Although our hearts may not have been so much engaged, nor our affections raised so high in love and gratitude to God as we could wish, and as has been the case on former occasions of this kind, in consequence of very numerous additions being made to the churches yet when we hear the generality of them say: "We are at peace among ourselves;" when we hear them lamenting and moaning over their own coldness, barrenness and unfruitfulness in religion, and at the same time expressing ardent desires to be led, guided, quickened, animated and protected in the way of holiness, we must acknowledge (however cold our hearts may feel) that these things ought to excite increasing gratitude and love to God from every son and daughter of Zion. Oh that God would prosper Zion and prosper us in her ways and love. In the sweat of his brow the husbandman tils his land, casts his seed into the ground, where for a short time it lies dead and buried, a dark and dreary winter succumbs, and all seems lost, but at the return of spring, universal nature revives and the once desolated fields are covered with grain, which when matured by the sun's heat, the reapers cut down, and it is brought home with shouts of joy. Here, O disciple of Jesus behold an emblem of thy present labor, and thy future reward, thou sowest perhaps in tears, thou doest thy duty amidst sickness, pain and sorrow, thou laborest in the church and no account seems to be made of thy labors no profit seems likely to arise from them. Nay, thou must thyself drop into the dust of death and all the storms of that winter pass over thee until thy form shall be finished, and thou shalt see corruption, yet the day is coming when thou shalt reap in joy, and plentiful will be that harvest, even complete redemption from sin death and hell. For thus your Lord and Master went forth weeping, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, bearing precious seed and sowing it around him, till at length his own body, like a grain of wheat, was buried in the furrow of the grave, but he arose and is now in heaven, from whence he will certainly come again rejoicing with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, bringing his sheaves with him. Then shall every man receive the fruit of his works and have praise of God.
MOSES SCOTT, Moderator
ABSALOM GRAVES, Clerk.
[From Northbend Baptist Association Minutes, 1819. Transcribed and formatted by Jim Duvall]
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