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النشر الإلكتروني

IX.

The best Remembrance of removed

Pastors.

PREACHED AT ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL, Bedford Row,

ON SUNDAY MORNING, NOV. 7, 1824.

AFTER THE REMOVAL OF THEIR LATE MINISTER TO THE VICARAGE OF ISLINGTON;

AND PREVIOUS TO THE ARRIVAL OF THEIR
PRESENT MINISTER.

THE BEST REMEMBRANCE

OF

REMOVED PASTORS.

HEBREWS xiii. 7, 8.

Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation,—Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, und to-day, and for ever.

IN a former chapter of this epistle, we find St. Paul adverting to the interruption occasioned to the Levitical priesthood, by the mortality of man. And they, truly, were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. If real believers, we can, indeed, rejoice in the unchangeable priesthood of our Divine Redeemer, to which the next verses refer:

But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

But, however uninterrupted the ministry of the Great Shepherd and Bishop of souls, it cannot be denied, that the undershepherds of the flock have, here, no continuing city. Death, year by year, makes its inroads upon the Church of God, and sweeps away many of the faithful labourers in the word and doctrine. Our fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever? No. All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.

Nor is it only under the stroke of death, that the Church derives support from such passages as this. There are other supposable cases, in which they may be peculiarly consoling. The minister under whom our souls had been benefited; to whose instructions we delighted to listen from year to year; who warned us of our dangers,

and comforted us under our sorrows; who told us how we ought to walk, and please God. And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me. Such a servant of Christ may be laid aside by bodily indisposition for months together. Our eyes may no longer see our accustomed teacher. We may be called to weep in his sorrows, who had often helped us to bear our own; and to pray for him, who had so often prayed for us.

But we may suppose another case. A Christian Minister may be just able to resume some small measure of pastoral duty, when the Great Shepherd may think fit to appoint him to watch over another fold, that he may, there, gather the lambs in his arms, and feed the flock of God, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. Such are supposable cases. More I dare not say in this place. Though many, now present, may be disposed to regard them as matters of fact rather than of supposition.

Under such circumstances, is it inquired,

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