Ministers of Death

In the year 1665, a deadly plague engulfed the city of London. Thomas Vincent, in his book God's Terrible Voice in the City, describes how thousands of Londoners died that year from the sickness: "Now the cloud is very black, and the storm comes down upon us very sharp. Now death rides triumphantly on his pale horse through our streets; and breaks into every house almost, where any inhabitants are found. Now people fall as thick as leaves from the trees in autumn, when they are shaken by a mighty wind . . . Now in some places where the people did generally stay, not one house in a hundred but is infected; and in many houses half the family is swept away; in some the whole, from the eldest to the youngest; few escape with the death of but one or two; never did so many husbands and wives die together; never did so many parents carry their children with them to the grave . . . "

This was a dark and terrible time for London. Yet, it was not all bleak and grim. Vincent tells of faithful gospel-preaching ministers who came to London to serve the people. He remarks, "Now they are preaching, and every sermon was unto them, as if they were preaching their last." The response was electrifying as many people were brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through God's mercy and grace.

But why did these ministers, who were safe in the countryside, go into the city and risk death? It is because they did not fear death, and they saw London as an opportunity to preach the riches of Christ, the one who has gained victory over death. Robert Murray McCheyne made it a habit to visit the dying in his city of Dundee on Saturday afternoons; he said that "Before preaching he liked to look over the verge." Spurgeon once commented "To be often where men die will help us to teach them both to die and to live."