Literary remains of Rev. Dr. Floy

Preface

Soon after the decease of the lamented author of the following pages, his papers and literary remains were put into the hands of the writer for examination and decision as to the use to be made of them. The papers were generally in good order, but as they had not been prepared for publication by their author, they were found for the most part unavailable for that purpose. It was Dr. Floy's habit to write only as occasions required, either for the press or the pulpit ; and though he wrote much for the latter, very few of his sermons were written out in full. A large amount of carefully prepared outlines are among his manuscripts ; but though, to such as were favored with hearing the full discourses, these would help to recall the pleasure experienced when they were listened to, to all others, on account of their fragmentary character, they would be comparatively of little worth.

Had it been within the range of the plan of these volumes, there is no doubt that these skeleton outlines might have been rendered useful to a class of readers as models and studies for sermons. They possess in an unusual degree the properties of unity and completeness, and ure at once comprehensive and perspicuous. In looking upon them one cannot but regret that so much real value must die with the hand and head and heart that produced them. Could only these outlines be filled up as their author was accustomed to do it in the pulpit, the world would not let them die.

The specimens of Old Testament biography, now presented to the public in a complete volume, were prepared by their author and delivered from his pulpit in the form of lectures — chiefly on Sabbath evenings. To their preparation he devoted a large share of patient labor and research. These lectures were carefully and accurately written out, and the form in which they are here given is almost precisely the same with that in which he left them. Their design, as will be readily seen, is something higher than simply to give interest to the subject. Their author's notions of the sanctity of the sacred word, and of the duty of the pulpit, impelled him in delineating the characters of the older dispensation to set forth and enforce the doctrines and duties of the new. These sketches, though made with too high a reverence for divine truth to allow them to be adorned with merely imaginative beauties, are nevertheless beautiful for their simplicity, their truthfulness, and their evident naturalness. In reading them we are brought into communion with those worthies of the olden times, but less in their external surroundings than in their interior spirit, and especially in regard to their relations to those great religious verities to transmit which to us is the great purpose of the Bible. In giving these to the public, the editor has had little more to do than to dispose them in their order and see them passed through the press. Though unpretending in form, and without any of those startling novelties of style and composition by which a transient popularity is sometimes gained, it is believed that this volume will be favorably received by an appreciating public, and that, wherever used, it will afford both profit and pleasure. If it shall tend to create a stronger love for the sacred Scriptures, it is quite certain that nothing would better accord with the spirit in which it was written.

The sermons here given were for the most part prepared for particular occasions. Only that class of his discourses were usually written out by their author, and hence in preparing to give specimens of his sermons, the editor was shut up to that class of discourses. As occasional sermons, no apology is needed for them ; and as expositions and defenses of their author's convictions upon great and vital questions, they are highly valuable. They, however, fail properly to characterize their author's general style of pulpit discussions, which was eminently evangelical in matter, and direct and ardent in manner. It is matter of much regret with his surviving friends, that so many of the pungent and earnest discourses that gave character to his ministry are now entirely beyond recovery. They are found in outlines among his manuscripts, but only his own heart and hand could possibly present them in their original power and excellence.

The Reviews and Essays here given have been selected from those published at various times during their author's lifetime. They are given as specimens of his methods of thinking and writing, and also as possessing such intrinsic value as justifies their preservation in this permanent form. Those selected are perhaps neither better nor worse than many others that might have been chosen ; but it is believed they will be found to possess such qualities of purity of style, elevation of thought, and wholesomeness of moral and religious sentiment, as will commend them to the approval of all those whose approbation would have been coveted by him who wrote them. Others of this class of his productions, differing somewhat in style from any of these, would have been presented but for the narrow limits necessarily assigned to this department of these volumes. As it is, little more than specimens of various subjects and styles could be inserted,

While occupied with his sad and yet grateful duty, the editor has been impressed with the evidence of the simple and unhesitating nature of the faith of his author, as displayed in his literary remains. Doubts and painful misgivings are sometimes spoken of as the necessary exercises of thoughtful minds occupied with the great truths of religion. But to that rule, if a rule it is, Dr. Floy was evidently an exception. The faith that was taught him at his mother's knee, and wrought into his spirit with the lessons of childhood, seems never to have failed him. He was a freethinker without skepticism, a bold inquirer without profanity in either thought or feeling. He was accordingly prepared to accept in their simple truthfulness the narratives of the Old Testament, to defend the plenary inspiration of the sacred volume, and to defend the supernatural character of the work of the Spirit in the human heart. Others may affect wisdom in these things ; he was content to be as a little child in them.

Very often, too, has the editor found cause to regret that one so capable of lasting usefulness in that department had not devoted himself more largely to authorship. In his culture, learning, and aptitude for writing, he possessed all the requisites for a successful author; while his power of mental analysis, fruitfulness of ideas, and force of argumentation, would have supplied the needed matter. What is here given are only occasional effusions ; valuable and often striking, but always less elaborate and profound than their author was capable of producing. With the abilities indicated in these occasional pieces steadily and earnestly devoted to the higher walks of literary life, his eminent success would have been not at all doubtful, and the world would have been enriched by what would have been written. These specimens of our author's productions are presented in this form with a dedication rather to surviving friends and admirers than to the great public ; not, however, because those only can profit by them, nor that the criticism of these need be especially feared.

Contents

PAGE

MEMOIR 11

L Halleluiah 41

I. Halleluiah

AND I HEARD AS IT WERE THE VOICE OF A GREAT MULTITUDE, AND AS THE VOICE OF MANY WATERS, AND AS THE VOICE OF. MIGHTY THUN- DERINGS, SAYING, ALLELUIA, FOR THE LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT REIGN-

eth. — Rev. xix, 6.

Halleluiah ! a word very properly left untranslated ; a word indigenous to heaven, and brought down from the vocabulary of angels and incorporated into the various dialects of men. It means, praise Jehovah, offer unto God thanksgiving. The Psalmist David delighted in the word. Not satisfied with praising God himself with uttering his own halleluiah, he calls upon the hosts of heaven to unite with him : " Praise him ye angels that excel in strength, ye ministers of his that do his pleasure." He invites his fellow-men of every rank ; kings and princes, young men and maidens, old men and children, in every way, by voice, and organs, and cymbals, and trumpets, to join the loud halleluiah to the God of heaven. He summons the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the monsters of the deep, creeping things and flying fowl, yea, everything that hath

SEKMONS.

breath, to praise the Lord. Nor does he stop here. He invites inanimate nature to join the chorus. "Praise him, ye sun and moon. Praise him, all ye stars of light. Fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind fulfilling his word : mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars." The text may be considered as the acceptance of the Psalmist's invitation. Let us listen to the pealing chorus of the universal anthem, nay, also join in it, and with heart and voice say " Halleluiah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth ! "

That we may understandingly thus unite, let us consider, as specified in the text,

I. These attributes of Jehovah. The Lord God omnipotent ; and,

II. The extent of his dominion. He reigneth.

I. 1. Yery expressive is the common interpretation of our English word Lord. It means in the original Saxon, bread, or a bread-giver ; and, said the incarnate word, God manifest in the flesh, " I am the bread of life." Again, sa;fs he, " The bread of heaven is he who cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world." How expressive the designation to him who is the unfailing fountain of all blessings ; he who has a supply for the wants of all his creatures, who openeth his hand and satisfieth the desire of every living thing. " Giving doth not impoverish him ;" and the inexhaustibleness of his storehouse was exemplified when with a few loaves he fed the multitude, and in his hands the bread increased as he broke and divided it among them.

HALLELUIAH.

2. He is the Lord God. God also is a pure Saxon word, and means, good, the good being, goodness itself. As Lord, he possesses everything requisite for the welfare of his creatures ; as God, or the good being, we rest assured that he will dispense liberally. As in the former case Jesus Christ claimed the title of bread-giver, so in this, when one called him good master, he replied, " Why callest thou me good ? there is none good but one, that is, God." As if he had said, Mean you by this appellation to allow my claims to supreme divinity ? God and goodness are one ; and he who in the language of the apostle went about doing good, exemplified thereby his supreme divinity.

3. The last of the titles given to Jehovah in the text is the omnipotent, the Lord God omnipotent. In other words the almighty, the possessor of unlimited power. Very inadequate is the idea that we can form of omnipotence. We know something of power and strength, but what of strength that is almighty, of power that is unlimited ? " He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth." " What a power," says an eloquent writer, " what a power must that be which at one and the same moment works in every vegetable and animal system in this great world, which upholds, quickens, and invigorates every mind, and at the same moment acts in the same efficacious manner in every part of the solar system and of all the other systems that compose the universe ! a power that is at work every moment ill every pari: of this vast whole, moves every atom, expands every leaf, finishes

SERMONS.

every blade of grass, erects every tree, conducts every particle of vapor, every drop of rain, and every flake of snow ; guides every ray of light, breathes in every wind, thunders in every storm, wings the lightnings, pours the streams and rivers, empties the volcano, heaves the ocean and shakes the globe." So too, I pray you mark it, when the world's Redeemer had conquered death, he appeared leading captivity captive among his wondering disciples, and expressly laid claim to this attribute. " All power," said he, " is given unto me in heaven and in earth." Such, then, is the character of Jehovah, as indicated by the language of the text ; such the attributes of the great Governor of the universe. It follows, therefore, that his government is one of benevolence and stability ; of benevolence because he is good, the good being ; and of stability because of his unlimited power. While, on the one hand, therefore, it follows that all his laws must be designed to promote the welfare of his creatures, and that all his acts, however mysterious, are the result of infinite benevolence, it is equally clear on the other that all his laws-will be executed, that he will do all his pleasure. Equally evident is it, also, that Jesus Christ is the supreme governor here spoken of, that he is the source of all blessing, the good being, the Lord God omnipotent !

II. Let us turn our thoughts, then, to the extent of his dominion. This is made a reason for ascribing unto him praise and thanksgiving ; it is halleluiah for or because the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. The

HALLELUIAH.

idea is that of a kingdom ; and although, properly speaking, the kingdoms are but one, for our own convenience we may consider it in a fourfold point of view. We may view him as reigning over the kingdom of nature, the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of providence, and the kingdom of glory.

1. The kingdom of nature includes what is called the natural world with the material creation and all the workmanship of his hands. Over them all he reigneth; their provider, their governor, their king.

(1.) From the lion, the monarch of the woods, all through the intermediate gradations down to the little beetle that we tread upon ; from the eagle that gazes wdth an undimmed eye upon the sun in his meridian glory to the sparrow upon the housetop, not one of whom is forgotten by him ; from the leviathan that lashes the ocean into foam, down to the little gnat that buzzes in the breeze, and the scarce visible insect, whose world is a drop of water and whose span of life is bounded by an hour ; by him were they each individually called into being, by him are their returning wants supplied. Their birth, the cir cumstances of their life, their death, alike proclaim, as with one united voice, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

(2.) Jtarn from the animal world to the material creation. Look at the planets, and stars, and systems that gem the blue canopy above us. From the sun, faint emblem of his own glory, to the furthest and most minute of those remote orbs whose light, though traveling at an inconceivable velocity, has not yet reached the confines of our globe, he not only " tell-

SERMONS.

etli their number, but he calleth them all by their names." And as they revolve in their unwearied orbits, they proclaim his power and attest his government.

(3.) Or walk forth into the fields and behold God's handiwork on every side and beneath your feet. The towering cedar, the majestic oak, the waving willow, unite in expressive silence in speaking his praises. He causeth the grass to grow, and he clothes the smiling fields with corn. His hand paints the lily, he causeth the violet to exhale its perfume. From them all, he who has a soul may hear the anthem, " Halleluiah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."

(4.) Or leave the earth and view the majestic ocean, image of his own immensity, now calm and unruffled like an unbounded sea of liquid glass, and now lashed into fury and threatening to engulf and destroy every living thing, to swallow up the whole surface of the earth, and apparently withheld only by a shore of level sand. But there is another and a mightier barrier, the voice of the Lord God omnipotent, who hath said, and the ocean heard him speak, " Hitherto shalt thou come but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." The roaring of his billows, mingling with the dashing of the cataract, is but the deep bass of the wiiversal anthem.

(5.) Heard ye the thunder ? Saw ye the flashing of the vivid lightning, when it seemed as if all nature were about to be enveloped in its primeval chaos ? Fear it not. They too are under the government of the same Jehovah. It is the God of glory who thundereth : he calleth the lightnings, and they say, Here we are.

2. In the kingdom of providence we see the same truth. This relates more particularly to the last of God's creation, to man in his individual and collective capacity. God's sovereignty is seen in the birth, in the life, in the death of every individual.

(1.) In his birth, so far as regards his parentage, the time when and the place where he commences his career.

One is the descendant of a king, and royalty with all its gorgeousness awaits him from his very entrance upon the stage of action. Another is doomed to drag out a life of toil, to tremble at the frown of a fellowworm because in the wisdom of God his parents were in bondage. One is born to wealth, another to poverty. One awakes, first, to consciousness amid the voice of prayer and the melody of thanksgiving ; the first sounds his ear drinks in are halleluiahs to the God of heaven. His parents praise their maker, and, almost unconsciously, his young lips follow, their example. Another is the child of vice. Oaths and curses and blasphemy are the lullaby of his infancy, and he is made familiar with almost every species of crime from the first dawn of reason. To the supreme Disposer of all events all may say with equal propriety,* in the language of the sacred writer, " Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect ; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

In God's providential government the time of each individual's birth attests the same truth. Myriads finished their probation in the early history of the world ; in that twilight age, before the flood swept away the ungodly, when they reckoned their years by centuries. Since then, one generation has succeeded another. The world has been sometimes shrouded in thick darkness ; again a faint glimmering of light has dawned upon her horizon ; at the present day, by science and Christianity, she is partially illuminated, and the time is coming when the glory of God shall lighten it to its remotest extremities. In each of these periods have lived, and shall live, immortal beings like ourselves, destined to tarry a season here, and then to wing away to another state of existence. It cannot be denied that some periods have been more and others less favorable for the settlement of the important question, " Shall I my everlasting days with fiends or angels spend ?" But God allotteth to each time and season as seemeth good in his sight.

So, too, the place of nativity is decided by the will of God. One draws his first breath in the wilderness, another in the little village, and again another in the center of the crowded city. Some in those regions where the blackness of paganism broods over the inhabitants ; others where is erected the throne of idolatry, and where custom consigns many to death in the waters of the Ganges, or beneath the bloody car of the idol Juggernaut ; while to us birth has been given amid the purest light that has ever gladdened our earth from the star of Bethlehem. To attribute these differences to chance is rank atheism. There

HALLELUIAH.

is no such thing as chance, for " the Lord God omnipotent reigneth," and by him even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

(2.) The same truth is seen if we turn our thoughts to the circumstances attendant on the life of every individual. " O Lord," said the prophet, " I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps and the history of every individual attests the truth of the same sentiment. In looking back upon the circumstances of life, and the apparently trivial causes which have combined to place you in your present position, how truly may you say, " the Lord hath led me by a way that I knew not." How clearly, then, in surveying the lives of the millions of our fellow-creatures, each of whom may adopt the same language, is seen the truth of the declaration in the text, " the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."

(3.) The closing scene of each individual's history, the time, the circumstances, and the manner of his death, display the same truth. There, death visits the cradle of the infant, and with gentle breath kisses away his life ; another little one, of the same age too, is handled roughly, and blackens and stiffens in convulsions. There again, w T hen the first perils of infancy are passed, and the lips are rejoicing in the strange mystery of speech, death comes and quenches ruthlessly the flame of intellect, and dims forever the eye of genius. One passes on until he arrives at manhood, and is just beginning to enjoy life ; that he should die is perhaps the last thing in the thoughta

of those who love him.. And yet the news is true,

SERMONS.

and often, O how often, is the heart of the living parent buried in the coffin of the dead child. Many a bereaved David takes up the lamentation of the royal father, and exclaims in the bitterness of his soul, " Would to God that I had died for thee, my son, my son ! " Suddenly, in the very midst of his usefulness, God calleth away the father and the husband, and the pall of sadness is thrown around his dwelling-place, and the sanctuary is shrouded in gloom at the recollection of his efforts in the cause of piety and truth ; while others, of apparently little use to their fellow-men, and sometimes even a positive injury, live on until the machine wears out, and there are none to weep for them, or to shed a tear at the close of their long and useless life.

3. But especially in the kingdom of grace is seen the sovereignty of the great Jehovah. When the world had revolted universally from the government of God and men were sunk in gross idolatry, it pleased him to select one family and with them to establish his covenant. They had light in their dwellings while all around was darkness. To them he made his promises ; he declared that he would be their God, and that they should be his people. Accordingly he displayed among them his paternal goodness, and made known such displays of his glory as no other people had ever witnessed. "Happy wert thou, O Israel: who was like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help and the sword of thy excellency." Very explicitly and very frequently did God declare unto them that it was not for any goodness on their part that they had thus been selected from the nations of

HALLELUIAH.

the earth. " Understand, therefore," said he, " that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness ; for thou art a stiff-necked people." God gave it them in the exercise of his own good pleasure, and the only answer that can be given to the question, "Why were they selected ? must be given in the language of Christ himself on another occasion, " Even so, father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." We see the same thing in his selection of the spot where in the fullness of time God was manifest in the flesh,' in the period selected for the incarnation of the world's redeemer, and in the selection of the first twelve who were to publish the glad tidings of salvation. In the kingdom of his grace, everywhere, from that day to the present, is visible also the fact that "the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Large portions of the earth are yet in darkness, and even to-day myriads are living and dying in the region of the valley of the shadow of death. How long, O Lord God Almighty, how long ! O send forth thy light and thy truth, and in answer to the prayer taught by thyself to thy people, " thy kingdom come." Still, too, as evidently as in the selection of prophets and apostles is seen his sovereignty in the selection of those who are called to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. From those, in many instances, whom the world deems the most unlikely, does he choose and send forth his ministers. Talent and genius and intellect are frequently passed by, and everywhere is he teaching the world that men cannot make a minister ; that it is his province to give the anointing and to touch the lips

SERMONS.

with fire. While thus he is giving evidence that in the kingdom of grace "the Lord God omnipotent reigneth," he has made it the duty of his people to pray the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into his harvest, laborers that may break up the fallow ground and sow the seed. And what marvel if, as when the Son of man himself sowed it, some fall by the wayside, and some in stony places, and some among thorns ; there is a hope, a blessed assurance, that some shall fall in good ground, and by his blessing bring forth fruit to his glory.

4. But it is in the kingdom of glory, in that upper world, where are congregated around his throne the angelic hosts and the first born sons of light, that his supremacy is seen in the highest perfection, and the wisdom, power, and goodness of God are exhibited in the most vivid light. There swells longest and loudest the pealing anthem, Halleluiah. This arises from the fact that the inhabitants of heaven know more of God and his designs than can possibly be understood by us who dwell upon his footstool. "While to us, in many of his dispensations, clouds and darkness are round about him, they see by the light of his own effulgent glory that justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne. What we see through a glass darkly and know but in part, they see even as they are seen and know even as they are known. To us is visible but a small part of the intermediate links of the chain that binds his government in one entire and harmonious uniformity ; they are enabled to gaze upon his wondrous works from the beginning, to behold visibly what to us is matter

HALLELUIAH.

of faith and revelation, how all things are working together for good to them who love God ; and how everything strange and mysterious as it may appear to us, is tending to the advancement of his own glory. They were with him when he stretched the North over the empty space, and hung the earth upon nothing. They sang together and shouted for joy when the Creator's last day's work was done, when man appeared in the likeness and image of his God. And when, in the exercise of his unbounded mercy, the Redeemer was about to visit our earth that he might seek and save that which was lost, they winged their flight to the hill country of Judea and announced his birth to the astonished shepherds : they attended upon his steps throughout his career of suffering and sorrow. In the garden of Gethsemane angels came and ministered unto him ; angels rejoice when the object of those sufferings is accomplished and the sinner repenteth ; they are sent forth as ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation ; and in all the displays of his sovereignty in the kingdoms of nature, of providence, and of grace, they offer unceasingly the voice of praise and thanksgiving.

But it is not until the final consummation of all terrestrial things that the language of the text shall receive its full and complete accomplishment. When the kingdom of nature is destroyed, and that of providence has been fulfilled, and that of grace is ended ; when the throne of his glory is erected ; when the angels have been sent upon their last embassy, and have gathered the elect from the four winds of heaven ; when by the light of God's countenance

SERMONS.

all darkness is dispelled ; when what once appeared and what now appears unfathomably mysterious has been made perfectly plain ; when the universe shall see how the wrath of man has been made to praise him, how rapine and fraud, injustice and oppression, have been overruled for the glory of the Lord God omnipotent ; when by that light are seen his goodness and his justice even in the horrors of famine, the raging pestilence, and the devastations of the earthquake ; when every heart shall feel that he hath done all things well, as it sees the glorious solution of the dark enigma of public calamity and domestic sorrow and private grief, then from the countless multitude which no man can number shall peal through the concave of heaven, loud as the voice of many waters, and loud as the voice of mighty thunderings, " Halleluiah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."