ORATION

AT THE

Funeral of Mrs Martha Hope,

At the General Cemetery, Low Hill, Liverpool, February 1, 1825; by the Rev Moses Fisher. Being the first interment in that place. The Address was delivered in the Chapel erected on the Premises for the Accommodation of Mourners.

AFTER Jacob had slept on a pillow stones, he awoke out of sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not, and he was afraid, and he said, How dreadful is this place, this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate if heaven; and he called the name of that place Bethel. But this house may be called Bochim, the place of weeping; many mourners will enter this house; here the pathetic exclamation will be heard in sighs and tears, Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance late darkness. Here the husband will mourn for the wife, and wife for the husband; the brother for the sister, and the sister for the brother; here the child will mourn for the parent, and say, alas, my father! my father! and many a parent will say with Jacob, I am bereaved of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and Benjamin is likely to be taken away. And it will be well if many a parent does not here take up the lamentation of David, and say, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom; would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!

I perceive that you are affected with the solemn scene before you. But you have not reason to sorrow as those who have no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

Of all the scenes of common life, there is none more affecting and instructive than the funeral of a friend. We read in scripture of solemn and mournful funerals; Abraham buried his beloved Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, in the field which he purchased of Ephron, in the presence of the sons of Heth, for a burying-place. Moses, the servant of the Lord, died in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. Devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. Our Lord himself was buried with some degree of ceremony, and as many of his friends followed him as had courage to attend on the solemn occasion.

There is a respect due to the body of a Christian, as the temple wherein God has been served and honoured. It is designed to be rebuilt in another world, and it ought not to be disregarded in this.

A capacious and respectable cemetery, situated a suitable distance from a city or town, where the remains of departed relatives and friends many lie undisturbed; and where persons of all circumstances, and all denominations, may be accommodated with decent burial, is highly desirable; especially where the neighbourhood is populous, and is rapidly increasing; and it would be well if all those who take care to provide burying-places for their bodies after death, were as careful about a resting place for their souls.

This Cemetery may be considered as the depôt of Death; where the last enemy will deposit the trophies of his victories; and where his victories, in a series of years, will probably exceed the number of the slain on the plains of Waterloo. This earth will become incorporated with human dust; this soil will be fattened with bodies once pampered with every luxury; here the worm will take up its abode in the socket of the eye, and will riot on human marrow. this will be the last lodging of many whom we have highly esteemed and loved; the long home to which they will be brought, and the mourners will go about the streets.

But this shall not always be the repository of the dead. NO; Marvel not as this, the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation.

Our departed friend died in the faith and hope of the gospel. She was an honourable member of the particular Baptist Church meeting in Byrom-street Chapel, Liverpool, for two-and-twenty years. She regularly filled up her place in the church as long as health and strength would admit, and remained inviolable in her attachment to the truth, and to the prosperity of the Christian society to which she belonged, to her latest breath: she was not given to change. Her conduct and deportment were uniformly consistent and exemplary; her closet and her Bible were witnesses of her secret devotion. She was kind and benevolent, but unostentatious; and many of her acts of charity will not be known till that day when Christ will say, Insomuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my bretheren, ye have done it unto me. She felt a lively interest in the prosperity of religious and charitable institutions, and was usefully employed in the neighbourhood, in those societies in which it it the province of ladies to preside. Her life was a quiet, even course of piety and prudence, truly ornamental to her Christian profession. She withdrew from the observation of mortals, and endeavoured to approve herself in the sight of God.

Her illness was long and painful, but she bore it with Christian fortitude, meekness, and patience. She said but little, but her life had spoken by her decision of character, and the uprightness of her conduct. She renounced all dependence on human merit; her trust and dependence was alone on the atonement and righteousness of Jesus Christ. She committed her soul and her eternal concerns into the hands of Christ, persuaded that he is able to keep that which she had committed to him against that day. She once expressed a fear lest her confidence was too strong; but her dependence was placed on Christ, and her hope did not make her ashamed. She had no dread of death; in the near view of eternity she said, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. She repeated the following lines:

"Alone on awful Jordan's banks I stand,

Waiting for convoy to the happy land.

A weary pilgrim, tir'd of all below;

To heavenly bliss and joy I long to go."

Her life was honourable, and her death happy, and we have no doubt her spirit is no waiting with the spirits of just men made perfect, in ascribing blessing, and glory, and power, to him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever.

To the surviving relatives I would say, Follow the deceased, as she followed Christ. Be ye not slothful, but be ye followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Listen to the admonitions of scripture, and of Providence; prepare to meet your God. Be ye, therefore, ready also: arise and depart, for this is not your rest; work whilst it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

Let me remind this numerous assembly of the certainty of death. Surely those persons who have prepared this spacious Cemetery, must believe in the doctrine of human mortality; but, alas, how few live as if they believe they must die. But death is certain. It is appointed to man once to die, death is the way of all the earth; the grave is the house appointed for all the living. And what are the immediate consequences of death? The scriptures measure us, when dissolution takes place, the body returns to dust whence it was taken, and the spirit returns to God who gave it, and shall be for ever happy in the smiles of his countenance, or everlastingly miserable, in a state of entire separation from him. The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Here let us impartially examine the state of our souls. That we are sinners we must confess. That God is the governor of the world, we cannot deny; and that he is a righteous governor is equally clear; and, therefore, he must be just, and manifest his justice is punishing disobedience, either in the person of the criminal, or in that of a substitute.

Now, it is one main design of the gospel, to reveal a substitute for the guilty, who, by obeying and suffering in their stead, delivers them from the wrath to come. Yes, in the doctrines of salvation, Jesus Christ is exhibited a propitiation, through faith in his blood. To demonstrate the justice of God, in the punishment of sin, and to display the mercy of God in pardoning the guilty; an interest, therefore, in the atonement of Christ is essential to our happiness. For, without the shedding of blood in sacrifice, there is no remission of any offences; and without faith in that blood, there is no remission for us. He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

This solemn providence admonishes the careless to consider their latter end. Are any of you dreaming of long life, and the pleasures of years to come? Unhappy mortals! your lives are wasting, and fatal disease awaits you. Death is at hand, and the graves are ready for you! Your immortal souls must quickly enter the invisible state; and to you eternity will soon disclose its awful secrets. An everlasting heaven, or an eternal hell, may have received your separate spirits before to-morrow's dawn.

It is high time to awake out of sleep, and to cry for mercy. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the day of provocation. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

The 15th chapter of the 1st Corinthians was then read, and solemn prayer offered up to God.

The corpse being deposited in the tomb, the service was conducted in the following manner.

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear sister here departed, we therefore commit her body to the ground, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the workings whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me. I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, thou he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of an archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord; wherefore comfort one another with these words.

The grace if our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy ghost, be with you all. Amen.

NB Mrs Martha Hope, sister to Mr William Hope, departed this life in the seventy-second year of his age. Her death was improved by her pastor on Lord's-day, February 13, at the chapel in Byrom-street from Revelations xxii 20: "HE which testifieth these things, saith, Surely I come quickly, Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus.

At the request of the Committee of the Cemetery, the Rev Dr Raffles delivered an appropriate address at the opening of the ground.

THE BAPTIST MAGAZINE Volume XVII ( May 1825)