressive education of those higher intelligences, " for 
 God created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent 
 that unto principalities and powers might be known 
 by the church the manifold wisdom of God/' There 
 are indeed things even here " which angels desire to 
 look into!" 
 
 And though God's saints from earth do not yet so 
 prominently appear to the eye searching the unseen, 
 as engaged in intellectual pursuits, nevertheless, two 
 of them have revisited the earth and appeared in the 
 old land of their sojourning in visible form, and bear- 
 ing the names of Moses and Elias, so familiar to the 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 107 
 
 church of God, and have spoken in language intelli- 
 gible to the children of men, and upon a subject of 
 all the most absorbing in its interest to the church 
 above and below — the decease which Christ was to 
 accomplish at Jerusalem ! 
 
 But I dare not dwell longer on this part of my 
 subject, however inviting it may be. Let me implore 
 of you to consecrate your intellects to His service ; and 
 glorify Him in " soul and spirit " as well as in " body." 
 Iieverence the Truth, and seek it in humility, and with 
 a deep sense of your responsibility for hoiv you search 
 and what you believe ; and remember that mere intel- 
 lectual power without divine love, will make you devils, 
 not saints. And surely it is an elevating and com- 
 forting thing to know, that those who, like your 
 Pastor, were here adorned by God with high intel- 
 lects which were cultivated with care and sanctified 
 for their Master's service, and who thirsted for truth, 
 and relished its acquisition with peculiar delight, — 
 and the more so when it led them directly to Him 
 who is Truth itself, and enabled them the better to 
 behold His glory — that all those powers are now 
 finding ample field for their exercise, and can orb them- 
 selves everywhere without a limit. Not therefore with 
 sadness but with joy I can turn from beholding the 
 dead unmeaning eye of that lifeless body through 
 which the noble mind once shone with mild intellec- 
 tual lustre, or shot its keen and piercing light from 
 beneath the shaggy eyebrows, as the departing sun 
 darts his mellowed beams from beneath a hanging 
 cloud to illumine the sombre world, — to contem- 
 plate the same mind rising over the everlasting hills, 
 
108 THE NATUBE OF 
 
 amidst the fresh unsullied brightness of a new born 
 day, and advancing for ever without a cloud amidst 
 the endless glories of the upper sky ! 
 
 III. But this leads me to remark in the third place, 
 that man's chief est joy shall be derived from the per- 
 fect filling up of his moral nature. Truly and beau- 
 tifully has an old writer [Sir Thomas Browne] said, 
 " there is no felicity in what the world adores — that 
 wherein God Himself is happy, the holy angels are 
 happy, and in whose defect the devils are unhappy — 
 that dare I call happiness, — whatsoever else the 
 world terms happiness, an apparition or real delusion, 
 wherein there is no more of happiness than the name." 
 This is true; — and following out the thought, let us 
 reverently inquire in what is God happy, or what 
 especially constitutes His glory? He is glorious in 
 that creative mind by which things are made so wisely 
 with reference to the end each has to serve, and with 
 the whole of which each forms a part ; and made too 
 so beautiful in their sculptured forms and harmoni- 
 ous colours; and so grand and magnificent in their 
 groupings and arrangements- He surveys all his 
 works, and rejoices in them as " very good." He is 
 glorious also in that miracle of a wondrous provi- 
 dence by which without a miracle the wants of all 
 his endless worlds of creatures are supplied, and by 
 which beings innumerable are created and trained to 
 glorify and enjoy himself for ever. But while per- 
 fection beams in every feature of the divine mind, 
 His glory, His joy, is in his character. Not his power, 
 so much as the character which wields the power. 
 Not his wisdom, so much as that which his character 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 109 
 
 accomplishes by it. Not his majestic sovereignty, so 
 much as his majestic character which stamps his 
 reign as one of right and therefore of might — com- 
 manding, irresistible ! This is the glory which he 
 made to pass before the eyes of Moses when upon 
 the mount ; and which shone in the face of Jesus 
 Christ the Holy One of God ; and which fills the 
 souls of the wrapt seraphim when they cry, " Holy, 
 holy, holy, is the Lord God of Hosts, the whole 
 earth is full of his glory I" Thus God is happy and 
 most blessed because he is "glorious in holiness/' 
 
 And in what, moreover, does the happiness of the 
 angels consist but in sharing this life of God ? 
 These bright ones, indeed, experience joy in con- 
 templating the works of creation and redemption, 
 and have been glad in acquiring truth throughout 
 many ages ; but the atmosphere which they breathe, 
 the light in which they dwell, is holiness. They are 
 happy not merely in what they hear, or see, or know 
 of the things of God, but chiefly in what they are 
 towards God himself. 
 
 And finally, it is in the defect of this in which devils 
 are unhappy. For Satan, as he goes up and down 
 the earth, may hear those sounds of loveliness 
 which delight our ears, but they breathe no music in 
 his jarring, discordant spirit ; and he may behold 
 those sights of loveliness which delight our eye, but 
 he does so as the prowling lion who perceives no 
 grandeur in the glorious mountains which echo to 
 his savage roar. Nor does the exercise of his subtle 
 intellect afford Satan joy, because it is not in har- 
 mony with truth, nor centred in the God of truth ; 
 
110 THE NATURE OF 
 
 but is as a " wandering star, to which is reserved the 
 blackness of darkness for ever/' And therefore, 
 though he is the " Prince of this world," possessing 
 its kingdoms and their glory, yet he carries hell in 
 his own bosom, whether he moves among the beau- 
 teous bowers of Eden, or dwells for days upon earth, 
 in the wilderness, or on the holy Temple, or high 
 mountain, with even God manifest in the flesh. He 
 has no holiness, and therefore no happiness. 
 
 And thus does our joy depend on this more than on 
 ought else. Other things may be, this must be. Other 
 things are required to give our joy fulness, this is essen- 
 tial to give it existence. For the body may be deprived 
 of all pleasurable sensation ; and the intellect unable 
 to grapple with the simplest problem : — " in the day 
 when the keepers of the house tremble, and those 
 that look out at the windows are darkened, and the 
 daughters of music are brought low," — yet the fire of 
 joy may still survive in the soul, as long as the mind 
 can discern that " God is," and as long as a spark of love 
 to him remains ! And so, while the Lord provides 
 most richly for the supply of every part of man s 
 nature, he makes goodness all-essential to his happi- 
 ness. Not in the gratification of his sentient tastes ; 
 nor in the certainties of pure intellect ; nor in science, 
 which " can put forth its hand and feel from star to 
 star ;" nor even in the exercise of that genius — so like 
 His own creative power ! — whose contrivances change 
 the aspect of the world, and whose glorious flights 
 can speed to airy regions " which no fowl knoweth nor 
 the vulture's eye hath seen : " not in those outer courts 
 of God's great temple has the Father willed that his 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. Ill 
 
 immortal children shall find their true life, but only 
 in the holy of holies of his own immediate presence, 
 and in the possession of the spirit of life and of love 
 which is in his first-born Son. Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 And I may add, that it was this glory and joy of 
 holiness which Jesus himself manifested on earth, 
 when "he had no place to lay his head;" and was 
 " despised and rejected of men;' M and his "'counte- 
 nance was marred like no man's;" and when he 
 carried his cross ; and thus showed us that true 
 life which he died to obtain, and rose from the 
 dead to impart to us by his Spirit. He did not 
 come to teach or induce us to be artists or orators, 
 or men of mere intellectual cultivation, capable of 
 creating a hero-worship. The race who built Nineveh 
 and Thebes, or produced the artists and orators, the 
 poets and historians, or the world -conquerors of 
 Greece and Eome, needed no such teaching as this. 
 But he came to reveal to men, who, whatever else they 
 were, or whatever else they knew or accomplished, did 
 not know their Maker, and " changed the truth of 
 God into a lie,'' — he came to reveal to them that eter- 
 nal life which was with the Father, that in its posses- 
 sion they might have fellowship with the Father, 
 with the Son, and with one another, and thus have 
 his own joy fulfilled in themselves, " and with all low- 
 liness and meekness " walk as He did, " worthy of 
 God who hath called us to his kingdom and glory!'' 
 I have dwelt perhaps at unnecessary length upon 
 this part of my subject, because I trust to all of you 
 it is a Christian truism, that our moral nature can be 
 
 likeness. So is it here — 
 
112 THE NATURE OF 
 
 so shall it be for ever. The sweet peace which the 
 believer enjoys in God here; the elevating delight he 
 experiences from contemplating his character, and 
 saying, " My Father, let thy name be hallowed ! let 
 thy kingdom come ! let thy will be done ! " — and in 
 the possession of all the graces and ornaments of the 
 Christian life, are not only foretastes but earnests and 
 pledges of the coming fulness — first-fruits of the ap- 
 proaching harvest. "We shall be like him!" O 
 blessed consummation, before which every thing else 
 vanishes in comparison ! Our souls washed from every 
 stain of guilt and made white in the blood of the Lamb, 
 and washed too from all the pollution of sin with the 
 waters of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost, shall be "faultless," "not having spot or 
 wrinkle, or any such thing." The pure and holy 
 God shall contemplate us as his own work through 
 his Son and Spirit, and shall rejoice in beholding 
 that work 'perfect, and every redeemed soul as a 
 mirror in whose transparent depths the divine glory 
 is seen reflected. And I am persuaded that your 
 pastor, your friend, our father and brother, is thus 
 " glorified together with Christ " — his confession of 
 sin for ever over ; his sense of his own emptiness lost 
 in a sense of Christ's fulness ; his ardent longings for 
 unsullied holiness gratified as no faith or foretaste 
 here even feebly realised in his hours of most pious 
 fervour. Should it not delight us to think of even 
 one whom we have known and loved here really pos- 
 sessing such joy as this ? And ought we not to give 
 united thanks to God for his felicity while here we 
 sorrow for his loss ! 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 113 
 
 IV. But, fourthly, man is a social as well as a sen- 
 tient, intellectual, and moral being ; and as such he 
 will have joy in the presence of God in heaven. We 
 are made for brotherhood. It was in reference to this 
 craving that God said of man when he came perfect 
 from his hands, "It is not good for him to be alone/' 
 The fact of solitariness is indeed unknown in God's 
 intelligent and moral universe. With reverence I re- 
 mark that God has existed as Father, Son, and Spirit, 
 three persons in the unity of the Godhead. Certain 
 it is, however, that for the creature to have joy in 
 himself alone is impossible. He would become insane. 
 Such a state has never perhaps been experienced. 
 The heart will lavish its affection upon the lowest 
 forms of animal creation, or upon ideal beings, rather 
 than feed upon itself. There can be no solitude 
 to him who knows there is a God, nor who possesses 
 any religion— for religion is love to a person. And 
 even where the society of men is shunned and solitude 
 fled to by the weary, this is after all an unconscious 
 protest in favour of brotherhood ; for it frequently but 
 expresses the bitterness of one who has sought it from 
 men in vain, and has been robbed of what he could 
 not but feel he had a right to possess as a portion of 
 his inheritance. 
 
 But while God has planted in every breast this 
 passion for congenial society, and made its wholesome 
 play essential for the fulness of our happiness, and 
 supplied to so great an extent its want by the family 
 institution into which we are born in our early years ; — 
 by the " troops of friends " who accompany us during 
 our pilgrimage ; and above all by the fellowship of 
 
 H 
 
114 THE NATURE OF 
 
 the Christian church, in proportion as that fellowship 
 is not a mere name, but expresses the intention of 
 Christ in gathering his people into a society ; — still 
 there are, nevertheless, innumerable drawbacks here 
 to anything like its full gratification. Take away the 
 time spent in the frailties of our first and second child- 
 hood; in the necessary and often absorbing labour of 
 life; in unavoidable separations and partings from 
 those we know and love — how little time is left for the 
 cultivation of the truest friendships ! We are more- 
 over severed as yet by death from all congenial minds 
 among past generations, and from those who are yet 
 to come. Of the many now alive whose hearts would 
 beat to ours, could we only meet them, how few can 
 stand together on the small space allotted to us on the 
 earth's surface. Then again of those whom we know 
 best and love best on earth, and who know and love 
 us best too, Oh what mutual ignorance must neces- 
 sarily exist of innumerable thoughts and feelings 
 lying deep down in our inner man, half-hidden, half- 
 revealed even to ourselves, but altogether incommu- 
 nicable and unutterable by word or sign to others. 
 Conscious we may be at times that we stand on the 
 same lofty summit and gaze on the same prospect, but 
 the atmosphere is too rare to permit of any heard 
 communication. And thus in no case can there be 
 — not a meeting, but — that blending of soul with 
 soul, by which one being, without losing his individu- 
 ality, seems completed in the being of another. Add 
 to all this the granite walls that rise up between us 
 during our wanderings in this desert ! — the differences 
 not only from intellect, pursuits, rank, education, but 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 115 
 
 also from character, and those sins and infirmities of 
 which all more or less partake — pride, vanity, prejudice, 
 envy — one and all making sad drawbacks from the 
 fulness of joy which we are capable of deriving from 
 intelligent and holy society. We are made to feel 
 this in reading the history of the holiest society that 
 ever was on earth, that of Jesus Christ and his 
 Apostles. Only three years together! often sepa- 
 rated during this brief period by dark nights, stormy 
 seas, long journeys, and the sin and ignorance on 
 their part which made him exclaim, "Nevertheless I 
 am not alone, for the Father is with me," — but without 
 this sympathy he was indeed alone in his joys and 
 in his sorrows. After his departure how soon were 
 the Apostles scattered, and how seldom did they meet ! 
 For years Paul was unacquainted with any of them, 
 and possibly never met them all; while he was quite 
 unknown by face to many of those Christian churches 
 which read his letters and revered his name. The 
 apostle John complains that he could not communi- 
 cate to his friends the many things he had to say by 
 pen and ink, and longs for personal intercourse: — "I 
 trust," he says, " to come unto you and speak face to 
 face, that our joy might be full." Ah ! there is no 
 tabernacling here with Jesus, nor yet with Moses or 
 Elias. Such a dispensation is no doubt wise. It 
 marks the condition of those who have no continuing 
 city here. It greatly helps to weaken on the one 
 hand our tendency to idolize the creatine ; and to 
 strengthen, on the other, our faith in God who abid- 
 eth for ever; and thus to unite us to one another 
 more truly and really than we know. But never- 
 
116 THE NATURE OF 
 
 theless the joy from Christian intercourse experi- 
 enced here, has a promise in it of better things to 
 come, and contains a prophecy of the glorious future. 
 Union is the gospel watchword. It is the grand re- 
 sult of redemption — for holy union is holy love — the 
 drawing of heart to heart, because all are drawn by 
 one Spirit, through one Saviour, to one God, a union 
 which is to be perfectly realized, in a social state as 
 dwellers in the city of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 Now consider what ample resources heaven affords 
 for the cultivation of the social affections among 
 those of the highest intellect, and taste, and moral 
 worth in God's universe. "We are come," says the 
 Apostle, "to an innumerable company of angels, to 
 Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, to God the 
 judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made per- 
 fect." Here we have summed up the society in 
 heaven to which every saint is introduced, and in which 
 he shall live for ever. 
 
 There are the angels — These we know of, but do not 
 know : and yet how often does it happen with our fel- 
 low-men, that those who are unknown to us in our early 
 years even by name, have in our later years become in- 
 dissolubly bound up with our joy and happiness ? And 
 so too the angels whom the saints on earth have as 
 yet never seen, shall, nevertheless, when the manhood 
 of their being is reached, be their intimate friends and 
 associates for ever. But let us not forget that the 
 angels know each saint here more intimately than the 
 saints are known to their nearest and dearest friends. 
 Thus again we are reminded that as earthly friends who 
 have known ourselves and our family history during 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 117 
 
 the forgotten days of infancy, are met by us in after 
 years with feelings akin to those awakened by old 
 kindred ; — even so will the saint on reaching heaven 
 find God's angels to be, not strangers, but old friends 
 who have known all about him from the day of his 
 birth till the hour of his death. It is true that these 
 high and holy ones belong to a different order of 
 beings from ourselves, and this we might at first ima- 
 gine must prevent their sympathising with us if they 
 would; but let us remember also that while in material 
 forms there is no one common abiding type, by which, 
 for example, the vegetable, beast, bird, or fish are 
 formed; — yet that it is quite otherwise with intellec- 
 tual and moral beings, for these, all and everywhere, 
 are made like God, and therefore made like one an- 
 other. And finally, though we might think that be- 
 ings possessed of such vast stores of knowledge, the 
 accumulated wealth of ages, and of such high and 
 glorious intellects, would necessarily repel us by the 
 awe which they would inspire, and by the sense of 
 weakness which they would awaken in a child of 
 earth when with all his ignorance he enters heaven, 
 yet let us be glad in the thought that in them, as in 
 the great Jehovah, all might, majesty, and wisdom 
 become attractive when they are combined with and 
 directed by love. The love which enables us to look 
 up to God so that we can call him Father, will en- 
 able us to meet the angels in peace and call them 
 brethren. I am persuaded that a saint on earth, 
 compassed about as he is with his many infirmities, 
 would even now feel more " at home," so to speak, 
 with angels than with many of his fellow-men. 
 
118 THE NATURE OF 
 
 - But "just men made perfect" also form a part of 
 the society above. Their number is daily increasing. 
 Day by day unbroken columns are passing through 
 the golden gates of the city, and God's elect are ga- 
 thering from the four winds of heaven. There are 
 no dead saints — all are alive unto God, and will live 
 together with Him. 
 
 But instead of dwelling longer on this point, I re- 
 mark in reference to this glorious society in general, 
 that there shall be perfect union among all its mem- 
 bers. That union shall not be one of sameness — for 
 there can be no sameness either in the past history, 
 or in the intellectual capacity of any of its members. 
 How vast must be the difference for ever between 
 the history of Gabriel, the thief on the cross, the 
 apostle Paul, and the child who died yesterday! 
 There is no reason whatever to doubt, that each per- 
 son shall retain marked individual features of mind, 
 and peculiarities of character there as well as here. 
 All the stars will shine in brilliancy, and sweep in 
 orbits more or less wide around the great centre, but 
 each " star will differ from another star in glory." 
 Yet this want of sameness is what will produce the 
 deepest harmony, such as one sees in the blending of 
 different colours, or hears in the mingling of different 
 notes. And I repeat it, the bond of this perfectness 
 in heaven shall be, as on earth, love. For it is love 
 which unites exalted rank to lowly place; knowledge 
 to ignorance ; and strength to weakness ; thus bringing 
 things opposite into an harmonious whole. See how 
 the love which dwelt in " God manifest in the flesh," 
 poured itself into the lowest depths of humanity, 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 119 
 
 and met men far down to lift them high up ; so 
 that at the very moment, for instance, when Jesus 
 was intensely conscious of his dignity, " knowing 
 that he came from God and went to God," he 
 showed how inseparable was true love from true 
 grandeur, for knowing this, " he rose from supper and 
 girded himself with a towel, and washed his disciples' 
 feet ! " And as Jesus in the might of the same divine 
 affection bridged over the gulph which separated man 
 from himself and his Father, drawing the impure to 
 Him the Holy One that they might become holy; 
 and the ignorant to Him the All-knowing that they 
 might become truly wise ; — so shall the same Divine 
 love include within its vast embrace all in heaven, 
 from God seated on the throne down through the 
 burning ranks of cherubim and seraphim till it reaches 
 the weeping Magdalene, and the sore-stricken Laza- 
 rus, and the infant who has passed from the bosom of 
 its mother to the bosom of its God! How glorious, 
 yet how almost inconceivable, that the poorest saint 
 here — the most ignorant, the most despised, the most 
 solitary and unknown — shall not only admire and 
 love, but be himself the object of admiration and of 
 love on the part of the highest spirit there ! — For the 
 King who is not ashamed to call the poorest " bre- 
 thren," will in his adornments of their mind and 
 heart, as well as of outward form, bestowed " accord- 
 ing to His riches," make them appear worthy of the 
 name, and fit them to move in regal grandeur with all 
 saints and angels in the royal palace of His God! 
 " Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good plea- 
 sure to give vou the kingdom." 
 
120 THE NATURE OF 
 
 After what I have said, it is unnecessary to prove 
 what is assumed as so evidently true, and which I 
 cannot really understand how any one should doubt, 
 and that is the recognition of our Christian friends 
 in heaven. As well ask me to prove this, as to prove 
 that I should recognise them if we meet in a different 
 part of the country next week after having been separ- 
 ated from them only for a few days. What ! shall me- 
 mory be obliterated, and shall we forget our own past 
 histories, and accordingly cease to know that we have 
 been redeemed men? or remembering this fact, shall 
 we be prevented from communicating our histories to 
 others? Shall beloved friends be there whom we 
 have known and loved in Christ here, with whom we 
 have held holy communion; with whom we have 
 laboured and prayed for the advancement of Christ's 
 kingdom ; and with whom we have eagerly watched 
 for his second coming, — and shall we be unable 
 throughout eternity, either to discover their existence 
 or associate with them in the New Jerusalem? Are 
 the Apostles now ignorant of each other? Did Moses 
 and Elias issue out of darkness in heaven which 
 mutually concealed them ; and did they recognise one 
 another for the first time amidst the light on Tabor's 
 hill, and then return into darkness again? Oh! what 
 is there in the whole word of God — what argument 
 derived from our experience of the blessings of Chris- 
 tian fellowship — what in the character of Grod or his 
 dealings with man — what in his promises of things to 
 come laid up for those who love him — that could 
 have suggested such strange, unworthy, and dreary 
 thoughts of the union of friends in their Father's 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 121 
 
 home ! Tell me not that special affection to Christian 
 brethren, from whatever causes it may arise, is in- 
 consistent with unfeigned love to all, and absorbing 
 love to Jesus. It is not so here, and never can be from 
 the nature of holy love, and was not so in Christ's 
 own case when He the perfect One lived amongst us. 
 With supreme love to God, " he loved his church 
 and gave himself for it ; " with love to His church He 
 yet loved the disciples as "His own/ 5 while one of these 
 was specially the loved one; while again beyond this 
 inner circle He loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus ! 
 Tell me not that it is enough to know that our friends 
 are in glory. I know this now in regard to some of 
 them as surely as I know any thing beyond the grave ; 
 yet my heart yearns to meet them " with the Lord/' 
 and I bless Him that He permits me to comfort my- 
 self with the hope of doing so. Nor let it be alleged 
 as an insuperable objection to all this anticipated 
 happiness, that knowledge of the saved would im- 
 ply knowledge of the lost, and that this would 
 balance the pleasure we hope for, by a great pain 
 which we should be compelled to endure. For even 
 admitting that such knowledge would be possessed at 
 all, which is very doubtful, or if possessed give pain, 
 which is highly improbable, — yet surely at the worst 
 this is a strange way of escaping pain from the knowledge 
 that some are lost, by taking refuge in the ignorance 
 of any being saved ! I shall not prove this further, 
 but express my joy in heartily believing what to you 
 and all of us on such an occasion as the present must 
 be peculiarly delightful, and what I have therefore on 
 that account the more fully dwelt upon: — that we 
 
122 THE NATURE OF 
 
 shall resume our intercourse with every Christian 
 friend ; — remembering all the past, and reading it for 
 the first time aright, because read in the full light of 
 revealed truth, we shall know and love as we never 
 knew and loved here ; and shall sit down at that 
 glorious intellectual and moral feast not with ideal 
 persons and strangers, but w r ith Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob, with Peter, Paul, and John, and every saint 
 of God! 
 
 But I have not as yet spoken of one friend there 
 who will be the centre of that bright society — " Jesus 
 the Mediator of the new covenant ! " " I will take 
 you to myself," is the blessed promise. " We shall see 
 Him as He is/' is the longed for vision. " We shall 
 be like Him," is the hoped for perfection. To know, 
 to love, to be in all things like Jesus, and to hold 
 communion with him for ever — what "an exceeding 
 weight of glory!" Jesus will never be separated 
 personally from his people ; nor can they ever possibly 
 separate their character, their joy, their security from 
 his atoning death for them on earth, or his constant 
 life for them in heaven. It is the Lamb who shall 
 lead them to living fountains of waters ; and the Lamb 
 upon the throne shall still preside over them ; the 
 Lamb shall be the light of the New Jerusalem; and 
 " worthy is the Lamb!" shall be its ceaseless song of 
 praise. Beyond this I cannot go. In vain I endeavour 
 to ascend in thought higher than " God manifest in 
 the flesh," even to the Triune Jehovah who dwelleth 
 in the unapproachable light of his own unchangeable 
 perfections ; and endeavour to catch a glimpse of that 
 beatific vision which, though begun here in com- 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 123 
 
 munion with God, is enjoyed by "the spirits of just 
 men made perfect" there, " according to His fulness," 
 and therefore in a measure which to us passeth all 
 understanding. If any real spiritual intercourse with 
 Jehovah here is "joy unspeakable" — if the gasping 
 of the soul to possess more, fails often from its in- 
 tensity to find utterance in words, what must it be to 
 dwell in his presence in the full enjoyment of himself 
 for ever ! There are saints who have experienced this 
 blessedness upon earth to a degree which was almost 
 too much for them to bear ; and there are some who 
 have had glories flashed upon them as if snatched 
 from the light beyond, just as the soul was loosening 
 from the ligaments of the body and preparing it- 
 self for flight from the prison-house to its own 
 home — strange moments when things beyond were 
 seen by the eye closing on the weary world, and 
 overpowering bliss was experienced by the chilling 
 heart. And if men, sinful men, yea dying men, can 
 ever so feel — what is the measure of the joy which 
 fills the souls of the redeemed at this moment in his 
 presence ? 
 
 I believe your pastor shares it all ! The man so 
 lately with us here, — a member of our ordinary com- 
 mon-place society, — a citizen in our bustling popula- 
 tion, — one who laid upon himself the lowliest duties 
 of life, and shared with serenity its daily cheer, and 
 mingled with outcasts to bring them to God, while he 
 associated with those who knew God in order to add to 
 their happiness : that man is now " a fellow-citizen of 
 the saints/' and one of "the household of God." 
 As a man, and therefore an heir to earth's inheri- 
 
124 THE NATURE OF 
 
 tance of what divides man from man, he had his con- 
 troversies in his day, and like Paul and Peter his 
 " contentions sharp " — yet embraced every oppor- 
 tunity of holding Christian fellowship, and while 
 longing for more, intensely enjoyed what was given 
 him, — he is now one of that numerous, intellectual 
 and holy society, loving and "greatly beloved," meet- 
 ing many he had known here, and whom he had 
 when departing the full expectation of again be- 
 holding — meeting many more of whom he had only 
 heard and longed to see — wondering at God's love in 
 bringing multitudes there whom he did not expect to 
 find — but most of all adoring the riches of his grace 
 and love in bringing himself there, and exalting him 
 to " heavenly places in Christ Jesus !" May the 
 Lord give us ail grace to love on earth such as we 
 may hope to meet in heaven ; and if we cannot as yet 
 enjoy the communion of angels, may we seek for, and 
 enjoy, the communion of saints. 
 
 I have already occupied too much of your time, — 
 much more indeed than I was perhaps justified in do- 
 ing even in treating a topic of such importance, and 
 upon an occasion so special ; and I must apologise 
 for this, just because of the interest you have taken in 
 this day's proceedings, and the demand which has been 
 already made on your attention and sympathies. 
 
 It is not then, I assure you, without considerable 
 reluctance that I proceed with the further consider- 
 ation of my subject; though with as much brevity 
 and compression as appear to me to be compatible 
 with clearness. 
 
 V. I notice, therefore, in the fifth and last place, 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 125 
 
 that there will be joy in heaven through man's active 
 nature. 
 
 It is unnecessary to do more than remind you how 
 labour is essential here to our happiness. Eest from 
 fatigue is indeed enjoyment; but idleness from 
 want of occupation is punishment. Xor is this 
 fact a part of our inheritance as sinners. Fatigue 
 and pain of body from exertion may be so, but not 
 exertion itself. Perfect and unfallen man was placed 
 in the garden of Eden " to dress and to keep it." 
 And this is what we would expect as the very ap- 
 pointment for a creature made after the image of 
 Him who is ever working, and who has imbued every 
 portion of the universe with the spirit of activity. 
 For nothing in the world of nature lives for itself 
 alone ; but contributes its portion of good to the wel- 
 fare of the whole. And man, as he becomes more 
 godlike, rejoices more and more in the dispensation 
 by which he is enabled to be a fellow-worker with 
 his Father, and is glad in being able to give expres- 
 sion by word or deed to what he knows, loves, and 
 admires ; and also to make others sharers of the good 
 and joy which he possesses. 
 
 And if all this holds true of man now, what reason 
 have we for doubting that it shall hold true of man 
 for ever? Why should this inherent love of action, 
 and delightful source of enjoyment, the most refined 
 and elevated, be annihilated ? and what shadow of 
 probability even, have we for supposing, that the heaven 
 revealed in scripture is a world the occupations of 
 whose inhabitants shall be for ever confined to mere 
 extatic contemplation? 
 
126 THE NATURE OF 
 
 This cannot be! It would require overpowering 
 evidence to prove it; while all the evidence we pos- 
 sess on the subject is against it. — Arguing from an- 
 alogy, the presumption indeed is, that those mental 
 and moral habits which have been acquired with so 
 much difficulty, and at so much expense in this pre- 
 sent world, shall not be cast away as useless in the 
 next, but there find such scope for their exercise as can- 
 not possibly be afforded to them within their present 
 narrow sphere. But this presumption is immensely 
 strengthened by what we know of the life of the an- 
 gels, to which I have more than once alluded, as it 
 bears so much upon the several topics discussed by 
 us. These angels " excel in strength ;" " do his 
 commandments and hearken to the voice of his word." 
 As " ministers of his," they " do His pleasure." — 
 They are represented to us as ever actively em- 
 ployed as messengers of peace or of woe; — some- 
 times as ministering to the heirs of salvation, and at 
 other times as ministers of God's vengeance. They 
 have destroyed armies and cities, delivered captives 
 and comforted the disconsolate, and shall be the 
 future reapers of the earth's harvest. All this proves 
 at least, that the sinless perfection and happiness of 
 heaven, are not inconsistent with a life of busy labour, 
 and that though God can do without the services of 
 either men or angels, yet as they cannot be happy 
 without rendering such services to Him, He in accord- 
 ance with his untiring, ungrudging benevolence, 
 satisfies this craving of their nature. And again we 
 ask, if it is so with the angels in Heaven, why may it 
 not be so with the saints of God for ever ? Let it be 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 127 
 
 remembered that men have acquired a wider experi- 
 ence than even the angels by reason of that very sin 
 from which they have been redeemed, and which 
 might be thought to render them less fit for the ex- 
 alted services of Heaven. The very storms and 
 vicissitudes of earth have given a form and a strength 
 to these " trees of righteousness the planting of the 
 Lord/' which perhaps they could not possibly have 
 acquired amidst the sunny skies and balmy air of the 
 heavenly paradise. The saints of Grod have learned 
 lessons here of patience, endurance, self-denial, and 
 faith, which they could not have learned there. Here, 
 but not there, are Marthas and Marys with whom 
 they can weep : and prodigals whom they can receive 
 back; and saints in sickness, or in prison, or in nak- 
 edness whom they can visit, and soothe and clothe. 
 It is asked indeed in triumph, what employments can 
 there be in Heaven for saints? This question I can- 
 not answer. The how employed, and where, must be 
 yet as pure conjecture. But who will be so bold as 
 to deny, that in the new heavens and in the new 
 earth, there may be employment for even those 
 powers, — such as inventive genius, — which might 
 seem to be necessarily confined merely to this tem- 
 porary scene? And as to our moral habits and Chris- 
 tian graces, dare any one assert that they shall never 
 be called into exercise in works and labours of love 
 among orders of beings of whom as yet we know no- 
 thing? Countless worlds may be teeming with im- 
 mense populations, and who knows but such worlds 
 may be continually added to the great family of God? 
 And if throughout the endless ages of eternity, or 
 
128 THE NATURE OF 
 
 in any province of God's boundless empire, there 
 should ever be found those who were tempted to 
 depart from God by the machinations of wicked 
 men or evil spirits — permitted then it may be, as well 
 as now, to use all their powers in the service of sin and 
 against the kingdom of God, and who being tempted 
 shall require warning or support to retain them in 
 their allegiance; — or those who are struggling in an 
 existence, which however glorious demands patience, 
 and fortitude, and faith in Jehovah; — if there are 
 now, or if there ever shall appear any who need 
 such ministrations as can be afforded only by persons 
 educated in the wonderful school of Christ's Church \ — 
 then can I imagine how God's saints from earth may 
 have glorious labours given them throughout eternity, 
 which they alone, of all the creatures of God, shall 
 be able to accomplish, when every holy habit acquired 
 here shall be put to noble uses there. I can conceive 
 patience needed to overcome difficulties, and faith 
 to trust the living God amidst evolutions of His 
 Providence that baffled the understanding; and 
 indomitable courage, untiring zeal, gentle love, 
 heavenly serenity and intense sympathy, yea, even 
 the peculiar gifts and characteristics of each in- 
 dividual; — all having their appropriate and fitting 
 work to do. And what immense joy will be expe- 
 rienced in each, thus finding an outlet for his love, 
 and exercise for his knowledge, and full play for 
 his every faculty, in that " house of many mansions," 
 with all God's universe around and eternity be- 
 fore him! — where "labour shall be without fatigue, 
 ceaseless activity without the necessity of repose 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 129 
 
 high enterprises without disappointment, and mighty 
 achievements which leave behind no weariness or 
 decay ; — " where they who wait upon the Lord shall 
 for ever renew their strength, and shall mount up 
 with wings as eagles, shall run and not be weary, 
 shall walk and not faint !" 
 
 Let this thought teach us to labour in harmony 
 with the will of God; so that we shall never run 
 counter to His plans or His wishes, but now and for 
 ever be " fellow- workers with Himself." 
 
 Let it also comfort us when we see " such an one as 
 Paul the aged," fall asleep after his day of toil: and 
 make us meekly bow our heads when we hear of the 
 young man full of zeal and ardour, and apparently 
 fully equipped for God's service, suddenly cut down ; 
 or when the self-sacrificing missionary seems to have 
 spent his strength in vain, and there is no one in the 
 wilderness to give him Christian burial. Oh! think 
 not that the work of the old saint who loved it so 
 well, till the latest hour of his existence, is ended for 
 ever; or that the labours of his younger brethren so 
 unfinished here, shall never be resumed hereafter, and 
 that all this preparation of years has been a mere 
 abortion — a mockery and delusion i Believe it not ! 
 Xo day of conscientious study for Christ's sake has 
 been spent in vain; no habit of industry or self- 
 denial acquired for Christ's sake has been acquired in 
 vain; nor will the burning zeal to do something for 
 Him who died for them, be put to shame, — soul, spirit 
 and body, will yet do their work! They who have 
 been " faithful over a few things, will be made rulers 
 over many things; — and he who has been faithful 
 I 
 
130 THE NATURE OF 
 
 over a very little shall have authority over ten 
 cities !" 
 
 But I cannot conclude this subject without remind- 
 ing you how this fulness of joy to be derived in 
 heaven to the man's sentient, intellectual, moral, social, 
 and active nature, shall be expressed in praise. What 
 the ordinary ideas are which many excellent Chris- 
 tians associate with this heavenly work, or the 
 manner in which it is to be performed, would be pain- 
 ful to describe. But perhaps it is not too much to 
 say that the heaven of many is little more than 
 a grand, eternal act of worship by singing praises. 
 No doubt the chief work of heaven is praise 
 — for praise is the expression of love, admiration, 
 joy! And in whatever way this praise shall be 
 expressed, whether in the spontaneous exercise of 
 individual souls, " singing as they shine " with hymned 
 voice, or for ought I know with fashioned instrument 
 of golden harp; or by the wrapt gaze of a spirit ab- 
 sorbed in " still communion;" — or whether in heaven 
 as on earth there may be great days w T hen the sons of 
 God, gathered from afar, shall come specially before 
 Him, when their joy shall be uttered by outbursts of 
 harmony which shall wake the amphitheatre of the 
 skies with impassioned Halleluiahs ; — yet it must be 
 that each soul in heaven being for ever full of love, 
 must flow over in praise continually. Every new 
 sight of grandeur or of beauty — every new con- 
 trivance of the Creator's wisdom and pow r er — will 
 but prompt the beholder to praise the wondrous 
 Creator Himself. Every intellectual height reached 
 in the infinite progress of the soul, onward and up- 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 131 
 
 ward, will awe it into a pro-founder sense of the glory 
 of the great Intelligence. Every active pursuit will 
 swell the tide of gratitude and praise to Him in whom 
 all "live, move, and have their being;" — while the 
 loving and holy soul, ever consciously dwelling in 
 Him who is everywhere present, must derive from 
 increasing knowledge of, and communion with, the 
 infinite Jehovah, a source of exulting endless praise; 
 — praise which will be intensified by the intercourse 
 with the great minds and great hearts of the " in- 
 numerable company of angels, and the just made 
 perfect V 3 But if in that voicefal temple any one song 
 of praise shall more than any other issue from a deeper 
 love, or express a deeper joy, it will be the song of 
 the redeemed! — that "new song" never heard before 
 by the angels in the amplitudes of creation, and 
 which the strange race of mankind alone can sing ; — 
 for there are peculiar notes of joy in that song, they 
 alone can utter and understand, and in their memo- 
 ries alone, echo old notes of sadness that have died 
 away in the far distance. And what shall be their 
 feelings, what their song, as they gaze backwards on 
 the horrible kingdom of darkness from which they 
 have been delivered, and trace all the mysterious 
 steps by which their merciful and wise Saviour led 
 them safely through danger, temptation, and trial, 
 and even through the valley of death itself, until He 
 bid them welcome in His presence with exceeding 
 joy! — What their feelings, what their song, as they 
 look around and comtemplate the scene and the so- 
 ciety into which He has brought them, and meet the 
 gaze of radiant saints and loving friends ! What their 
 
132 THE NATURE OF 
 
 feelings and their song, as they gaze forward and 
 with " far stretching views into eternity" see no limit 
 to their "fulness of joy;" knowing that nothing can 
 ever lessen it, but that everything must increase it 
 for ever; — that the body can never more suffer pain 
 or be weakened by decay; — the intellect never more 
 be dimmed by age or marred by ignorance ; — the spi- 
 rit never more darkened by even a passing shadow 
 from any body of sin ; — the will never for a moment 
 biassed by temptation ; — the heart never chilled by 
 unreturned kindness; the exalted society never di- 
 minished by death nor divided in spirit, and along with 
 men and angels all (rod's works to see, and all his 
 ways to know, and all His plans and purposes to fulfil, 
 and His commands obey, for ever and ever ! And 
 then, at what might seem to be the very climax of their 
 joy, to behold Jesus ! And to remember the lowly 
 home in Bethlehem ; and the humble artisan of Na- 
 zareth ; He " who was despised and rejected of men, 
 a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ;" He 
 who for forty days was tempted of the devil in the 
 wilderness ; — to remember Grethsemane with its trem- 
 bling hand and cup of agony; — the judgment-hall 
 and Calvary with their horrors of blood and blasphemy 
 and mystery of woe; and to see all this history of 
 immeasurable love not only recorded in the glory of 
 every saint above, but embodied in the person of the 
 Saviour, and in the presence of that human form 
 which was wounded and bruised for our iniquities, 
 and in the human soul that was sorrowful unto death 
 — that He might be able to pour into the hearts of 
 lost and ruined men the fulness of His own blessed- 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 133 
 
 ness and joy! Oh! blind discoursers are we of this 
 ineffable glory ; — children-dreamers of this as yet un- 
 revealed vision ! — What are all our thoughts but 
 " fallings, vanishing^ from creatures walking among 
 worlds not realized V — But let us pray more and 
 more that the " God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Father of glory may give unto us the spirit of wis- 
 dom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the 
 eyes of our understanding being enlightened; that 
 we may know what is the hope of His calling, and 
 what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the 
 saints " — for though " eye hath not seen, nor ear 
 heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, 
 the things which God hath prepared for them that 
 love Him," yet — " God hath revealed them unto us by 
 His Spirit !" 
 
 And now, my Christian Brethren, it is possible 
 that you may expect me, before closing the services 
 of this solemn day, to dwell for a few minutes more 
 upon him who is gone. Like a favourite melody you 
 would wish to have the pleasant theme repeated again, 
 and again. But I dare not attempt to do so. His por- 
 traiture has been drawn this day by those who knew 
 him long and knew him well, and revered him greatly, 
 and who in all respects were more able to speak of him 
 than I am. It may however please you to hear a say- 
 ing of his, when we last met, in connexion with the 
 subject on which I have now addressed you. Having 
 expressed to me in his own humble way his longing 
 to realise that future happiness which had been the 
 subject of our discourse, and I having alluded to the 
 
134 THE NATURE OF 
 
 translation of Enoch and Elias from the earth to hea- 
 ven without suffering, he replied to this effect, " Do 
 you know that I envy them not — I have a great de- 
 sire to experience all that the church of Christ with 
 its living Head have experienced, and to enter the 
 grave as well as heaven with both/' 
 
 Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace: 
 
 Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, 
 While the stars burn, the moons increase, 
 
 And the great ages onward roll. 
 
 Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet, 
 Nothing comes to thee new or strange. 
 
 Sleep full of rest from head to feet ; 
 Lie still, dry dust, secure of change ! 
 
 But let me speak to you as I am sure he would have 
 me speak, not of himself but of something better. 
 For if he the pastor, the brother, the father appeared 
 amongst us now, with liberty to address us, what 
 would he say? I think I can give some answer to 
 this question. If he ever preached the gospel he 
 would do so again! If he ever spoke to you in the 
 name of His Master and invited you by the weight 
 of His authority, the tenderness of his love, the great- 
 ness of His work, and the all-sufficiency of His grace, 
 to believe and be saved, he would do so now. There 
 would be no change in his message, and no change 
 in himself, but in his greater likeness to Jesus in 
 meekness, humility, earnestness and love. — And if he 
 spoke at all of the glory of the other world, it would 
 only be with reference to our present duties. It 
 would be to destroy the false hopes of the unbeliever, 
 
FUTURE HAPPINESS. 135 
 
 the hypocrite, the sensual, the profane and the unre- 
 generate ; — to remind such that " unless born again 
 they could not see the kingdom of God." It would 
 be to encourage the timid, strengthen the weak, 
 cheer the desponding, rouse the slothful, and console 
 the mourners in Zion, by the assurance conveyed from 
 the whole church of the redeemed above, that their 
 labour was not in vain in the Lord ; — " that they 
 who sowed in tears would reap in joy;" — and 
 that they who trusted God would " never be put to 
 shame !" And how would you listen to such a sermon 
 if addressed to you by the old familiar voice, — and if 
 addressed to you by name? Would you reject the 
 message, and equally despise the warning and the 
 invitation? Would you put away the cup full of 
 God's mercy offered to you, and in its stead snatch 
 the cup full of this world's unsatisfactory and degrading 
 pleasures? Is it thus you would treat your Minister 
 sent specially to you as a Messenger from God ? You 
 are shocked by the very thought ! It could not be. 
 — But Oh! what if you are thus treating the Saviour 
 himself, his Lord and yours ! 
 
 I beseech you, then, by all the solemnities attending 
 the departure of your patriarch minister to give an ac- 
 count of his faithful ministrations among you for half- 
 a-century, added to every argument you ever heard from 
 his lips; — by the love and mercy of Jesus Christ made 
 more manifest in the case of every saint kept here 
 from falling and made meet for heaven ; — by the 
 greater nearness of death to ourselves and the sud- 
 denness with which in this time of pestilence it may 
 seize us ; — by all the joy that is set before the people 
 
136 THE NATURE OF FUTURE HAPPINESS. 
 
 of God, and by all the righteous vengeance which shall 
 overtake the despisers of his mercy; I beseech you 
 to receive Jesus Christ — the living personal Saviour 
 as your Saviour; to pardon you through his blood, 
 to sanctify you through his Spirit ; to "keep you from 
 falling, and to present you faultless in his presence 
 with exceeding joy!" 
 
 " Now the Grod of peace, who brought again from 
 the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the 
 sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 
 make you perfect to do His will, working in you to 
 do that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus 
 Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." 
 

 TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 
 
 JOHN MACFARLAHE, LL.D. 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR, WARDLAW. 
 
 I cannot conclude this afternoon's service without 
 adverting to the solemn event which I am sure has 
 been uppermost in your minds, even amid the sacred- 
 ness of the sanctuary course. Little did I anticipate 
 occupying a vacant pulpit, when I engaged to be 
 your lamented pastor's substitute to-day. I then 
 only thought of honouring myself, by serving one 
 whom all were delighted to oblige. Him, however, 
 we can serve no more. At the early dawn of yester- 
 day he was for ever relieved from all the cares of 
 this changing scene and from all the duties of the 
 church militant. He has entered into his rest. 
 Having followed Jesus in the regeneration, he has 
 gone to be with him in the skies. Perhaps not since 
 they were uttered by the great apostle of the Gen- 
 tiles, could these words have been more appropriately 
 used in the dying hour, than by him whose face you 
 shall see no more on earth — " I am now ready to be 
 offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I 
 have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
 I have kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up for 
 me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
 righteous Judge, shall give me at that day — and not 
 to me only, but unto all them also that love his ap- 
 pearing." 
 
140 TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 
 
 To attempt aught like a sketch of Dr. Wardlaw's 
 character would be altogether presumptuous on my 
 part — as the properly qualified person for this duty 
 will no doubt perform it in due time. I cannot, 
 however, leave this pulpit without paying a tribute, 
 however humble, though hastily prepared, and almost 
 on the dawn of this Sabbath, to the memory of a 
 man whom, from my earliest recollections, I was 
 taught to love and admire, and who, amid the family 
 circle wherein I was nurtured, was ever regarded as 
 one of the most beloved of friends, and one of the 
 most accomplished among the princes of Israel. 
 
 All the commonplace eulogies, so thoughtlessly 
 often heaped upon others, may, with strict truthful- 
 ness, be affirmed of Dr. Wardlaw. But this is saying 
 the least of it — I question if, in modern times at 
 least, his superior has passed before him into heaven ; 
 and that superiority I am disposed to claim for him 
 in every view which may be taken of his character. 
 
 In him the Christian had a noble representative. 
 That he had his infirmities none were readier than him- 
 self to admit, and with all sincerity of contrition, and 
 he confessed these before the Father. Notwithstand- 
 ing, I think these infirmities, whatever they might 
 be, were only apparent to the Searcher of hearts 
 himself — a more faultless character in the eyes of the 
 world I have not known. If I were asked to specify 
 what his failings were I candidly own I could not do 
 it. I do not know what they were — so blamelessly 
 and guilelessly did he go out and in before men. O 
 it was a beautiful spectacle to see the combination in 
 him of the majesty and meekness, the purity and 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 141 
 
 gentleness, of the Christian deportment ! His was 
 not the wisdom which is " earthly, sensual, and 
 devilish, for where envy and strife are, there are 
 confusion and every evil work/' But his was the 
 wisdom that cometh from above, and which is " first 
 pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, 
 full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and 
 without hypocrisy." I appeal to those who knew him 
 so long and so well, if his life was not a marvellously 
 successful effort to exemplify the apostolic injunction, 
 " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are 
 honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
 are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
 things are of good report ; if there be any virtue, and 
 if there be any praise, think on these things." Yes 
 — these were the things which he carefully selected 
 for thought — for deep, holy, and prayerful thought, 
 and hence the living expression of them in his whole 
 demeanour as a Christian man. There was in his 
 whole character a wonderful combination of the 
 peculiarities of the two apostles Paul and John — 
 greatness and goodness — power and gentleness — 
 fervour and modesty — zeal and love — courage and 
 caution — forwardness and prudence — brilliant action 
 and holy meditation. Catholicity was alike an ele- 
 ment in the two disciples — they were not sectaries. 
 Though decided in their convictions, and ready to 
 speak them out, and act them out, before the church 
 and the world, they contracted no unlovely spites 
 against others, and eschewed the dirty, smoky cabins 
 of sectarianism and bigotry. So did Dr. Wardlaw, 
 He was the embodiment of the principle of the Evan- 
 
142 TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 
 
 gelical Alliance. It was little to him what might be 
 the " ism " of any man, provided he was a lover of 
 Jesus and of his truth. Hence he lived in peace 
 with us, and we all loved him of every denomination. 
 You, my friends, have many in all Christian circles, 
 who weep with you this day because our friend 
 sleepeth. I never expect on earth to be honoured 
 and blessed with such Christian friendship as was 
 Dr. Wardlaw's. Over the memory of it I could sit 
 and both weep and sing — weep that it is gone, and 
 sing for gratitude that it was ever mine. 
 
 In him the Christian advocate was truly a finished 
 portrait. Taking his position, even in young life, by 
 the brooks of Zion, he wisely selected the pebbles 
 which were afterwards slung at the head of Error. 
 He has at length, no doubt, fallen on the field, but it 
 is that he may rise again : whereas he has, in his time, 
 laid prostrate many a foe to the truth of Grod, whose 
 resurrection morn shall never dawn. As an Ex- 
 pounder of doctrine, he was textual, logical, and 
 masterly. As a Critic, he was profound, acute, and 
 candid. As a Philosopher, he was Christian and yet 
 scholarly ; simple, yet comprehensive. He seemed to 
 be equally at home in synthesis and analysis, which is 
 rather a rare combination of excellences. As a Con- 
 troversialist, he was fearless though kindly, truthful 
 though courteous, and uncompromising though rea- 
 sonable. In the arena his weapon was always known 
 by the gleam of its polish, always felt by the keen- 
 ness of its edge, and often pronounced victorious by 
 the perfect success of its fence. His arena itself was 
 always a select one, always a scriptural one. It mat- 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 143 
 
 tered not what he advocated — it was advocated on 
 Bible ground, and with a truly Bible spirit. If he 
 interceded for the great citadel itself of Christian 
 truth, he took all his arguments from the Word of 
 God. With that he slew the Socinian — with that he 
 slew the demon of slavery — with that he battered 
 down the high places of civil and ecclesiastical des- 
 potism — and with that he built up the cause of God 
 and righteousness. In perfect self-possession, in 
 thorough and honest scrutiny of the subject, in bland 
 and gentlemanly treatment of his opponent, and in 
 considerate and liberal handling of " the other side," 
 Dr. Wardlaw, as a controversialist, has not had his 
 equal, certainly not his superior, amongst us. 
 
 As a Christian Author, he stands foremost among 
 the first, not only as regards his voluminous writings, 
 but as regards their calibre, their fame and their use- 
 fulness. There are few indeed of the Christian doc- 
 trines which he has not beautifully elucidated, and 
 few of the Christian precepts which he has not clearly 
 and forcibly explained. His works remain among 
 the most valuable treasuries of the church of God. 
 One of his earliest efforts is one of his best — his work 
 on the Socinian Controversy ; and his last work is not 
 second to it — on Miracles — wherein with a giant's 
 force, though wielded with the simplicity and gentle- 
 ness of a little child, he demolishes the modern struc- 
 tures of infidelity. It is singular that God should 
 have honoured him to begin and close his authorship 
 with rearing before the citadel of Zion two such for- 
 tifications in defence of the very vitals of our faith. 
 
 As a Christian Minister, he was faithful, affection- 
 
144 TRIBUTE TO DR. WARBLAW. 
 
 ate, and earnest. His aim was to win souls to 
 Christ, and ye are his witnesses how eloquently and 
 pathetically, and even unto weeping, he pled with 
 sinners to turn from their evil ways unto God. His 
 discourses, published and unpublished, have made his 
 pulpit better known in this country, I may say in 
 Europe and America, than that of any living preacher. 
 Many have envied you the privilege of having such a 
 pastor to break among them the Bread of Life. His 
 style of preaching was all his own. Of knowledge it 
 has been said, that it is sometimes one's own offspring, 
 and sometimes it is adopted. There was nothing 
 adopted in the manner or matter of Dr. Wardlaw's 
 preaching. Originality was evident in the smooth, 
 deep, clear, steady current of his thoughts, in the 
 calm but sublime cast of his oratory, and in the tact, 
 as well as genius, of his address. Like Hall of Bris- 
 tol, or Chalmers amongst ourselves, he stands out in 
 the pulpit as alone in the possession of those excel- 
 lences for which his name will be handed down to 
 future generations. 
 
 In him Christian philanthropy had one of its most 
 impressive illustrations. His heart was large and it was 
 warm. Every human interest had a place there, and 
 every human being had an advocate there. He had 
 a tear for every tear, and he had a smile for every 
 joy. He had a curse there for every foe to human 
 happiness and holiness, and he had a blessing there 
 for every friend of man as a citizen of the world or a 
 traveller to eternity. He might not be Howard mili- 
 tant, but he was Howard eloquent, and compassionate, 
 and practical. 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. WARDLAW. 145 
 
 And what was he in the world? Let our great 
 city name another citizen equally illustrious. His 
 name has made Glasgow known wherever the English 
 language is spoken — wherever God's truth is loved — 
 wherever men are called Christians. She has had 
 many sons who have done her honour, but this one is 
 the most honourable to her of them all ; and when men 
 shall cease to speak of the achievements of learning 
 and of the explorations of science, and of the marches 
 and triumphs of commerce, they will be still sitting 
 at the feet of Wardlaw, learning the way to heaven 
 by the cross of Calvary. He may not have be- 
 queathed to his native place thousands of gold and 
 thousands of silver, like some of our princely Chris- 
 tian merchants, but he has left her something far 
 better — he has left a name and a character of the 
 highest repute for intellectual and religious greatness, 
 and literary contributions which shall never be ex- 
 hausted, though millions yet unborn draw upon them 
 for their spiritual guidance and safety. Such a man 
 is independent of the monument of granite — he has 
 reared his own monument with his own hands — 
 though, if such were thought creditable to the city, I 
 know of none who have merited such a public testi- 
 monial more than our departed father. He was the 
 friend of the poor — the patron of every charity — an 
 associate of every institute for the present and lasting 
 good of his fellow-citizens and his fellow-men. 
 
 In the more private walks of life he was indeed a 
 most lovely character, and in all his relationships 
 acted throughout as one who, having first of all loved 
 Jesus Christ, allowed the overflowings thereof to 
 
146 TRIBUTE TO- DR. WARDLAW, 
 
 fall upon, anoint, and bless all within the circle of its 
 approach. But upon these and many other traits 
 of character I cannot, I ought not, to enter. 
 
 And now — all is over — he is gone. On that vener- 
 able countenance we shall not look again — that sweet 
 persuasive tongue we shall never hear again — -that 
 warm grasp of friendship which made our inmost 
 hearts thrill with joy — I was going to say with pride — 
 we shall feel no more; no more shall we have him as a 
 leader and commander — no more shall his light re- 
 volve in our little orbit, nor the music of his harmo- 
 nious affections be heard in the land. True; but 
 neither any more shall his noble nature sustain the 
 rude shocks of this world's cruelty, nor his warm 
 heart be crushed beneath the foot of ingratitude, nor 
 the innermost sanctuary of his divine life be attacked 
 by those evil powers and principalities who go about 
 seeking to devour the strong and the valiant in Zion. 
 No, no; our father is safe and glorified now. On his 
 entrance into Heaven, he would receive the welcome 
 of the brightest and best of the sons of creation — no 
 suspicions, no accuser would meet him there — there 
 the Searcher of hearts w r ould enfold him in his arms, 
 and crown him as one of the martyrs and confessors; 
 and there he has now taken his seat beside the Re- 
 deemer, whom he so long and so brilliantly served, 
 and there he is already farther advanced in the science 
 of salvation by grace than he ever could have reached, 
 though he had lived, as he lived here, for generations 
 to come. Surely, if ever man of woman born found 
 in heaven what was congenial to a new nature, Dr. 
 Ward! aw is that man. Let us not mourn, then, for 
 
TRIBUTE TO DR. WxVRDLAW. 147 
 
 him. He has nobly fought the fight — let us rejoice 
 in his graciously bestowed reward of eternal life. 
 
 But to conclude, my beloved friends, I must say 
 that as your privileges under Dr. Wardlaw's ministry 
 have been great, so also must your responsibility be. 
 "When the son of the prophet let his axe-head fall into 
 the water, he said to the man of God, " Alas ! master, 
 for it was borrowed." Alas ! I had but the loan of 
 it, and what account shall I give to the lender ! So 
 may you say as your pastor disappears among the 
 swellings of Jordan, — Alas! Lord, he was borrowed; 
 and what shall we say to the Giver? Yes, this is 
 true, and though no Elisha be here to raise the in- 
 strument from the deep and restore it, yet do we 
 know that, by the voice of the Son of God, he and 
 you again must meet, and what shall you say in that 
 day? O think seriously of this — it is no trifle; I 
 know of no congregration who ought to fear and 
 tremble more than the one I now address, if then you 
 are found to have been despisers of the grace of God. 
 But may God in his great mercy grant that, in that 
 day, you and he may meet to hail one another as 
 father and children, and then pass away into the 
 new heavens, to dwell for ever with the Lord. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 FULLARTON ANT) MACNAB, PRINTERS, LEITH WALK. 
 
DISCOURSES AND SERVICES 
 
 OK OCCASION OP 
 
 THE DEATH 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 KEY. KALPH WAEDLAW, D.D. 
 
 A. FULLARTOtf AH) CO.: 
 
 LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN. 
 
 1854. 
 
 ONE SHILLING. 
 
LATEST WORK OF DR. WARDLAW. 
 
 In small Svo, price 4s. cloth, second edition, 
 
 ON MIRACLES: 
 
 BY RALPH WARDLAW, D.D. 
 
 " What sign showest thou, then, that we may see and believe thee ? 
 What dost thou work?" — The Jews to Jesus. 
 
 " The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me." — 
 " Though ye believe not me; believe the works."— Jesus to the Jews.' 
 
 A. FULLAKTON AND Co., 
 
 44 South Bridge, Edinburgh; 40 Union Street, Glasgow; 
 and 106 Newgate Street, London. 
 
On 
 

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