“I know I am not able to paint out your great grief and sorrow for the loss of such a wife, of such a child, of such a sister. I wish that this piece may not make the wound to bleed afresh.
I could heartily wish that you and all others concerned in this sad loss, were more taken up in minding the happy exchange that she has made, than with your present loss.
She has exchanged earth for heaven, a wilderness for a paradise, a prison for a palace, a house made with hands for one eternal in the heavens, (2 Cor. 5:1-2).
She has exchanged imperfection for perfection, sighing for singing, mourning for rejoicing, prayers for praises, the society of sinful mortals for the company of God, Christ, angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, (Heb. 12:22–24).
She has exchanged an imperfect transient enjoyment of God for a more clear, full, perfect, and permanent enjoyment of God.
She has exchanged pain for ease, sickness for health, a bed of weakness for a bed of spices, a complete blessedness.
She has exchanged her brass for silver, her counters for gold, and her earthly contentments for heavenly enjoyments.
And as I desire that one of your eyes may be fixed upon her happiness, I desire that the other of your eyes may be fixed upon Christ’s fullness.
Though your brook be dried up, yet Christ the fountain of light, life, love, grace, glory, comfort, joy, goodness, sweetness, and satisfaction is still at hand, and always full and flowing, yea, overflowing, (John 1:16; Col. 1:19; 2:3).
As the worth and value of many pieces of silver is contracted in one piece of gold, so all the sweetness, all the goodness, all the excellencies that are in husbands, wives, children, friends, are contracted in Christ.
Yes, all the whole volume of perfections which is spread through heaven and earth, is epitomized in Christ.
‘Ipse unus erit tibi omnia, quia in ipso uno bono, bona sunt omnia,’ saith Augustine: ‘one Christ will be to thee instead of all things else, because in Him are all good things to be found.’
Dear friends, what wisdom, what knowledge, what love, what tenderness, what sweetness, what goodness did you observe and find in this deceased and now glorified saint, that is not eminently, that is not perfectly, to be enjoyed in Christ?
And if so, why do not you bear up sweetly and cheerfully, and let the world know, and let friends see, that though you have lost her corporally, yet you enjoy her spiritually in Jesus?
The apostle Paul was so much taken with Christ, that He was ever in his thoughts, always near his heart, and ever upon his tongue.
He names him sixteen or seventeen times in one chapter, 1 Cor. 1.
Now, oh that your hearts and thoughts were thus busied about Christ, and taken up with Christ, and with those treasures of wisdom, knowledge, grace, goodness, sweetness, that are in Him.
This would very much allay your grief and sorrow, and keep your hearts quiet and silent before the Lord.”
–Thomas Brooks, A String of Pearls: A Funeral Sermon, in The Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 1, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1866/1980), 1: 401-402.
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