Consolation in Life and Death, Derived from the Life of Christ Being the substance of a sermon on the death of Mrs. Turner, preached at the Surrey Tabernacle, on — Background and Themes

The Sermon’s Scriptural Anchor

Church takes his text from John 14:19: “Because I live, ye shall live also.” This verse governs the sermon’s logic: Christ’s resurrection guarantees the believer’s life beyond death. Yet the preacher does not dwell on abstract doctrine. Instead, he uses the verse to pivot toward the particular circumstances of Mrs. Turner’s death. He notes that “the removal of the Lord’s people from us, although it is their salvation, … yet demands attention, reflection, self-examination.” The scriptural anchor is not merely a proof-text but a lens through which the congregation is urged to interpret the event. Church’s method is to move from the general promise to the specific instance, a pattern that shapes the entire discourse.

Portrait of a Fearful Believer

The most detailed passages in the excerpts describe Mrs. Turner’s lifelong “fear of death.” Church reports that “she often gloomily anticipated the last act, the struggle of body and soul at parting.” He attributes this to “weak nerves, lowness, and dejection,” and notes that Satan exploited these fears. Yet the sermon also records her deliverance: “her dear Lord, in due time, delivered her from these fears.” The account is remarkably specific. Church recalls the last sermon she heard, on Hebrews 2:15, about those “subject to bondage through fear of death.” He then narrates her final words: “By thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, by thy precious death and burial, by thy glorious resurrection and ascension, good Lord deliver me!” This is not a generic eulogy but a precise spiritual biography.

The Role of Hymns and Scripture in Dying

Church emphasizes that Mrs. Turner found comfort in “precious hymns” and repeated readings of Isaiah 12. He records her response to the final verse—“Cry out and shout thou inhabitant of Zion”—with the words “Do so, do so; for our God is a great God.” The sermon thus becomes a record of how devotional texts functioned in her dying hours. Church also quotes a poem about death’s portrait, noting that “Man forms a death that nature never made.” This literary quotation, alongside the biblical citations, shows the sermon’s texture: it weaves together Scripture, hymnody, and poetry to shape a theology of consolation that is both learned and pastoral.

Readers should note that the excerpts provide only the sermon’s first half and its concluding biographical sketch; the middle portion is missing. Church’s method—alternating doctrinal exposition with personal narrative—is clear, but the full argument may be more developed than these fragments suggest. The sermon rewards attention to its use of specific biblical texts and its unflinching portrayal of a believer’s fear, offering a window into early nineteenth-century evangelical pastoral care.

Reading John Church’s sermon for Mrs. Turner, I kept thinking how he leaned on that one promise—"Because I live, ye shall live also"—as if it were a hand to hold. It feels much the same in the Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, John — Text and Context, where the old words breathe again, quietly. There’s a comfort in that, I suppose, for anyone who’s sat with grief a while.