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Ebenezer Pemberton, Jr. (1705-1777) was a leading American Puritan of the colonial era. His father preached at the Old South Church (Congregational) in Boston, Massachusetts. Our Ebenezer was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church for the first half of his ministerial career and then returned to his father’s church in 1753. He served as chair of the New York Board of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, preached the ordination sermons for both David and John Brainerd. Recently, we have added over 90 autograph manuscript sermons by him to Log College Press. Many of these, but not all, were written in shorthand. They cover the time period between the 1740s and 1770s. With remarkable penmanship, we can get a glimpse of the ministerial labors of a remarkable preacher.
From another source (not found on Log College Press at present) we take note of a passage from a sermon he preached from Philippians 2:5 titled “The Duty of Imitating the Example of Christ” (The Puritan Pulpit: Ebenezer Pemberton, Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2006, pp. 103-105). In the tradition of Thomas à Kempis and The Imitation of Christ, and John Calvin, who sought to guide Christians in the right manner of imitating our Saviour while avoiding superstitious abuses of the principle, Pemberton’s sermon covers various aspects of how Christians ought to follow Christ’s example. One of these consists in how we ought to imitate Christ in regards to his relationship to all men.
We must imitate the example of Christ in His universal charity and kindness to men. This is indeed beyond a parallel, and what can never be fully imitated by any of the children of men. His whole life upon earth was one continued act of the most generous and disinterested love to the most base and unworthy objects. The gospel history everywhere abounds with astonishing instances of His grace and benignity to mankind.
It was love that brought him down from the bright realms of eternal day and fixed His abode for a time in this miserable and benighted world. This animated Him continually to go about doing good to the souls and bodies of men, instructing the ignorant, comforting the sorrowful, healing the sick, and supplying the wants of the poor and needy. This carried Him through a scene of the most distressing sorrows and afflictions in His life, and at last humbled Him to the dust of death and nailed Him to the cursed tree as an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world. This is such an instance of love as exceeds the power of love to describe, and the utmost stretch of our imagination to conceive of the height and depth, the length and breadth. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). “But herein God commended His love toward us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). It is the manner of men to place their affections upon those they apprehend to be the most agreeable and deserving objects; and it is the highest instance of human love to die for a friend. But this is the transcendent excellency of the love of Christ, that it was placed upon the most base and unlovely part of the creation. He laid down His life for His very enemies, who had renounced His sacred authority and were in open rebellion against His laws.
This is certainly a most surprising and unusual pattern of love, and should powerfully dispose us to the most extensive charity and benevolence to our fellow creatures. This is the inference made by St. John, the beloved disciple: “If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” For this end the example of Christ is frequently proposed for our imitation, and we are solemnly enjoined to copy it. “This is My commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Nay, He makes it the distinguishing badge of His followers, and the necessary character of His genuine disciples: “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye love one another.” And what stronger obligations can we be under to this excellent duty, what more powerful motives can be set before us to engage us to the practice of it, than the positive command of our Master and Lord, and the noble example of Him who has given us so many expensive evidences of His wonderful kindness and love.
