Chapter II: The Decease by Which His Work Has Been Terminated

The apostle Peter, whilst engaged in his labours, and whilst declaring the manner in which he would endeavour to pursue them, says, “Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me”—and by so saying, he probably refers to the prediction which had been addressed to him by Christ, and which John has recorded in the last chapter of his gospel. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thine hands and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God.” The decease which was thus foretold, and which the apostle anticipated in our text, was soon afterwards realized. The earthly house of his tabernacle was dissolved amidst the pains of martyrdom, and he entered a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. A similar event has now befallen your beloved pastor. The putting off his tabernacle had long been the subject of his anticipation; it is now become the subject of his experience. His body has returned to the dust whence it was taken, and his spirit is gone to God who gave it.

His decease had been mercifully preceded by a long life of health and labour, and more than sixty-six years had elapsed from his birth to his departure. Some of the former of those years were connected with occasional attacks of sickness, which sometimes led him to expect an early grave; so that at the time of his ordination, upwards of forty years ago, he said to his father, “you are come to ordain a dying man”—and subsequently to that period, he was once visited with a severe and alarming illness. Nor is it improbable that these occasional admonitions of his mortality were the means, under the blessing of God, of producing much of that seriousness of spirit by which his mind was pervaded. Still, his was a life of comparative health, and when I visited him during the week in which he died, he told me that, till then, he had not been kept out of his pulpit by illness for a single sabbath, during a period of twenty-eight years. His last illness, as you are aware, was confined to one short week. It commenced on the evening of Saturday, August 25th, and concluded in his death, on the evening of the Saturday following—yet it is probable that the fever which at last consumed him, had, for some time previously, been accumulating its exhausting fires. His illness was so short, and of such a nature, as to afford scarcely any opportunities of conversation with him in order to ascertain the state of his mind—indeed those around him little expected that death was so near at hand. This, however, is a circumstance on which we reflect with no feelings of anxiety. His soul, and all its eternal interests, had long been committed to the Saviour. For him to live had been Christ; for him to die was gain. During nearly twelve hours before his departure, he was apparently inattentive to every surrounding object. His body and his mind seemed to be in a state of perfect peace. Not a word was spoken—not a limb stirred—not a symptom of pain appeared. The tide of life gently and silently ebbed away, till at length his breathing ceased, and his countenance faded into the paleness of death,

Calm and unruffled as a summer’s sea,
When not a breath of wind flies o’er its surface.

To himself—“thanks be to God who gave him the victory”—death was preceded by no terrors, and accompanied by no sting. Its bitterness was past before it was tasted, and he felt “the bliss” without “the pain of dying.” It has indeed terminated his labours, which he pursued with deep and increasing interest and delight. It has terminated his accustomed intercourse with earthly scenes and earthly friends. It has terminated a life to which he naturally and instinctively clung. But it has not terminated the existence of his spirit, nor its communion with God, nor its conformity to his image, nor its joy in the light of his countenance. Oh, no! He is absent from the body, but he is present with the Lord. He is gone to the spirits of the just made perfect. He has renewed his communion with many of the members of his church, which death had for a while suspended. He is with Watts, and Doddridge, and Fuller, and Ward, and Hall, and “the general assembly and church of the first born” in those celestial mansions, where all is perfection, and harmony, and love. He is in the pursuit of knowledge with ampler capacities and ampler means than any he possessed on earth. And, above all, he is with Christ—surrounded by the light and glory of his presence—sitting at his feet to receive knowledge and joy from his instructions, and deriving, from the fountain of his mercy, degrees of happiness as large as his desires, and as lasting as his immortality.

But whilst his decease has thus been productive of perfect and eternal blessedness to himself, it has been productive of mourning and bitterness to you. The voice which has often instructed, and admonished, and comforted you, is now silent in the dust. The heart which was so full of kindness, and which yearned over you with such paternal anxiety and love, has ceased its beatings. The eyes which beamed upon you, and wept over you with unutterable tenderness, are extinguished in the grave—and you are “sorrowing most of all that you shall see his face no more.” Some of you have lost the companion of your youth, with whom, for more than forty years, you have taken sweet counsel, and walked to the house of God in company. Some of you have lost a father in Christ, whose instrumentality first awakened you to a conviction of your guilt and danger, and then calmed your fears and soothed your agitations, by directing you to the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. All of you have lost a wise and affectionate friend, who was able to advise you in difficulty, to sympathize with you in sorrow, and to comfort you with the consolations with which he was comforted of God. And, by this sad stroke, I too have lost a father and a brother, with whom, for more than fifteen years, I have associated in this city, and to whose example and kindness I owe much as a minister of Jesus Christ. We have often conversed together freely on many subjects, even on those in which we differed in opinion—and all my intercourse with him has only served to increase my admiration of his talents, my veneration of his piety, and my desire to be like him in diligence, and impressiveness, and perseverance. MAY I DIE THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS! MAY MY LAST END BE LIKE HIS!

As it is probably expected that I should give you a brief history of the deceased, I present you with the following sketch before I proceed to the concluding part of the discourse:—

The Rev. Joseph Kinghorn, the youngest child of David and Elizabeth Kinghorn, appears to have been born in Newcastle, Northumberland, on the 17th January, 1766. His father was, from about four years after the birth of his son, pastor of a small congregation of baptists in Bishop Burton, in Yorkshire, where he remained till he and his venerable partner came to reside with him in this city. Their son was in early life engaged in the employ of Messrs. Walker, Fishwick, and Co., of Newcastle, manufacturers of white lead; and whilst there he became a member of the baptist church. His qualifications for public usefulness were soon recognized by his brethren, with whose concurrence he was sent, at the joint expense of Mr. Ward and Mr. Fishwick, to enter on a course of study in the Bristol Academy, under the care of Dr. Caleb Evans, the divinity tutor, and of the Rev. Mr. Newton, the classical tutor, who was succeeded in that office by the Rev. Robert Hall, a short time before Mr. Kinghorn left the academy.

At the close of his studies Mr. Kinghorn visited Fairford, in Gloucestershire, and preached there for some time as a candidate for the pastoral office, but was prevented from settling among them by an unwarrantable suspicion, entertained by some of the people, respecting his orthodoxy, which appears to have harassed his mind and injured his health. At that time his friend, Mr. Fishwick, happened to be in Norwich on business; and, having been informed that the church here was destitute of a pastor, he warmly recommended his young friend as a candidate; in consequence of which, an invitation was sent from the church to Mr. Kinghorn, requesting his services for a few weeks; and he arrived in Norwich on the 28th March, 1789, and preached his first sermon here on the following Lord’s day, March 29th, from Romans v. 10.—“For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

Mr. Kinghorn’s immediate predecessor in this church, was the Rev. Rees David, who served it with fidelity and usefulness for eleven years, when he was cut off by a fever, in the February of 1788. The high degree of regard which Mr. David enjoyed, from the integrity of his character, his zeal for the cause of religion and of civil and religious liberty, and from the energy and power of his preaching, rendered it no small difficulty to obtain a successor acceptable to the destitute church; and though a minister of considerable talents had been supplying the vacant pulpit for some months after Mr. David’s death, yet opinions respecting him were so much divided, as to bring the congregation into a very uncomfortable state. It was at this crisis that Mr. Kinghorn arrived; and though much enfeebled and distressed when he came, yet in the society of the late Mr. and Mrs. William Wilkin, he found the consolations of a sincere and delicate friendship, and by frequent visits to their country residence, he soon regained the tone both of his body and mind. In after life he testified his sense of obligation to their kindness, by accepting the charge of their young and orphan children, over whom, as you well know, he watched with affectionate and parental care.

After having preached in Norwich for several sabbaths, he received an invitation from the church to become its pastor, which he accepted in January, 1790. On the 20th of the following May, he was ordained to the pastoral office; on which occasion the Rev. Zenas Trivett commenced the service; his father, the Rev. David Kinghorn, gave the charge, from 1 Timothy, iv, 13.—“Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine;” and the Rev. Mr. Richards, of Lynn, preached the sermon to the church and congregation.

Under his ministry, the congregation having increased in numbers and respectability, it was determined to pull down the old meeting house; and sums of money, sufficient for the erection of a new place, having been liberally subscribed by the people, the present place of worship was erected, and opened for divine worship, on Thursday, June the 25th, 1812; on which interesting occasion, Mr. Kinghorn preached in the morning from Psalm xc. 17; and the Rev. William Hull, in the evening, from Psalm xcv, 1, 2, 3.

In the later period of his life, he had the happiness of being again united to his aged parents, and of comforting their declining years; for when circumstances rendered it necessary for his father to resign his pastoral charge, the venerable pilgrims came to this city, as Jacob journeyed to Egypt, to see the prosperity of that son from whom they had been separated for so many years. You know how tenderly he fulfilled towards them every filial duty, how anxiously he watched over them, and how carefully he supplied their necessities. And when he had closed their eyes, and had given directions concerning their remains, you well remember how he addressed to you the affecting declaration, “_I am now loosened from every earthly tie_, _and have no other care but you_. _Henceforth __you_, _the members of this church_, _shall be my brother and my sister_, _my father and my mother_.”

Having given you this brief detail, we now proceed to consider,