Sermon,

PREACHED IN THE

PARISH CHURCH OF ST. PAUL'S, DEPTFORD,

ON SUNDAY, MAY 7, 1786.

ON THE

LAMENTED OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF

RICHARD CONYERS, LL. D.

LATE RECTOR OF THAT PARISH.

Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing.

[FIRST PRINTED IN 1786.]

MATT. xxiv. 46.

TO THE

CHURCH WARDENS AND PARISHIONERS

OF

SAINT PAUL'S DEPTFORD,

THIS SERMON IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,

BY THE

AUTHOR

ON THE DEATH OF DR. CONYERS.

THESSALONIANS, ii. 8.

So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted wo you, not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear

unto us.

An active, undaunted zeal in the service of God, and a peculiar tenderness of affection towards his people, were happily and eminently combined in the character of St. Paul. The latter appears in none of his writings to greater advantage than in this epistle, and particularly in this chapter. He had been made very useful to the Thessalonians, and was greatly beloved by them. Many of them had received the Gospel which he preached, not in word only, but in power; and were effectually turned, by grace, from dead idols, to serve the living and the true God.* They likewise were very dear to him; and, being now at a distance from them he writes to confirm their faith and hope, to animate and direct their conduct. And he takes many occasions of reminding them of the peculiar regard he has borne them from the first, and how near they still were to his heart; that his love for them, which had sweetened all his labours and sufferings when he was among them, made him still solicitous for their welfare, and enabled him to rejoice on their account, while he was suffering bonds and imprisonment at Rome.

The verse I have read is one passage, out of many in the New Testament, where our translation does not fully come up to the spirit and beauty of the original. Not that it is unfaithful or Faulty; it is chiefly owing to the difference of the languages, I believe we have no single word in the English tongue to express the energy of the Greek term which he uses in the beginning of the verse; and therefore our translators have employed two,t "Being affectionately desirous of you." It denotes a desire connected with the finest and most tender feelings of the heart; not like the degrading, selfish desire of the miser for gold; but such an emotion, (according to his own beautiful illustration in the preceding verse,) as that with which the nurse, the mother while a nurse, contemplates her own child. Being thus disposed fowards you, "we were willing;" but the Greek is more

* 1 Thess. i. 5, VOL. III.

9.

† Ιμειρομενοι.
69

* Ευδοκιμών.

emphatical-We esteemed it our pleasure, our joy, the very height of our wishes, to impart unto you the Gospel of God," to put you into our own place, to communicate to you, by the Gospel, all that comfort, and strength, and joyful hope, which we have received from it ourselves. Yea, further, to have imparted to you "our own souls also; that is to devote our whole strength, time, and study, to this very end, to spend and be spent for you, and to be ready to seal our testimony with our blood, if this were needful to your establishment, "because ye were dear unto us,* exceedingly dear unto us." The same word is used, (for the language of mortals will not afford a stronger,) Matth. iii. 17. "This is my beloved Son."

son.

When I thought of preaching to you this day, and of mingling my tears with yours, the occasion suggested the choice I have made of a text; and the countenances of many of you convince me that I have not made an improper choice. Another congregation might have been led, from what I have already said, to sympathise with the Thessalonians, in what they must have felt when they were deprived of such a minister and friend; but your minds are engaged by a sense of your own loss. You have reaYou acknowledge and feel, that if I wished (as I certainly did) to select a text which might, while you heard it, strongly impress your minds with the idea of my dear friend, your late pastor, and recall to your remembrance his principles, actions, motives, and aims; how he spoke and how he lived among you, I could hardly have found a passage in the whole Scripture more directly suited to my purpose. I believe no minister in the present age, nor, perhaps, in any past age since the apostles' days, could have a better warrant than Dr. Conyers to adopt these words of St. Paul, as expressive of his own spirit and character. He had a very tender affection for you. It was his earnest desire, and his great delight, to impart unto you the Gospel of God, because you were dear to him; and it may be said of him, with peculiar propriety, that in this service of love, he imparted to you his own soul, or life, also. You have not forgotten, surely you never can forget, the very solemn and affecting manner in which his ministry among you closed. Whether, while he was reading the apostle's farewell discourse to the elders of the church of Ephesus, which occurred in the second lesson for the day, he had a presage that you should see his face no more, we know not. Had he been certain of it, he could not have taken your consciences more earnestly to witness, that he was clear of your blood, and that he had not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. However, the event

* Αγαπητοι.

*

Acts, xx. 18-35.