USA > Delaware > New Castle County > Wilmington > Centennial services of Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church, Wilmington, Delaware, October 13-20, 1889 > Part 4
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Can we imagine greater joy except with those who return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads ? Nehe- miah wished the people to appreciate their condition-"to eat the fat to drink the sweet, and send a portion unto them for whom nothing was prepared." He desired others to sympathize with the occasion and share in its delights. The day was holy unto the Lord and it forbade sorrow, and urged joy as their strength. With a like spirit this honored church of a hundred years, asks its friends far and near to rejoice with them and profit by the holy services of its first centen- nial. They would not eat their morsel alone. They rather say "Eat O friends and drink. Yea, drink abundantly. Magnify the Lord with us and let us exalt his name together."
Appropriating the language of the text to the child of God.
1. We shall endeavor to show that the joy of the Lord is the Christian's strength.
Joy is a delight of the mind to which men of the world are not
REV. JOHN A. ROCHE, D. D.,
Pastor of Asbury Methodist E, iscopal Church, 1851-53.
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strangers. It may arise from riches gained, from learning acquired, from stations reached and from influence at their command. This de- light may be largely of the animal spirits, or it may be mere mental buoyancy. It may be the joy of success, or of deliverance from danger; as men enjoy in time of harvest, or as when some great evil lias passed. But the text presents " the joy of the Lord." He is its source, its substance and its support. At one time it may be expressed as serenity and satisfaction. At other times it rises to transport. The inhabitants of the rock sing; they shout from the top of the mountain. Christian joy is rooted in faith, grounded in love and increased by exercise. "The Lord Jehovah is their strength and their song."
We sometimes say of a man he is strong in logic, or in eloquent speech. This man's strength is in grasping great principles and that man is strong in the administration of government. The strength of the athlete is in his muscle. The strength of the philosopher is in his mind. The strength of the millionaire is in his coffers. But the joy of the Lord is the strength of the Christian. He may be the scholar, the statesman, the man of wealth and of earthly power. But joy in God distinguishes him as an heir of heaven. He has the best cause for joy and its cultivation is both his duty and his interest. There is a joy of the world that from its origin and excess is followed by lassitude and depression. It re-acts. Not so the joy of the Lord.
Let us consider Divine joy as an element of power in Christian character.
1. As the highest inspiration to noble deeds. Of joy in general we may say it is an inspiration. Gloom enervates. A depressed spirit has enough to do to attend to its own sorrows. But the faculties of the mind, the passions of the heart and all the forces of nature respond to joy. It is the sunshine of the soul in which things appear in the best light, and all the fruits of the spirit ripen; even the dearest relations of life fail to exert their due influence when sadness is allowed. The parent, the companion, the child, each of whom should be happy in the relation subsisting, experiences none of the delights that should distinguish the place and condition.
In business life the wheels of commerce stand still when depression paralyzes. The mariner would make no voyage, and except in des- peration the soldier would fight no battle. An officer received orders from his superior to take a stronghold. He replied, "It is impossible." He was relieved. To another the commander said, "Take that fortifi- cation." The reply was, "I am unable." To a third was given the order. He saw the difficulty but answered, "It shall be done." He marched; 3
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he charged; he fought; it fell. The one was buoyant, the others depressed.
The sculpter had his ideal. Before him lay a rude mass of marble. What was in that block more than in many others in the same quarry ? He took his chisel; devoted his skill; labored in faith. The form, the features came out; the links, the chain, the manacles were revealed, and before an admiring world stood "The Greek Slave." The ideal was actualized and the voice of freedom was heard from lips of stone. It immortalized the artist who worked with cheer.
In art, in science, in literature, in government, in all the depart- ments of thought and action, joy is a power to be confessed. It kindles the imagination of the poet; it fires the heart of the patriot and causes the tongue of the statesman to flame with consuming eloquence.
If such is the influence of earthly joy, what shall we say of the "joy of the Lord?" It is more exalted in its origin, more intense in its action, more certain in its results. The soul under its power is ready, if not eager for any work. The young man hears God say, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel." One of observation sees he is exercised about his duty, and ventures to say, "Pause, you have talents that will distinguish you in law, in medicine, in commerce; your talents qualify you for the grandest spheres of human action." Talk to a rock ! you may as soon move it. Assure him of the estate of an Astor or a Vanderbilt; of the pre-eminence of a Webster or a Glad- stone; name to him all the difficulties of a Divine vocation. He is honored by fortune or favor, and the difficulties do (not deter him for a day. He says, "The Everlasting God is my portion, and they who turn many to rightousness, shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." Hear Melville B. Cox, Africa, is on his heart ! A friend says such a mission is certain death. "Then, replied he, "when I fall come over and write my epitaplı." "What shall I write, inquired he ? "Write, let a thousand fall before Africa is given up." He went! He fell! He rose! He lives the inspiration of the missionary of the cross.
What is it to-day that makes Bishop Taylor the grand man that he is on the Congo? A wonder of labor in advanced age! A hero in suffering and danger ! "The joy of the Lord is his strength." There is a young lady who has been reared and educated in the refine- ments and luxuries of one of the most distinguished families in New York City. The cause of missions stirs her. She married one of like mind and they go as missionaries to a distant and dangerous field. Her husband dies. With an infant she is left among a people whose only claim to her love is that they have souls. Her father wishes
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lier return to the comforts at home, but she remains and amid the pri- vations of her condition and place that she may do the work that her missions afford. What animates her? What sustains her ? It is the joy of doing good! This is a strength worthy the name. Behold the action of this element in the Apostle Paul. He is just converted. He had great and protracted sorrow. Now he has indiscribable gladness. Joy thrills him. Love to Christ consumes him. He cannot be re- strained in the exhibition of his zeal. Prudence might suggest, "Go up to Jerusalem to them that were Apostles before him " He would be like an angel flying with the everlasting Gospel to preach to men on earth. When Edward Taylor, the eloquent mariner's preacher of Boston, would describe a converted sailor in his haste to save sinners he said : "It was as if you had put spurs to lightning, that hardly had lie kindled the holy fire in one port before he was off to another to set it on blaze." We know how it was with Andrew. "He first findeth his brother and brought him to Jesus." This joy prompts the adoption of all means available to the Divine purpose. Time, talent, and treas- ures are at ready command. Paul shows this in the church (cor. viii: I) of Macedonia how that in a great trial of affliction, an abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For to their power, yea and beyond their power, they were willing of themselves. Praying us with much entreaty to receive the gift and minister to the saints. So now there are laymen who though they cannot be misionaries and ministers, give much of their time and talent and secular gain to the advancement of the cause of Christ, and who like Zaccheus are ready to give half their goods to feed the poor.
Joy in God makes a ready and cheerful offering. Nothing is diffi- cult to him who acts under its power. Who shall describe this joy in the first realization of the beauties and blessings of vital piety ? It sparkles in the eye, speaks in the voice, shines in the countenance and is itself a quiet demonstration of the influence of the good. Joy that is the highest inspiration of genius secures the subliniest manifestation of the saintly devotion, and affords the clearest evidence of its presence in strengthening and sustaining Christian character. Did not David show a just judgment when he said : "Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; then will I teach transgressors Thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto Thee ."
2. The joy of the Lord is a support of the Christian in the labor and trials to which he is called. As these are efforts that would never be put forth if the joy of the Lord did not impel them, so there are diffi- culties that we could not overcome if joy did not sustain us. The minister enters his study with the "burden of the Lord." The mis-
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sionary goes to his work with a knowledge that he lacks the success he seeks. The Bible reader, the Sabbath School teacher retires from the lesson and the class with the feeling that nothing seems to come from all this effort. The exhorter, the class leader, the laborer in God's vineyard, in whatever department, is tempted to say: "What good?" The tear falls; the heart aches. He enters his closet; "he prays to the Father." The soul struggles; faith reaches up; the hand grasps the arın of Jehovah and Omnipotence yields to importunity. A voice from the throne proclaims, "As a prince Thou hast power with God and hast prevailed." Now comes the sustaining power of holy joy. Behold Elijah when sorrow took him to the juniper tree and then God so feeds him that he goes on the strength of the meal for forty days.
Holy Samuel Rutherford, amid the imprisonment to which his preaching Christ subjected him, writes in his joy: "From Christ's Palace at Aberdeen." This joy in God sustained Francis Asbury on this peninsula in the season of his "dumb Sabbaths." when in the Revol- ution of 1776, he was pursued by those who did not comprehend his mission and character. This joy kept Freeborn: Garretson faithful to the ministry that he had received of the Lord, when in his native state he was beaten by his persecutors and left unconscious on the highway. And who can ever forget the joy of Paul and Silas, that gave them such songs in the night, when an earthquake shook the prison, and the jailer was made an heir of heaven ?
In whom can we find a fuller illustration of the sustaining power of Christian joy than in the Apostle to the Gentiles ? He declares "God has set forth us the Apostle, as it were appointed to death. We are made a spectacle unto the world, to angels and to men. Even unto the present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and have 110 certain dwelling place, and labor with our own hands. Being reviled we bless ; being persecuted we suffer ; being deformed we entreat. We are made as the filth and offscouring of all things unto this day."
Think of a man of such origin, education, endowments. Think of him of such capabilities of worldly distinction. Think of him as such an Apostle of Jesus Christ, and yet subjected to such contempt. Think of the extent of his labor, the character of his solicitude, and the fierceness of his persecutions. Take his own account: "In prisons frequent, in deaths oft, of the Jews five times received I forty strips save one! Thrice was I beaten of rods, once was I stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and a day have I been in the deep; in all kinds of perils;" in "waters" with "robbers;" with his own "country- men" and "heathens;" in the "city" and in the "wilderness, " and "among false brethren." Beside those that are without that which
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came upon him daily the care of all the churches. What unaided 111ortal could bear this with mental serenity ?
But amid these diverse and trying experiences, he maintained a courage, revealed a wisdom and achieved results to which God alone could make him equal. With a moral heroism that showed the real grandeur of the man when so sustained, as if disdaining the thoughit of cowardice, as if utterly superior to all thought of regret at his course, he eloquently declares, "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, that I might finish my course with joy. What orator, poet, philosopher, or divine, can tell the strength to labor or endure, of him whose "sufficiency is of God?" Only the infinite can gauge the soul that grace fills. The Lord alone can measure the depths and heights and breadths of that love that passeth knowledge.
We know that the Christian has tribulation as well as joy. But we have not forgotten the words of Him who said, "Ye now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice and your joy no man taketh from you." Thus in the past have the children of God been enabled to perform the most difficult service and withstand all the fiery darts of the devil.
There are those around us to-day who stand as the beaten anvil to the stroke, and the hammer will break, and the arm that wields it fall powerless before the soul shall yield to the strokes, though the heaviest that were ever given.
3. The joy of the Lord is our strengthi as a means of turning souls to Christ. Is there any thing in the Christian that attracts at- tention and awakens desire in those not saved like a cheerful and exultant spirit ? The desire of happiness is innate; one exclaims : "O, happiness, our being, end and aim." The rich seek it ; the poor long for it : the good have it. Dr. Samuel Johnson says: " The habit of looking on the bright side of things is worth a thousand pounds a year." The Scriptures declare a "merry heart doeth good like a medicine." May we not assume that the religion that does not invite by its benignity repels by its austerity ? Religion is supposed to make us at once good and happy. And we so present it. If in this it fail, we fail. A man was recommending his medicine for a particular dis- ease. The patient looked and said, "I perceive you have the same trouble; why does not your medicine cure you." It killed the cure. Joy is diffusive, and there associates with it a sweetness and suavity that admits no counterfeit. I had almost said there is in the very manners of some Christians a divine urbanity as unlike merely artificial courtesies as the sun's rays are unlike the beams of the
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11100n. "They saw the face of Stephen as it had been the face of an
angel." Paul tells of Nebuchadnezzar's wish to have some of the children of the captivity trained for superior wisdom and service. They should be fed with meat and wine from the king's table. They refused and asked only "pulse and water." After ten days they were examined and were fairer and fatter than those who ate at the king's table, and they were ten times wiser than all the magicians and astrol- ogers. Zach. viii : 23 speaks of ten men of all languages that shall take hold of him that is called a Jew, saying we will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. It is not the form but the spirit of religion that wins. Who will long prefer a bird of plumage to a bird of song ?
Joy was a distinguishing characteristic of carly Methodists. The witness of the spirit to adoption into the heavenly family and the earnest it gave of the inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not away, justified their highest expressions of delight. Lady Hastings, converted through Mr. Wesley's influence, declared to Lady Huntingdon : "Since I have known and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for life and salvation I have been as happy as an angel !" Such
an experience must win. It did in Asbury church in its earliest his- tory. It does to-day. In your graveyard and in your records may be found the names of some of the leading families of this State and through Delaware and this peninsula, Methodism in her first efforts was instrumental in the convertion of some of the most distingushed layman that have honored her history. The spirit she revealed won not only the poor and uneducated, but the rich and learned.
When Whitfield asked an unbeliever in Christianty what it was in his sermon that convinced him of the truth of religion? he replied "Nothing," but added "As I was passing from the church and old woinan was about to fall, I caught her; the look that she gave ine and the 'God bless you,' that she pronounced convinced me that she had something that I had not."
The truth is many Christians must either be strong in joy or in noth- ing. They are not strong in learning, in riches, in worldly fame or position. They can only say "What I am I am by the grace of God." What I am not by grace, I am not.
Two Christians I observed in my youth to be impressed by then. I marked the contrast in them : one sighed, the other shouted; one told by his life that grace is not gloom and sanctification is not sad- ness. It drew nie, won me.
On my first circuit there were two members of the charge who commanded me by their joyful spirit. They were a power! When
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they prayed the heavens bowed. When they spoke in love feast the assembly shook.
Who confesses not the power of sacred song ? Who that heard it in the united voices of the congregation that our Fathers addressed will doubt its benefits. It came from the holy joy that lifted the soul of the singer. This joy is the very thing that all want to make life happy, death welcome and heaven a thing of certitude.
The late Samuel Halsted, of New York, and a man of precious memory, as one of the most successful laymen in bringing souls to Christ, was in nothing more distinguished than in his ardent zeal, his cheerful spirit and his practical and earnest exhibition of what he called "good religion, " that made him happy in every place and service. The sight of him to many persons was a benediction.
He gave a narrative of two men who spoke in love feast. One was in a complaining mood. The preachers, the members, the times received his censure. To a warm meeting it was like a cold douche. The other man was in ecstasy and regretted that he who had just spoken lived in "Grumble street." He confessed that he was once there but he disliked it and left it. It was narrow and not clean and he had bad neighbors. Now he was living in Thanksgiving avenue and was delighted there. It was wide and clean. The air was pure, he had good neighbors and he was happy all the time.
Who that reads Christ's life does not see that though the world's moral woes were on Him, he carried joy wherever he went. He gave joy at the wedding feast; to the woman at the well; to Zaccheus who received him joyfully. to the two Disciples as they walked to Emmans. And in his presence children by the wayside shouted Hosanna.
Do not facts justify us in saying with Dr. Young, "Retire and read thy Bible to be gay."
There is a moral gaity that grace induces. There is that exhil- arates more than wine. Peter defended the disciples of. Pentecost against the charge of drunkeness, by quoting from the Propliet Joel, in relation to the pouring out of the spirit in the latter days. These days we see. Will it then be deemed harsh to say "'Tis impious in a good inan to be sad."
Would that we could be properly impressed with the fact that the Christian and the church that fail in the joyful prosecution of our work, denies to the world one of the most influential means of bringing it to God.
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4. The joy of the Lord is our strength in the conquest of our final foe.
Death is before us ; it meets us in every avenue of life. It comes under all circumstances and in many forms. To human nature it is an event of perpetual revulsion. The old as well as the young, the poor as well as the rich would shun it. It is the King of Terrors and the terror of kings; but there is no discharge in this war. "We must needs die." But how shall we meet death ? With nothing but manly courage ; with nothing but human philosophy ? Will it be enough to say "The sword devours one as well as another ?" Will the death of the many change the death of the individual ? Alone I must meet God; alone I must be judged. If David Hume joked as deatlı approached did it prove exemption from fear ? His levity not less than anothers gravity, was a recognition of that which he would fain dis- guise. The affectation meant apprehension.
Men brave in battle cower in the sick room. Behold the sinner as he faces death. His anxiety increases the solicitude of his friends. What will they do? Will they enumerate his social, domestic and political virtues ? Will they tell the orator of his eloquence in the senate, or the financier of the skill by which he saved the credit of a tottering government ; or will they emphasize the unequalled wealth of him that is about to depart ?
Would not the dying man say, "Miserable comforters are ye! I amlı entering a world where these things do not avail?" This is true. The wreaths of earthly immortality wither before the tomb. Famie has no voice in the silence of the sepulchre, and flattery cannot soothe the dull cold ear of death.
Now is wanted what the dying inan has not.
If God has made it possible for a departing soul to triumph over death, then that which he has provided is a boon worthy of universal and profoundest gratitude. Grace in the heart, through the death of Christ, and by faith in His blood is the death of death; the funeral of our sorrows. Here where unaided human reason fails, where philos- ophy hangs down its head, and skepticism carps no more, religion wins her brightest trophies and reveals its sovereign power. In yield- ing the ghost the Christian is more than conqueror.
Bunyan represents the pilgrims as entering the land of Beulah; the air is sweet and pleasant; the birds sing; the flowers appear, and the voice of the turtles is heard in the land; the sun is shining night
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and day : they are out of the reach of "Giant Despair," and cannot so much as see "Doubting Castle." They are in sight of the city, but there is a river and there is no bridge over it. All save Enoch and Elijah have had to cross this river. Doubt makes Christian sink ; joy makes Hopeful brave. One is troubled with apparitions, hobgoblins, and evil spirits, but Hopeful says, "I feel the bottom." Christian in his doubting has a fainting fit, but when he believes "the enemy is as still as a stone;" they see the shining ones enter heaven and are safe.
So have I seen a saint go up to God; Glory filled the room and she said, "The angels had come;" with them she went and left us. Is there not strength in such joy of the Lord ? Hear Paul when martyrdom was before him :
"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 righteous- ness, that the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me in that day, and not to me only, but to all them also who love his appearing." Joy to the last, and culminating joy in the final conflict. Yes. yes, " the joy of the Lord is our strength, and the more we have, the stronger we are to do, to suffer, or to die.
Who wonders then that such fact should inspire the genius of even Alexander Pope to write :
"Vital spark of heavenly flame. Quit, O quit this mortal frame, Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying ; O the pain, the bliss of dying ! Cease fond nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life. Hark ? they whisper ; Angels say.
"Sister spirit come away !" What is this absorbs mne quite
Steals my senses, shuts my sight, Drowns my spirit, draws my breath ! Tell me, my soul. Can this be Death ?
The World recedes-it disappears ;
Heaven opens in my eyes, my ears ! With sounds seraphic ring.
Lend, lend, your wings ! I mount ! I fly !
O grave where is thy victory !
O death where is thy sting ?"
Is this dying? O this is beginning to live with grander capabilities
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and for a higher realm. Call this transport ! beatitude! call it the gate of heaven, with much of heaven in it !
People of Asbury ! honored members of the charge of a hundred years ! we cordially congratulate you in your history. You have no cause to bluslı at your origin or to be ashamed of your record. The temple where you worship perpetuates the memory of "The Apostolic Bishop " of earliest Methodisin. No church in the denomination can boast of nobler names than those of your first pastors. Yours was the ministry of Ezekiel Cooper, distinguished for logic, illustra- tion and strength; of John Emory, afterwards Bishop, and one of the ablest 111en that this country has produced ; of Lawrence McCoomb, the Boanerges of the Conference ; of Solomon Sharp, the colloquial, the expository and the patriarchal ; of Lawrence Laurenson, who rose to the heights of impassioned eloquence ; of the pathetic and search- ing Henry White ; of the courteous and fascinating John Kennedy ; of the majestic Matthew .Sorin, and of the seraphic Joseph Lybrand. These are a few of the men of the first half century. All these I per- sonally knew. Of those who have filled your pulpit in the second half century, some of you know as well as the speaker.
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