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built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, (and we trust you shall still be taught,) abounding therein with thanksgiving. Be deeply humbled this day that you profited no more under the former means which you were blessed withal, and endeavor to do better for the time to come. Let such as are in their early time, be persuaded to remember their Creator; and let such as are qualified for special ordinances, and as yet have not attended their duty, make haste and delay no longer, as to their coming to the same: and let those who have for some time (it may be long) enjoyed those ordinances, see to it that they flourish in the courts of God, that they bring forth fruit in old age. Oh! how will this rejoice the faithful ministers of Christ, to see their people walking in the truth; when sinners are converted, and converts are edified and built up under our ministry, what greater joy and comfort can we have in this world? And these will be matter of joy and rejoicing to their faithful ministers in the day of Christ so the apostle tells his Philippians, it is the argument he uses to influence them to a holy and blameless life, Chap. ii. 15, 16. "That ye may be blameless and harmless, as the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain." And how does he express his esteem of his Thessalonians, and benefit he expected from them? 1 Thess. ii. 19, 20. "For what is our hope or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and joy." Oh! that it might be thus as to all our people, and the Lord grant that it may be thus as to you of Bristol in particular. AMEN and AMEN!

A Sermon, delivered at the Thursday Lecture in Boston, May 2, 1723, and entitled, "A Good Character, or a Walk with God Characterized, with some Dues paid unto the Memory of Mr. Joseph Belcher, the late Reverend and Excellent Pastor of Dedham, who expired April 27, 1723," concludes with the following paragraphs:

But for our more particular and effectual application of what has been thus insisted on, I have a sorrowful invitation to introduce a very eminently righteous, and sincere and singular servant of God, and walker with him, who hath shone among us as the moon among the lesser lamps, and to exhibit his bright example before

you.

Antiquity gave that gloss upon the order to the prophet, "Lift up thy voice like a trumpet." Why like a trumpet, rather than like the thunder? Because for a trumpet, the hand as well as the mouth is applied in the using of it.

We have had an excellent preacher of a walk with God, who was an excellent pattern of what he preached unto us: God has newly taken to himself one who walked with him; one who lived what he spoke, who did what he taught, and was a walker in the path of the righteous, as well as a preacher of righteousness; and so, one who lifts up his voice like a trumpet, in calling us to that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.

We are commanded, "Remember them who have spoken to you the word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation." And if we now remember the never-to-beforgotten JOSEPH BELCHER, and follow him in that walk with God; whereof he did more than speak to us from the word of God; and be encouraged by the hope in his death, and the comfortable resignation and serenity which we saw in the end of his conversation; it will be no more than what the commandment of our God has called us to.

Our Saviour having told us, "If any man serve me, him will my Father honor," the honor which we pay to the memory of one worthy to be had in everlasting remembrance, who expended the best spirits of his life, yea, shortened it by being so expensive of them, in the service of that glorious Lord, is to do a work agreeable to his eternal Father; yea it is a work in which the

intention of the Father has part of its accomplishment it is part of the honor intended for him.

If any are of the opinion that the laudable characters given of our departed friends are sometimes misplaced, or sometimes overdone to a degree which is the painting of a dead face, and very much defeats the end that characters are to be given upon, there is not one honest man in the world that will be able truly to charge either of the faults on that which I am now giving, of a man of whom I may say what we read of another, "He hath a good report of all men, and of the truth itself." I will therefore not fear to add,

"We will bear witness of him, and ye know that our witness is true." Such an exemplary walker with God as ought not to go away without the lamentations of our Israel, is come to the period of his pilgrimage. But how short a pilgrimage! Despatched in as few years as there are Sabbaths in a year! A burning and a shining light that must be for no longer a season rejoiced in. To say much in a little on such a subject, and say nothing but what every body must own to be true, is the true stroke of credible panegyric, and the right point of steering, which I shall now keep unto. Briefly then; every body will own the truth of my testimony, when I testify, that my deceased brother was one who deserved all that he received, and it was more than a little that he received of praise in all our churches.

Considered as a Christian, he was a tree of righteousness that had all the fruits of the Holy Spirit, growing with a charming verdure upon him. A very fruitful, watchful, prayerful Christian, and one of those whereof, alas, how few are left! Even as the "shaking of an olive-tree, and the gleaning of grapes, when the vintage is over!" One of the holy set that so lessens every day among us, and the withdraw whereof with so little succession to it, threatens a very dreadful change upon us, and is one of the tokens which they who dwell in the wilderness may tremble at !

But among the articles of his piety, very conspicuous was the well-governed speech, and the management of the helm, with which he very much prevented what in the computation of the ancients, makes half the sins of our lives. He spoke so little, and what he spoke had such a guard upon it, and he had such an evident aversion for evil speaking, generally choosing to speak nothing of them who could not have much good spoken of them, that I may truly say, to speak with the tongue of men and angels, (men possessed by angels,) were not a glory equal with that of having a tongue under such an holy regulation.

A gentlemanly temper and carriage, with a sweetness of disposition which was a varnish upon these virtues in him, added yet more lustre unto them, and unto the praises of Him who enriched him and adorned him with them.

Considered as a preacher, he was greatly admired and followed, and his "doctrine dropping as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass," was always entertained with satisfaction. He fed us not with jejune, much less with stolen sermons; but with well-studied composures, which discovered the diligence of one sensible what a King he stood before. And yet with what a modest, and what an humble self-diffidence did he decline all public appearances, but what he was in some sort compelled unto !

Considered as a pastor, how faithfully, how painfully, how patiently did he feed the whole flock whereof he was the overseer! With what self-denial did he adhere to them under strong temptations to have embraced greater opportunities! One would think it impossible for any one mouth to open against a shepherd of so much goodness! If any did, his worst word upon it was, "Father, forgive them!"

Certainly, in Dedham there is now to be seen the threshingfloor of Atad. If we do not lay it to heart when such men are taken away, it will be a sad sign, that they are taken away from the evil to come. Nay, in their being taken away, there is much evil already come. We lose, how much of our beauty, and our safety! Such a loss, how hardly, how rarely to be repaired! Such teachers being removed into the silent corners of the grave, where the eyes that have seen them, shall see them no more: the people in that very thing have an adversity and an affliction of the worst kind given unto them, and spiritual plagues, which are judgments of the worst kind, are scattered in such dispensations. They that were not brought home to God, or made but a mean proficiency in godliness, while the day of grace in such a ministry was lengthened out unto them, are in danger of that awful doom, "never let any good fruit be found upon them!"

I do not think, as they that are vainly dismayed at the signs of heaven do, that the eclipses on the luminaries there, carry any omens with them, on which we may make our divinations; but yet I will so far come into the Jewish observation, as to say, that when we see eclipsed by mortality such luminaries, as we are this day mourning for, Malum Signum est Mundo, it is ominous of a dark time growing upon us.

O! may our glorious Head at the right hand of God, look down upon the feeble state of his churches in the wilderness! May he raise up witnesses to his cause and kingdom, that shall tread in the steps of their pious predecessors! May he give us to see Elijah's mantle in its operations, and bring down the hearts of the fathers into the children, and incline the hearts of the children to be such as were in their fathers!

AN

ELEGY

UPON THE MUCH LAMENTED DECEASE OF THE REVEREND AND EXCELLENT

MR. JOSEPH BELCHER,

Late faithful Pastor of the Church of Christ in Dedham, N. E. Qui Obiit, April 27, Anno Dom. 1723. Etat. Sum 53.

THE name of BELCHER long has bless'd the State

With heroes in succession good and great:
And bless'd the Church too, with a radiant star,
A man of GOD, an angel-tutelar.

The sin, we must arraign, and not the doom,
That brings our saints and heroes to the tomb;
Adore the sovereign grace, (when they remove,)
That takes their souls to the blest seats above.
Darker than midnight, is this day's eclipse:
We flow in tears upon the dying lips;
The lips, that did with heavenly nectar flow,
And every
Sabbath bless the church below.
Such as God honors, we should honor too;
And view their death as a presage of wo:

May Heav'n avert it! Such may be distressed,

Whom th' shines for thirty years have not impressed.

Yet bless we CHRIST, that we may not complain
And say, his faithful labors were in vain :

By this bless'd instrument, this heavenly guide,
Many converted, many edified.

Bred in the eagle's nest and taught to fly,

Travers'd the circle of philosophy;

Thirsty of arts, he many an Helicon

Drank up, as thirsty stars drink up the sun,

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