Deathbed Exercises and Speeches of Thomas Halyburton
Deathbed exercises and speeches of the Rev. Thomas Halyburton.
TTAVING in a former chapter given an account of Halyburlon’s conversion, written by himself in mature age, it will be gratifying to the pious reader to learn how he ended his course and how his religion sustained him in the last trying conflict. And here, as in the case of Rivet, much opportunity was given to this holy man to leave behind him an ample testimony of the preciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the power of divine grace to support and comfort the true believer even in the pangs of dissolution. When first seized with mortal sickness, he experienced, for a while, a terrible conflict in which he was afraid that his faith would fail; but his God was merciful and faithful to his promises and came to his relief. To one who came to see him he said, “I have a great conflict, and my faith is like to fail. Oh that I may be kept now in this last trial that is ensuing from being an offence to God and his people!” When some of his brethren came to see him he said, “I am but young, and have but little experience, but this deathbed now makes me old, and therefore I use the freedom to exhort you to faithfulness in the Lord’s work. You will never repent this. He is a good Master; I have always found him so. If I had a thousand lives, I would think them all too little to employ in his service.” But for several days he was under a cloud and his spiritual joys had deserted him; and when a friend came in he said, “Oh what a terrible conflict I had yesterday! but now I can say, ‘I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith.’ Now he has filled my mouth with a new song. ‘Jehovah-jireh, in the mount of the Lord.’ Praise, praise is comely for the upright. Shortly 1 shall get a different view of God from what I have ever had, and shall be more qualified to praise him than ever. Oh the thoughts of an incarnate God are sweet and ravishing! And how do I wonder at myself that I do not love him more! Oh that I could honour him! What a wonder that I enjoy so much composure under all my bodily trouble and in view of approaching death! Oh what a mercy that I have the use of ray rea-I son till I have declared his goodness untj me!” To his wife he said, “He came to me in the third watch of the night, walking upon the waters, and he said unto me, ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I was dead and am alive, and live for evermore, and have the keys of hell and death, ‘He stilleth the tempest, and oh there is a sweet calm in my soul.’” To one who requested him to be careful of his health, he replied, “I’ll strive to last as long as I can, and I’ll get my rest ere it be long. I have no more to do with time but carefully to measure it out for the glory of God.” Then he said, “I shall see my Redeemer stand on the earth at the last day; but I hope to see him before that, the Lamb in the midst of the throne. Oh it will be a beautiful company! — ‘The spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant. Oh for grace, grace, to be patient to the end!’” When one said, “Keep the light of the window from him,” he said, “Truly light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun — the Sun of Righteousness. Oh glorious light, when the Lamb is the light of the temple! We cannot have a conception o ’ it now — eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,” etc.
Seeing his youngest child, he caused them to bring her to him, and said, “Mary, my dear, the Lord bless you! The God of your father and of my father bless you! The God that fed me all my life, the Angel that redeemed me from all evil, bless you and the rest, and be your portion! That is a goodly heritage, better than if I had crowns and sceptres to leave you. My child, I received you from him and I give you to him again.” To his wife he said, “Encourage yourself in the Lord. He will keep you; even though you come into enemies’ hands, surely he will cause the enemy to treat you well.” He then declared his willingness to part with his dearest relatives, and said, “For this is the practical part of religion, to make use of it when we come to the strait. This is a lesson of practical divinity.”
When the physician came in he addressed him in the following solemn and pungent language: “Doctor, as to this piece of work you are nearly at an end with it. I wish you to lay it to heart — death will come to your door also. And it is a business of great moment to die like a Christian, and it is a rare thing. Christ himself has told QS that there are few that shall be saved, even among them who are outwardly called. I wish the Lord himself may show you kindness. The greatest kindness I am now capable of showing you is to recommend serious religion to you. There is a reality in religion, doctor, but this is an age that hath lost the sense of it. ‘He has not said to the house of Jacob, Seek ye my face in vain.’ Atheists will one day see whether it be so or not. I bless God that I was educated by godly parents in the principles of the Church of Scotland. I bless him that when I came to riper years I did, on mature deliberation, make these principles my choice. I bless the Lord I have been helped ever since to adhere to them without wavering. I bless him that I have seen that holiness yields peace and comfort in prosperity and adversity. What should I seek more or desire more to give me evidence of the reality of religion? Therefore I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. I am so far from altering my thoughts of religion by reason of the present contempt thrown on it and opposition made to it that these things endear it the more to me.” After much more of the same kind he said, “Well, doctor, the Lord be with you and persuade you to be in earnest. I return you thanks for your attention.” After a pause he proceeded: “Every one that is in Christ Jesus must be a new creature: he must have union with Christ and a new nature. That is the groundwork of religion. The Christian religion is little understood by the most of us. Oh the gospel of Christ! how purely was it preached in this place when I was at the university! though I found not the sweetness of it at that time as I have found it since. It has fallen on me like showers on the mown grass. Verily there is a reality in religion. Few have lively impressions of it. Now get acquaintance with God. The little acquaintance I have had with God these two days has more than ten thousand times repaid the pains I have in all my life taken about religion. It is a good thing to have God to go to when we are turning our face to the wall. * He is known for a refuge in the palaces of Zion, a very present help in trouble.’ Oh there is a strange hardness in the heart of man!”
To his children, he said, “My children, I have nothing to say to you but that ye be seekers of God. Fulfill my joy. Alas! that I was so long in beginning to seek God! and yet I was touched with convictions that God was seeking me before I arrived at the years of s(Mne of you.” To his eldest daughter he said: “Margaret, you seem sometimes to have convictions: beware of them — they are the most dangerous things you ever meddled with; for although you may seek not God, every one of them is God’s messenger; and if you despise God’s messenger, he will be avenged on you. My dear, seek the Lord and be your mother’s comfort.”
He requested that the one hundreth and thirty-eighth of Mr. Rutherford’s letters should be read to him, and then said, “This is a book I would recommend to you all; there is more practical religion in that letter than in some large volumes.”
When the three ministers of the place came to see him, he addressed them with great fidelity and affection: “Dear brethren, it is not from any confidence in myself, but out of a sincere love to you, and from what I myself have experienced, that for your encouragement I presume to say when the Lord helped me to diligence in studying and meditating I found him then remarkably shining upon me and testifying his apjDrobation of a sincere mind. There is nothing to be had with a slack hand.” And to one of them who had recently entered tie minis! ry: “Your entry into the ministry is likely to fall on an evil day; but there is one thing for your encouragement — you have a call. The times will make hard work for you in this place; but that which makes your work the harder is, that the people are hardened under a long course of pure gospel ordinances. However, be faithful and God will strengthen his own work. I will not say that you will get things brought to the state you would desire; but I’ll tell you I have one thought, and I’ll abide by it — “if ministers will ply their work, though they cannot bring sinners to the Lord, they may make their consciences that a prophet has been among them speak for the Lord, whether they will or not.”
“Now, brethren, give diligence — hold fast what ye have. I must say a word unto my brethren; it is on my heart. I am young, but I am near the end of my life, and that makes me old. It becomes me to take advice from you; however, 1 only wish to exhort you to diligence in the common salvation. I repent I did no more, but I have peace in reflecting that what I did I did sincerely. He accepts of the mite. It was the delight of my heart to preach the gospel, and it made me sometimes neglect a frail body. I ever thought if I could contribute to the saving of a soul, it would be to me a star, a crown, a glorious crown. I know this was the thing that I aimed at; I desired to decrease, that the Bridegroom might increase, and to be nothing, that he might be all; and I rejoice in his exaltation.” To two ministers who came from the country, he said,” Brethren, we have need to take care, with the great apostle, lest when we have preached Christ to others we ourselves should be castaways. We have need to fear lest it be so. Happy is the man that feareth always. Be diligent in preaching the gospel: let it be your care not only to be diligent in composing sermons, but, above all, to scan your own hearts, to enable you to dive into consciences, to awaken hypocrites and to separate the precious from the vile; and to do it with such accuracy as not to make sad the hearts of those whom God would have made glad. The great point in religion and in the management of your ministry is, that you may obtain the testimony of the Great Shepherd when he shall appear. As to the work of the ministry, it was my delight and my deliberate choice; and were my days lengthened out much more, and the times as troublesome as they are likely t :> be, I would rather be a contemned minister of God than the greatest prince on earth.
I preached the gospel of Christ with pleasure, and loved it, for my own soul’s salvation was upon it; and since I lay down I have not changed my thoughts about it. I commend it to you all to double your diligence. There may be hard conflicts; you have a prospect of difficulties between you and the grave. We all appear good when untried, but we have need to have on the whole armour of God, to watch and be sober.”
To his successor in the parish which he had served before he came to the university, he said, “I have this to say as to my congregation — that the people were my choice. With much peace and pleasure I preached as I could — though not as I should — the gospel of Jesus Christ. Though in all things I own myself to have sinned exceedingly before the Lord, yet I have the consolation that I anxiously aimed at leading them to the Lord Jesus, and another foundation can no man lay. I hope you will build on that same foundation, for, as you will in that way save your own soul, so it is the way to save them that hear you. From experience 1 can say that the pursuing this sincerely is the way of salvation. Signify to them that if it please the Lord to take me away, I die rejoicing in the iUth and in the profession of what I preached to them under a low state of body, and that without this I could have no comfort. I would have my people understand that the gospel which I recommended to them if not received will be a witness against them.” His successor remarked, “I am persuaded you have seals to your ministry in that parish.” He answered, “We are like our Master, set for the fall and rising again of many, though we can do no more; if we are faithful, they shall know that a prophet has been among them.”
Mr. Halyburton conversed much with his friends, and most of his discourses have been preserved, but we have only room for a small part of what he uttered on his deathbed. A specimen, however, will serve to show the spirit of the man and the state of his mind as well as the whole. There are still some of his dying speeches so excellent that I cannot think that their insertion will appear tedious to the pious reader. But besides his discourses with his friends and visitors, he drew up a paper in the form of a last will or testimony, in which he gives at large his views of doctrine and worship. The whole of this paper is highly worthy of attention, but we can only insert the followino extract:
“Everything in God’s way and in his word is glorious, honourable and like himself. He needs none of our testimonies, but it is the least that we can do to signify our wishes to have his praises celebrated. And I, being so many ways obliged, take this solemn occasion to acknowledge, before I leave the world, these among my other innumerable obligations; and I desire to bequeath this as my last, best legacy to my family, even my serious and solemn advice that they should make choice of God for their God. He has been my father’s God, the God both of my wife’s predecessors and mine; and he has been, we hope, our God; and T recommend him to my children for their God; solemnly charging them, even all of them, as they will be answerable on the great day, to make it their first care to seek after peace with God and reconciliation through Christ crucified; and, being reconciled, to make it their constant care to please him in all things. I beseech them with all the bowels of a father, as they love their souls, that they sit not down short of a saving acquaintance with him; that they wait diligently upon the means of grace and attend the worship of God in all duties, especially secret and family duties, and that they carefully attend public ordinances. Beware of contenting yourselves with the mere form of these duties, but cry to the Lord for communion with him in them, and for the outpouring of the Spirit, whereby ye may be enabled to worship God, who is a Spirit, in spirit. It is my charge to you, and that in which I am more concerned than in anything relating to yon, that you follow him fully, without turning to the right hand or to the left. In this way I dare promise you blessedness. If you follow this way, I do bless you all, and pray that He who blesses and they are blessed may bless you all. I have, often as I could, devoted all of you to God; and there is nothing I have so much at heart as that ye may indeed be the Lord’s. And if ye turn aside from this way, I would have this be a standing witness against you in the day of the Lord. Oh that God himself, by his grace, may, in a day of his power, determine your tender hearts to seek him early, for then will he be a good portion unto you!”
When some people came in to see him he said, “For these fourteen or fifteen years I have been studying the promises, but I have seen more of the book of God this night than in all that time. Oh the wisdom that is laid up in the book of God! I know a great deal that comes from a dying man will go for canting and raving, but I bless God that he has preserved to me the little judgment that I had, and I have been enabled with composure to reflect on his dealing with me. I am sober and composed if I ever was so. And whether men will hear or forbear, this is my testimony. The operations of the Spirit of God are ridiculed in this day, but if we take away the operations and influences of the Spirit of God in religion, I know not what is left. He promised the Spirit to lead us into all truth. Oh that this generation would awake to seek after the quickening influences of the Spirit! Oh for a day of the down-pouring of the Spirit from on high in a work of conversion! — for such a day as that when the Spirit of God efiectually reached our fathers and brought forth great men, and caused others to be conquered by them! * The residue of the Spirit is with him.’”
The state of the Church was much on his mind, and he was greatly concerned for Scotland, lest a dry, formal and merely rational religion should prevail; of which he saw some symptoms. He expressed also strong apprehensions that the judgments of God were about to be inflicted on his country. The welfare of his pupils also engaged much of Lis attention. He often expressed a desire to have them around him, that he might give them one practical lecture from his deathbed. But as this could not be done, it being vacation, he dictated a letter to the students of theology, in which he gives them solemn and useful advice. He recommended to them the perusal of the writings of the great Dr. Owen, but immediately added, “But the Word of God, in dependence on the Spn-it of God, must be your study and meditation day and night. Words cannot express what I have found of God since I came to this bed of languishing. I am bold to recommend to you this work as the most noble, honourable and advantageous you can be employed in. And I am this day sure, from experience, that it is better to serve the Lord in the gospel of his Son than to serve the greatest princes on earth in the highest station. If God help you in this service, the reward is too great to be expressed. My thoughts, my words are swallowed up, antl my affection toward you is such that my body would quite sink to speak what IS m my heart of love to you, and desire to have you acquainted with my dearest Lord, to whom I was always deeply obliged, but am now so much indebted that I fear to mention ho«. good he has been to ray soul. Oh choose him — cleave to hiin — serve him — study to know him more and more — live in communion with him. Never rest until you reach eternal communion with him. I have desired my brother-in-law to sign this in my name. I wish nothing more than that when you have done much service to the Church here, I may have the happiness of hearing you approved by the Great Shepherd.”
As his disease was pulmonary consumption, he lasted long and retained the uninterrupted exercise of his reason, and after the first severe conflict, of which mention has been made, he enjoyed peace and joy without intermission, and manifested in various ways, and particularly by his heavenly discourse, the power of divine grace and the eminence of that faith in Christ by which he was so remarkably sup])orted to the end. He lost no opportunity of seeking to benefit all who approached him, and often addressed himself to his wife and children individually in the most tender and earnest manner. And as many ministers came to see him, he exercised great fidelity in his solemn exhortations to them to be diligent and faithful in the work of the Lord. At length the powers of nature were exhausted, and for some days he was in a dying state. Among his last words were, “Free grace, free grace — not unto me.” And when his speech had utterly failed, when one said, “I hope you are encouraging yourself in the Lord,” he lifted up his hands and clapped them.