Proverbs 10:7; Psalm 37:37
The memory of the just is blessed.
Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): None of the saints ever affirmed that they had arrived to perfection, but have disclaimed it―such may be said to be perfect, that is, sincere, who have received the grace of God in truth, and have the truth and root of the matter in them; so Noah, Job, and others, are said to be perfect men; but not simply and absolutely in themselves, but as in Christ Jesus―by which they are justified from all sin, and are perfectly comely, and a perfection of beauty, through the comeliness of Christ put upon them.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): I would here offer a remark as to the word “perfect.” When Abraham was called upon to be “perfect,” in Genesis 17:1, it did not mean perfect in himself; for this he never was, and never could be. It simply, meant that he should be perfect as regards the object before his heart that his hopes and expectations were to be perfectly and undividedly centered in the “Almighty God.”
JOHN GILL: Though holiness is not perfect in this life, yet it will be in heaven; and there is a perfection of it in Christ—“Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.” Such a man now enjoys a conscience peace, which passes the understanding of worldly men; and which he possesses in Christ, and from Him, amidst a variety of tribulations, arising from a view of interest in His blood and righteousness; and, generally speaking, he goes off the stage of life, if not triumphing, yet resigned to the will of God, and in a serene and tranquil frame of spirit, and even desiring to be gone, and to be with Christ.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): You have heard of holy Edward Payson, the American Divine, a man who walked with God in his ministry―Have you ever read of the deathbed of Payson? I cannot describe it to you. It was like the flight of a seraph… His last expressions were weighty sermons.
GEORGE OFFOR (1787-1864): During the last days of that eminent man of God, he once said, “When I formerly read John Bunyan’s description of the Land of Beulah,* where the sun shines and the birds sing day and night, I used to doubt if there was such a place; but now my own experience has convinced me of it, and it infinitely transcends all my previous conceptions.”
JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): What a prelude of the celestial banquet must Payson have had, when he wrote the following letter to his sister.
EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): Were I to adopt Bunyan’s figurative language, I might date this letter from the land of Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant. The celestial city is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odours are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as He approached; and now He fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float like an insect in the sun beams, exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering, with unutterable wonder, why God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm. A single heart and a single tongue seem altogether inadequate to my desires—I need a whole heart for every separate emotion, and a whole tongue to express that emotion…
O, my sister, my sister! could you but know what awaits the Christian; could you know only so much as I know, you could not refrain from rejoicing, and even leaping for joy. Labours, trials, troubles, would be nothing—you would rejoice in afflictions, and glory in tribulations; and, like Paul and Silas, sing God’s praises in the darkest night, and in the deepest dungeon. You have known a little of my trials and conflicts, and know that they have been neither few nor small; and I hope this glorious termination of them will serve to strengthen your faith, and elevate your hope. And now, my dear, dear sister, farewell. Hold on your Christian course—but a few days longer, and you will meet in heaven, Your happy and affectionate brother, Edward.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES: His language, his conversation, and his whole deportment were such as brought home and fastened to the minds of his hearers the conviction, that he believed, and therefore he spoke. So important did he regard such a conviction in the attendants on his ministry, that he made it the topic of one of his addresses to his clerical brethren, which he entitled, “The importance of convincing our hearers that we believe what we preach.”
C. H. SPURGEON: I remember that Payson, an exceedingly earnest and useful man of God, once did an amazing thing. He had been holding inquiry meetings and great numbers had been saved. At last, one Sunday, he gave out that he would have a meeting on Monday night with those persons who did not desire to be saved—and, strange to say, some twenty persons came who did not wish to repent or believe.
EDWARD PAYSON: Looking back on my sermons, I often wonder that God should ever have blessed a soul through them.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES: During his ministry, his solicitude for the salvation of souls was so earnest, that Payson impaired his health by the frequency of his fastings and the importunity of his prayers.
C. H. SPURGEON: He was out one day with a brother minister who made a call at a lady’s house. The lady pressed them both to stay to tea. She was not a Christian woman, and Payson sat down and invoked the Divine blessing which he did in terms so sweet and full of holy unction that he impressed everybody. The lady waited upon him with great attention, and when he rose up to go, he said to her, “Madam, I thank you much for your great kindness to me, but how do you treat my Master?” A work of grace was worked in that lady by the question—she was brought to Jesus, and she opened her house for preaching—and a revival followed.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES: Payson carried with him into his sick chamber all his undiminished earnestness for the salvation of souls. He directed a label to be attached to his bosom when dead, with the words, “Remember the words which I have spoken unto you, while I was yet present with you,” that they might be read by all who came to look at his corpse, and by them, he being dead, yet spoke. The same words at the request of his people, were engraved on the plate of his coffin, and read by thousands on the day of his internment.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): When a holy man ceases to live among his fellows, his soul becomes an inhabitant of another world, and is joined to “the spirits of just men made perfect,” Hebrews 12:23.
___________________
*Editor’s Note: In John Bunyan’s allegorical Pilgrim’s Progress, the “Land of Beulah,” was a state of joy and peace experienced by a believer just prior to entering heaven, in anticipation of the delight and glory to come in communion with Jesus Christ; it is taken from Isaiah 62:4.
