There is a very cheerful emphasis on that word “once.
” I know people who have so much grace that death seems to be attractive to them, and they really talk as though they would be willing to die half a dozen times. It is not so with me. I submit to the idea only because I have to. But, thank God, we die but once. We take seventeen thousand breaths in a day, but there will be only one last breath.
1. I remark, in regard to the first crisis, that it will be the ending of all our earthly plans. If Napoleon wants to fight Austerlitz, he must do it before that, or never fight it at all. If John Howard wants to burn out the dampness of the dungeon, he must do it before that, or never do it at all. The last moments will snap off all our earthly schemes. If our work at that time be rounded, it will stay rounded. If it be incomplete, it will stay incomplete, like the national monument on Calton Hill, Edinburgh--a row of pillars showing what the building was meant to be, but is not.
2. Again, I remark that the first crisis spoken of in my text will be our physical ruin. However attractive the body may have been, it must come to defacement and mutilation. Dissolution!
3. Again, I remark, in regard to the first crisis of which I speak, it will be the ending of all our earthly associations. From all our commercial, all our social, all our political, all our religious, all our earthly associations, we will be snapped short off.
4. Again, I remark, in regard to that first crisis, it will be the ending of the day of grace. Before that, plenty of bright sabbaths, and golden communion days, and prayers, and sermons, and songs; but at that point a messenger from God will stand with uplifted hand, bidding all opportunities of salvation “Stand back!” But I have given you only half the text. Is there anything after that? When our physical life is extinct, are we done? No! I am immortal. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment.”
In that one word of eight letters are piled up harps and chains, palaces and dungeons, hallelujahs and wailings of eternity.
1. I remark, in regard to that second crisis, that it will be our physical reconstruction. Paul will get back his body without the thorn in the flesh; Payson his, without the pang; Robert Hall his, without the lifelong excruciation; Nero his; Robespierre his; Napoleon III. his; the sot his; the libertine his. Some of the bodies built up into unending rapture, some of them into unending pang.
2. I remark, again, in regard to that second crisis, that it will be the time of explanation. Why is it that the good have it hard and the bad have it easy?
Why that the Christian mother is deprived to-day of her only child, and the household of the godless left undisturbed? I appeal to the day of judgment. On that day God will be vindicated, and men will cry out, “He is right--everlastingly right!”
3. That last crisis, I remark, will be one also of scrutiny. I do not know how long the last trial will take, but I am very certain that all the past will rush through our recollection. And just imagine it, how that man, that woman will feel when displayed before him or her there shall be ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years of unimproved opportunities.
4. I remark, again, in regard to that crisis, that it will be one of irrevocable decision. If we lose our case in the Court of “Common Pleas,” we take it to the “Circuit”; or, failing there, we take it to “Chancery,” or “Supreme Court.” If we are tried before a petit jury, and the case goes against us through some technicality of the law, we get a new trial. But, when the decision of the last day shall be given, there will be no appeal. (T. DeWitt Talmage.)
Death and judgment
I. A SOLEMN EVENT--death and judgment.
II. THE GLORIOUS WORK OF CHRIST--He was offered to bear the sins of many.
III. THE FINAL AND TRIUMPHANT RESULTS--unto them that look for Him shall He appear a second time without sin, unto salvation. (George Hall.)
Death, judgment, and salvation
I. THE SENTENCE OF DEATH. When it is said “once to die,” a resurrection from the dead and life after death are implied. Otherwise, had death been the extinction of being, it would have been sufficient to have said simply “to die”; for what could have remained beyond it to render repetition possible? One awful truth is established--that, dying once, we can die no more. Whatsoever state, therefore, we enter, whether of happiness or of misery, is eternal.
II. THE SUMMONS TO JUDGMENT. The sin of another renders us liable to death; but associated with the last tribunal everything is personal. I shall be judged by myself, and must answer for myself. “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”
III. THE REVELATION OF LIFE. “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” “Offered”--behold here the character of His death. The whole argument of this Epistle is, that the death of Christ was a sacrifice. Connect whatever else with it you please, this is its leading feature--“to bear the sins of many.” In what sense to bear their sins? Assuredly as their substitute, to suffer in their stead. “To bear the sins of many.” It is clear that they are not few who shall be saved. Bigotry and party find no ground on which to place their foot here.
IV. THE RETURN OF THE SAVIOUR. “He shall appear the second time without sin,” properly without a sin-offering. He appears not again to make an atonement for sin. For what purpose, then, shall He appear in all this glory the second time? “Unto salvation.” To bring with Him the glorified spirits of His people; to raise their bodies from the grave, and to transform them into the likeness of His own, to give a public manifestation of their adoption, to place them upon His throne; and so shall they ever be with the Lord. To whom will this second appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ be fraught with such transcendant blessings? “Unto them that look for Him.” In this fine figure of one watching until the day break and the shadows flee away, what lively faith, unyielding patience, established hope, fixed expectation, unslumbering vigilance, inextinguishable zeal, and ardent love, are implied!--all the graces of the Spirit in full exercise--all present ills swallowed up in the anticipation of the approaching crisis. (W. B.Collyer, D. D.)
Death and judgment
I. HERE WE SEE AN APPOINTMENT, A DECREE, A SENTENCE: WHEREIN FOUR CIRCUMSTANCES ARE TO BE OBSERVED.
1. By whom this appointment is made, namely, by God Almighty, in whom there is not a shadow of turning, and which is able to bring that to pass which He hath appointed. Men are mutable; they appoint and disappoint; it is not so with God; hath He said it, and shall He not do it? Therefore, as sure as God is in heaven, this appointment shall stand. Who at any time hath resisted His will? who can break His appointment?
2. What it is that is appointed--once to die. What is death? Properly to speak, it is a separation of the soul from the body.
3. There is an extraordinary dying, and an ordinary. Some have died twice, as Lazarus, and those that rose with Christ at His resurrection; but ordinarily it is appointed to all men once to die. It is not appointed to all to be rich, wise, learned, but to die.
4. Why was this appointment made? Because of sin (Rom_5:12), “at what time thou eatest, thou shalt die the death.” Why are we afraid of the plague? Because it will kill us. Sin will kill both soul and body; therefore let us all be afraid to sin.
5. The persons to whom this appointment is made, to men--to all men. There is no man living but shall see death: it is appointed to kings to die, to dukes, earls, lords, knights, gentlemen, merchants, clothiers, husbandmen, to high and low, rich and poor, learned and unlearned. It is appointed to the ministers to die, and to the people; to the master, and servant; to the husband, and to the wife. We read of a woman that had seven husbands, they all died, and in the end the woman died also. None can avoid the stroke of death: the physicians that cure others, at the length die; the godly die; so good men and women die, as well as bad, as the faithful are sick as well as the unfaithful, so also they die as well as others.
II. DEATH GOES NOT ALONE, THERE IS ONE THAT FOLLOWS HER, AND THAT IS JUDGMENT. Judgment, either of absolution for the godly, or of condemnation for the wicked. If there were no judgment after death, the godly of all others were most miserable; and if no judgment, the ungodly were the happiest men. The drunkard must give an account of his drunkenness, the covetous man how he hath employed his riches; we must give an account of our oppressions, thefts secret or open, of our negligent coming to church and contempt of the Word of God. Let this cause us with a narrow eye to look into our lives, let us judge ourselves in this world, that we be not condemned hereafter. Yet there be a number in the Church that think it a scarecrow, and make a mock at this judgment, as the Athenians did at the resurrection (Act_17:32). Let it be a means to pull us from sin, and to make our peace with God in this world, that we may stand without trembling before the Son of man. (W. Jones, D. D.)
Death and judgment
I. This passage, beyond all its solemnity, DOES HONOUR TO MAN. It declares that death leaves his essential nature untouched. After death he is still man. No affection, no principle of human nature is lost.
II. These TWO APPEARANCES OF MAN CORRESPOND WITH THE TWO APPEARANCES OF CHRIST, the representative Man of the race. As Christ inherits to eternity what He acquired in His earthly humanity, so shall we.
III. Our brief planetary existence IS QUITE LONG ENOUGH FOR THE INNER, THE ESSENTIAL MAN, TO TAKE THE STAMP, SPIRIT, AND GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS ENDLESS AFTER LIFE.
IV. In the present outer court or vestibule of our nature OUR ESSENTIAL HUMANITY IS IN PROCESS OF FORMATION. And who can fail to admire the justice and mercy of the Divine provision by which the hereditary nature, formed independently of our personal choice, is not permitted to be our final nature; but every man’s final nature shall be the result of the choice and co-operation of his own will and personality.
V. A MAN IS UNDER NO ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF CONSIDERING THE BEARINGS OF HIS PRESENT LIFE ON HIS FUTURE. It is not more time we want, but more will.
VI. Whether we are made out of heaven for heaven, or out of more dusky elements for the dusky world, WE SHALL HAVE TO KEEP OUR APPOINTMENT.
VII. By death we go into THE SEARCHING ROOM OF TRUTH. That will not harm us if we invite the truth to search us beforehand.
VIII. IT IS WISE AND FRIENDLY THAT TIME SHOULD CLOSE WITH US AND ETERNITY OPEN.
IX. TIME IS A SURPRISING MERCY BEFORE ETERNITY BEGINS.
X. EVERY MAN’S LOOK FORWARD DEPENDS ON HIS LOOK BACKWARD.
XI. IF THE HEAVENLY NATURE IS NOT IN US, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE THAT THE JUDGMENT OF GOD SHOULD PUT US INTO THE SOCIETY OF HEAVENLY PERSONS.
XII. YOU SHALL NOT BE ADJUDGED TO A PLACE OUTSIDE HEAVEN, UNLESS YOU ADJUDGE CHRIST TO A PLACE OUTSIDE YOUR SOULS. (J. Punshon.)
One death and one salvation:
There are few things which more strike a reflective mind, one which seriously ponders the relation of the creature to the moral Governor of the universe, than that the period of human probation should be so short, when compared with the period of recompense. There seems, at first sight, little or nothing of proportion between the thing done and the penalty incurred: and, accordingly, it is no unfrequent argument with those who wish to get rid of the plain statements of Scripture, that it cannot be just to visit the momentary gratification of a passion with everlasting pains, and that, therefore, there will come a termination of the torments of the lost. We need hardly pause to observe to you, that in every such reasoning there is a grievous forgetfulness of the very nature of sin, as committed against an infinite Being; for it is impossible that any sin should be inconsiderable, seeing that it offers violence to all the attributes of God, however insignificant it may appear in itself. But nevertheless, we are free to own, that had not Scripture been definite on the point, there would have seemed nothing wild in the supposition that men might be admitted to other states of probation, and that the whole of their eternity would not be made dependent on the single trial they pass through on earth. We do not know that we have a right to refer it to anything else but a Divine appointment, that those who fail in the single trial are not allowed to try again, so that no opportunity is afforded for endeavouring to retrieve what is lost: but certainly the statements of the Bible are sufficiently explicit, and leave no room for the supposition that the present life is to be followed by other periods of probation. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment”; and the judgment as delineated in the figures and assertions of Holy Writ, closes up God’s dealings with the human race in its probationary character, and is followed by nothing but one interminable dispensation of happiness or misery. So that if there be but one death, and that one succeeded by the judgment, without the intervention of new seasons of trial, it is evident that man’s portion for eternity is to be decided exclusively by what he now does on the earth: that in the brief space of his present life he is to lose or secure everlasting glory. And is there in this any just ground of complaint, anything that can be proved at variance with either the wisdom or mercy of God? We know that at first thought the persuasion will be, that if the appointment were somewhat less rigid--if men might die twice in place of only once, so that, having failed in the first trial, they might return to the second with all the experience derived from having actually entered the invisible world--there would be a vast increase in the numbers of the righteous; and we may possibly marvel that no further opportunity should be granted, when the result would be to throng heaven with a mightier multitude. But even if you put out of sight that sufficient has been done for every man in his present state of probation, we can have no right to wonder; and we see strong ground for question-in whether there would be any such increase in the number of the righteous as you are inclined to suppose. We rather think, if it had been appointed to men to die twice, far more would die eternally than now that it is appointed unto men to die once. If even now, when we tell you, if you die in your sins you are everlastingly lost, we are heard with indifference, what would it be if you had the thorough assurance that though you threw away the present opportunity, another would yet be vouchsafed? Indeed, if you could only die twice, we could hope to produce no moral impression on any man who had not yet died once. It is impossible to question, seeing that even under the present arrangement everybody is disposed to defer the work of repentance--it is impossible to question, that, with scarce an exception, men would put off seeking the Lord until after the first death; and the rarest thing on earth would be the spectacle of an individual who had resolved to forego the pleasures of sin, without waiting to undergo the second probation. So that we should have to seek the righteous almost exclusively among those upon whom the first death had passed. And here, perhaps, you think we should find them in great numbers. We do not think so. These men would enter upon their second season of probation, with a conscience hardened and seared by the despite done to God through the whole of their first. It is true, they would have been made to taste something of the recompence of sin, and that therefore they would be their own witnesses to the stern consequences of persisting in evil; but in a short time the testimony of sense wears away, and it becomes nothing more than the testimony of faith; and the man who is impervious to God’s threatenings might easily become proof against his own recollections. And then you are to consider, that with this hardened conscience, and this ever-strengthening tendency to forgetfulness of their sufferings, they have before them the prospect of another long life, and therefore are as likely as ever to procrastinate. We now advance to the statements in the second verse of our text, between which and those of the first we are to search for such a correspondence as may justify the form of expression which the apostle adopts. It will not be necessary that we insist on the great doctrine of the atonement, which is evidently affirmed by the words under review. Without enlarging on points on which we may suppose you to be agreed, we shall lay the stress where the apostle seems to lay it, on the fact that “Christ was once offered”--a fact which is made to answer to the other, that “it is appointed unto men once to die.” We wish you again especially to observe how the apostle sets these facts one against the other. You strip his expressions of all force, unless you suppose that the appointment of a single death proves in some way the sufficiency of a single sacrifice. Why was Christ offered but once? Because “it is appointed unto men once to die.” St. Paul states in the one verse what was the condition of man, and to what he was exposed in consequence of sin, and then he shows in the other verse that Christ had done precisely what was needed in order to man’s deliverance and happiness. The one verse is the law, requiring that man should die and be then eternally condemned; the other verse is the gospel, proclaiming an arrangement through which death is abolished, and judgment may issue in nothing but salvation. And by putting the one verse in contrast with the other, St. Paul affirms the precision with which the provisions of the gospel meet the demands of the law; the former so answering to the latter, as to prove them constructed for the purpose of setting man free. The whole appointment of vengeance might be gathered into two articles, the death and the judgment. This was the appalling sum of the penalties which man incurred by disobedience to God; it is appointed to him once to die, and after this the judgment. And then there stood forth a Surety for the lost, a Surety so capable of suffering in their stead, that by one offering of Himself, He could redeem the whole race from the curse which had fastened on both body and soul. Yea, and so confident have we a right to be in the extent of that love which was felt for human kind, that we may be sure that had a second sacrifice been necessary, a second sacrifice would not have been withheld; but there remained nothing that love with all its anxiety could suggest, which has not been done for the welfare of its objects. The one death of the Mediator threw life into the dead, and gaining for Him the office of Judge, secured the final acquittal of all that believe on His name. And therefore might the apostle glory in this one death, and magnify it in comparison with the altars and sacrifices of the Mosaic economy; therefore might he insist on the fact that Christ was to die only once, as overwhelming evidence of the awful dignity of the surety, for that myriads were to be quickened through one death--the past, the present, the future being alike pervaded by the energies of one expiatory act. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
On death
I. UNDER WHAT PRACTICAL NOTIONS WE SHOULD CONSIDER DEATH.
1. We should consider death as an event certain and inevitable, in consequence of the irreversible sentence once pronounced to our first parents, and, in them, to all succeeding generations.
2. We should consider death as an event removed at no great, though an uncertain, distance. For, how transitory is life! at the longest, how short! and at the best, how frail!
3. Again, we should consider death as an event that will consign us to an immediate state of happiness or misery.
II. THE UTILITY OF THE RELIGIOUS CONSIDERATION OF DEATH,
1. It discovers to us the unimportance and vanity of all temporal enjoyments; which, however satisfactory or delightful, are yet short and transitory. It evinces the indiscretion of an intemperate attachment to the world. It serves to extend our views, and elevate our desires.
2. It is the best guard of innocence and virtue. Temptations surround us on all sides, to prevent which nothing can be more effectual than ,serious meditations on that eternity into which we must soon, and may suddenly, enter.
3. It is the best preparative for a comfortable death. Nothing dissipates the fears of death so much as due preparation for it; nothing so effectually disarms it of its terrors, as the consciousness of integrity. (G. Carr, B. A.)
Death a Divine appointment:
I. ALL THE ANTECEDENTS AND PRELIMINARIES OF DEATH ARE INCLUDED IN THE APPOINTMENT.
II. THIS APPOINTMENT, THOUGH UNIVERSAL, HAS VERY DIFFERENT ASPECTS.
III. THIS APPOINTMENT ILLUSTRATES THE WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF GOD.
IV. THIS APPOINTMENT SPEAKS INTELLIGIBLY AND IMPRESSIVELY TO ALL.
V. THIS APPOINTMENT EXERTS A MOST SALUTARY INFLUENCE ON THE EXPERIENCE OF THE BELIEVER.
VI. THIS APPOINTMENT DERIVES MUCH OF ITS SOLEMNITY FROM THE FACT THAT AFTER “DEATH THE JUDGMENT.” (J. Hewlett.)
Man’s mortality
I. That which I shall do, shall be, in an applicatory way, to make some REFLECTIONS UPON THE STUPIDITY OF MEN; who, though they know themselves mortal, yet thrust from themselves the thoughts of death, and neglect due preparations for it.
1. The generality of men are so immersed in the affairs and pleasures of life, that all serious thoughts of death and preparations for it are swallowed up by them.
2. Men put off the thoughts of death and their preparations for it, because they generally look upon it as afar off.
3. Men generally put off the thoughts of death and their preparation for it, because of those frightful terrors and that insupportable dread which such apprehensions bring with them.
II. The next thing shall be to lay down some CONSIDERATIONS, WHICH MAY FORE-ARM CHRISTIANS AGAINST THE FEARS AND TERRORS OF DEATH, and make them willing to submit unto this law of dying, unto which God hath subjected all men.
1. If the soul be immortal, as certainly it is, and that, parting from this, it enters upon a better life than this, we may well then be contented to die upon that account.
2. The whole life of a Christian is founded upon a hope that cannot be accomplished but by dying.
3. This death, though so much dreaded, is no other than a quiet sleep.
III. But now, beside this general appointment of God, that all shall die, there is a PARTICULAR APPOINTMENT, which reacheth to every particular circumstance of man’s death; the time when, the manner how, we shall die. These are unalterably determined, in God’s secret counsel.
IV. Let us now make some PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT of this.
1. If God hath thus appointed us to die, let this then serve to convince us of the gross folly of setting our affections eagerly upon this present world, a world which we must shortly leave behind us.
2. Seeing by the appointment of God we must all shortly die, let us he persuaded to be always in a readiness and preparation for it.
(1) Wean your hearts from an inordinate love of the world. Death must and will pluck you from it: and, oh! it will be a violent rending, if your affections be glued to it.
(2) Would you be prepared for death? Beware, then, that you do not defer your repentance one day or hour longer, upon any presumption of the continuance of your life. Death depends not upon the warning of a sickness. God doth not always afford it; but, sometimes, He doth execution before He shoots off His warning-piece. And why may it not be so with you?
(3) Live every day so, as if every day were your last and dying day, and the very next day allotted to you unto eternity. If it be not so, it is more than any of us know; and, since we have no assurance of one day or hour longer, it is but wisdom to look upon every day as that which may prove our very last.
(4) Be constant in the exercise of a holy life, and always doing of that which you would be content Christ should find you doing when He comes to summon you before His bar.
(5) Labour to get an assurance of a better life, and this will prepare you for a temporal death. When you and all things in the world must take leave of one another and part for ever, then to have the sense of the love of God, of an interest in Jesus Christ, and the sight of your own graces; these will bear up your heart in a dying hour: these things are immortal, as your souls are. (Bp. E. Hopkins.)
I. CONSIDER DEATH AS AN :EVENT THE PERIOD OF WHICH IS UNCERTAIN.
Death
II. A GOOD LIFE IS THE REST PREPARATION FOR DEATH. Every man dies as he lives; and it is by the general tenor of the life, not a particular frame of mind at the hour of death, that we are to be judged at the tribunal of God.
III. CONSIDER DEATH AS BECOMING PRESENT TO US. HOW will the closing eye contemplate the glitter of life, the evil of avarice, the bustling of ambition, and all this circle of vanity to which we are now enchanted?
IV. BY MAKING THE THOUGHT OF DEATH PRESENT TO US, LET US REGULATE OUR CONDUCT with respect to the friendships which we form, and concerning the animosities which we entertain. However some men choose to live, all men would wish to die at peace with their neighbours; there is no enmity in the grave. (John Logan.)
Death an appointment
I. IT IS APPOINTED UNTO MEN TO DIE. Man, then, is no exception to the universal doom, to the all-prevailing law of earthly life. We live in a dying world. At any time, under any circumstances, death is appalling. He is well called “the King of terrors.” The dread of death crowns all our fears. He comes to the work of destruction blind, heartless, inexorable. All the approaches to death make it dreadful. The crowded way of pale disease, of corrupting beauty, of enfeebled powers, of grief and distressing care, of disconsolate old age, of life which enjoys life no longer, makes us dread death. For, if the way be such, what must it be to pass through that crowded gate. Moreover, dying is an utterly new experience, to be undergone alone, and not to be repeated. We cannot practise dying, nor can any one accompany us.
II. OUR TEXT, HOWEVER, MEETS THIS DREAD, RELIEVES THE DANKNESS AND FURNISHES GROUND FOR HOPE. It speaks of death as an “appointment”--a Divine appointment, also, of an “after-death.” It, moreover, brings ourdeath into relation with the death of Christ, and our “after-death” with “His coming again without sin unto salvation.” Death, then, is not an end, still less is it simply a punishment.
III. Now LET US SEE THAT DEATH IS AN APPOINTMENT WHICH IS RETROSPECTIVE. The spirit in the full contents of its life looks back upon all opportunity and power, in relation to the possibilities of its being, as closed, and begins to learn from within what have been their use or abuse, and to anticipate their future consequences.
IV. FOR DEATH IS AN APPOINTMENT WHICH IS RETROSPECTIVE BECAUSE IT IS ALSO PROSPECTIVE. It looks back, and from the past determines the future. There is an after-death to which our moral nature points, of which it makes demands. Things do not appear on this side the grave in their true relations. Strange combinations present themselves, which are often held together simply by the force of circumstances and the necessities of our temporal forms of life, against which we often carry a deep inward protest. But death resolves all these false combinations and unrighteous alliances, and separates from us all that is foreign to our real life, and restores to us all that is truly ours. (W. Pulsford, D. D.)
Life the preparation for death:
Why is there such awe in that brief word, “death”? It is not the mere loss of this life or its joys, which gives that start of fear. Loss we may grieve over! It does not give that piercing shock of personal fear. The poet truly said, “Conscience does make cowards of us all.” For the apostle said, “The sting of death is sin.” Hence was it that a brave man, sent on a forlorn hope, turned back to meet a disgraced death. Death confronted:him; one deadly unrepented sin flashed on his mind; he dared meet death; he dared not meet an unreconciled God. Why did the sight of the decayed remains of his pious and beautiful queen so affect the young Duke of Gandia (S. Francis Borgia), that for his thirty-three remaining years he never forgot that sight, and at once died to the world, that at his death he might live to God? Why, in our own days, did that chance glance at the morning dress laid aside for dinner, awakening the thought of our laying aside this our mortal frame, change in an -instant the whole current of the life of a noble convert, while yet young, and make him give his life, his all to God? What gives to death this solemn aspect? The answer is simple. We can but die once. Every error, negligence, ignorance, sin, can be, in some sort, undone. But if we fail in death, it cannot be repaired. All of life is summed up there. “It is appointed unto all men once to die, and after that”--what, a second trial? a second plank after shipwreck? a fresh use of all the experience of life? However any may act, you too know that God saith none of these things, but, “It is appointed unto all men once to die, but after that, the judgment.”. But, because death is an act so alone, so single, so distinct and separate in its nature and its issue from all besides in life, does it therefore stand insulated? If one were to judge from the ways and words of mankind, it must surely be so. It is the one thing in this life, which is absolutely certain! All depends on it. Eternity hangs upon the moment of death; eternal bliss, eternal woe. And yet who prepares for it? The thought is an unwelcome guest, to whom men refuse entrance, if they can; if they cannot, they are fertile in excuses for dismissing him. They would fain never think of him, till he comes to carry them to judgment. We know that we must die. Why embitter life with the thought of it? And yet how should it be, that everything of moment in this life, which has to be done well, is to be studied, and that the weightiest act of all should need no study, no preparation? Is there no science of dying well? Life, will we, nill we, is the preparation for death. We liltSS, but to die. Our death is not the end only, it is the object of our life. Time and eternity meet in that one point. As we are in that last moment of time, such are we throughout eternity. How then can we prepare for that moment, upon which our all hangs, and in which we can do so little, nay, in which almost all must be done for us? What can men do then mostly, but repeat what they have done before? Good, if by God’s grace they are done sincerely; comforts to survivors. But are such few acts, even if God continue the grace to do them, are such few acts the turning-points of life and death? Would they replace a wasted life? Would they efface whole multitudes of lifelong sins? Death has a great work for grace to do, in itself, without weighting it with a work not its own. Every sort of death has its own trials. It has become a sort of proverb, “The ruling passion strong in death.” What, if that ruling passion have been something antagonistic to simplicity of character, to the tranquil workings of grace? What if it have been vainglory, or love of praise, or vanity, or impatience, or love of ease, or again disputing, or censoriousness, what pitfalls there yawn on all sides for us, what opening in our armour (if spiritual armour we have) for Satan’s deadly thrusts, what occasions for unreality, in the face of the truth itself, for loss of faith when faith is our all; for murmuring against Divine justice when about to appear at its bar! Probably those evil deaths after specious lives have had this in common, that it was the evil passion to which such men had often secretly given way, a smothered, smouldering, but unextinguished fire, which burst out at last and destroyed them. I have known of relapse into the deadly accustomed sin on the bed of death. Since then death has enough of trial in itself for the grace of God to master, since those trials are aggravated by all unconquered evil in our whole life, since a good death is the object of our life, and such as we are in life, such we shall almost surely be in death, and what we are in death, such we shall certainly be in all eternity, what remains but that we make all our life a preparation for eternity? Heathen wisdom saw a gleam of this. “Who closes best his last day?” one was asked. “He who ever set before him, that the last day of life was imminent.” Not without inspiration of God was that counsel, “In all thy works remember thy end, and thou shalt never do amiss.” It was a good old-fashioned practice, morning by morning, to think of the four last things, death, judgment, heaven, hell, and to pray to live that day as one would wish to have lived when the last day came. Every day is a part of our death, and enters into it. For death, which sums up all, gathers into one the results of each of our days; and each day as we live well or ill, through the grace of God or our own fault, is the earnest of many like days beyond. It is a stern nakedness of truth, stern only because it is so true: “He is not worthy to be called a Christian, who lives in that state wherein he would fear to die.” For nothing makes death fearful except the fear of all fears, lest we be separated from Christ. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Confessions of dying men
1. When men come to die, they are wont to feel, with a vividness of impression wholly unknown before, the shortness of life and the unspeakable value of time. Lord Chesterfield, though a sceptic, and devoted to a life of pleasure, was compelled to say, near the close of his days, “When I reflect upon what I have seen, what I have heard, and what I have done, I can hardly persuade myself that all the frivolous hurry and bustle and pleasure of the world are a reality; but they seem to have been the dreams of restless nights.” Voltaire, after having spent a long life in blaspheming the Saviour and opposing His gospel, said to his physician on his dying bed, “I will give you half of what I am worth, if you will give me six months of life.” “O time! time!” exclaimed the dying Altamont; “how art thou fled for ever! A month! oh, for a single week! I ask not for years, though an age were too little for the much I have to do.” Said Gibbon, “The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more, and my prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful.” Hobbes said, as the last hour approached, “If I bad the whole world to dispose of, I would give it to live one day.” “Oh! “ cried the Duke of Buckingham, as he was closing a life devoted to folly and sin,” what a prodigal I have been of the most valuable of all possessions--time! I have squandered it away with the persuasion that it was lasting; and, now, when a few days would be worth a heatcomb of worlds, I cannot flatter myself with the prospect of half a dozen hours.
2. Another confession which is wont to be made by dying men is that there is nothing in this world that can satisfy the wants of the immortal soul. When Salmasius, one of the greatest scholars of his time, drew near to death, he exclaimed bitterly against himself--“Oh, I have lost a world of time; time, the most precious thing on the earth, whereof if I had but one year more, it should be spent in David’s Psalms and Paul’s Epistles. Oh, mind the world less and God more!” Grotius possessed the finest genius ever recorded of a youth in the learned world, and rose to an eminence in literature and science which drew upon him the admiration of all Europe; yet after all his attainments and high reputation, he was constrained at last to cry out--“Ah, I have consumed my life in a laborious doing of nothing! I would give all my learning and honour for the plain integrity of John Urick”--a poor man of eminent piety. Sir John Mason, on his deathbed, said--“I have lived to see five princes, and have been privy counsellor to four of them; I have seen the most important things in foreign parts, and have been present at most state transactions for thirty years together; and I have learned, after so many years’ experience, that seriousness is the greatest wisdom, temperance the best physic, and a good conscience the best estate. And were I to live again I would change the whole life I have lived in the palace, for an hour’s enjoyment of God in the chapel.” Philip, the third king of Spain, when he drew near the end of his days, expressed his deep regret for a worldly and careless life in these emphatic words--“Ah, how happy it would have been for me had I spent these twenty-three years I have held my kingdom, in retirement.” “Good God!” exclaimed a dying nobleman, “how have I employed myself! In what delirium has my life been passed! What have I been doing while the sun in its race and the stars in their courses have lent their beams, perhaps, only to light me to perdition! I have pursued shadows, and entertained myself with dreams. I have been treasuring up dust, and sporting myself with the wind. I might have grazed with the beasts of the field, or sung with the winged inhabitants of the woods, to much better purpose than any for which I have lived.”
3. When men are laid upon a dying bed they are wont to feel and to acknowledge the utter insufficiency of a mere moral life to prepare them to appear in the presence of God. “It is not giving up my breath,” said the nobleman before referred to, “it is not being for ever insensible, that is the thought at which I shrink; it is the terrible hereafter, the something beyond the grave, at which I recoil. Those great realities which in the hours of mirth and vanity I have treated as phantoms, as the idle dreams of superstitious beings, these start forth and dare me now in their most terrible demonstrations.” “Oh, my friends,” exclaimed the pious Janeway, we “little think what Christ is worth on a death-bed. I would not now for a world, nay, for millions of worlds, be without Christ and pardon.” “God might justly condemn me,” said Richard Baxter, “for the best deeds I ever did, and all my hopes are from the free mercy of God in Christ.” Said the meek and learned Hooker, as he approached his end: “Though I have by His grace loved God in my youth and feared Him in my age, and laboured to have a conscience void of offence to Him and to all men, yet, if Thou, O Lord, be extreme to mark what I have done amiss, who can abide it? And, therefore, where I have failed, show mercy to me, for I plead not my righteousness, but the forgiveness of my unrighteousness, for His merits who died to purchase pardon for penitent sinners.” Such too were the feelings of our own venerated Hooker in his dying hour. To a friend who said to him, “Sir, you are going to receive the reward of your labours,” he replied, “Brother, I am going to receive mercy.” And not to mention other examples under this head, let me refer to the case of Dr. Johnson. He was a moral man; but his morality could not soften the terrors of a death-bed, nor give him the least peace in prospect of meeting his Judge. When a friend, to calm his agitated mind, referred him to his correct morals and useful life for topics of consolation, he put them away as nothing worth, and in bitterness of soul exclaimed, “Shall I, who have been a teacher of others, be myself cast away?” This great man had not then fled for refuge to the blood of atonement, as he afterwards did; and, therefore, notwithstanding his moral and useful life, he was afraid to die, and all beyond the grave looked dark and gloomy to him. And so it must look to all who come to the dying hour with no better preparation than is furnished in a moral life.
4. Men at the hour of death are constrained to acknowledge the folly and guilt of an irreligious life, and the supreme importance of a saving interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever apologies are made in the days of health and prosperity for the neglect, of religion, those apologies are found utterly worthless on a death-bed, and are renounced as vain and delusive. Religion is then felt to be indeed the one thing needful, and the whole earth too poor to be given in exchange for the soul. None find peace and hope in that hour but those who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them in the gospel. The world retires then, and leaves its wretched votaries in poverty and despair. But heaven comes near to sustain and comfort the faithful servants of God; and they feel that an interest in Christ is of more value than a thousand worlds like this. Look at Enoch walking with God, who through faith was exempted from death, and was not, for God took him; at David comforting himself in the close of life in the assurance that God had made an everlasting covenant with him, ordered in all things and sure; at Paul joyfully declaring in the near view of death, “I know in whom I have believed”; at the dying missionary, Ziegenbalger, exclaiming, “Washed from my sins in the blood of Christ, and clothed with His righteousness, I shall enter into His eternal kingdom”; at Swartz sweetly singing his soul away to everlasting bliss; at Baxter, saying, amid the sinkings of nature, “I am almost well”; at Owen lifting up his eyes and his hands as in a kind of rapture, and exclaiming to a friend, “Oh, brother, the long looked for day is come at last, in which I shall see the glory of Christ in another manner than I have ever yet done”; at Edwards comforting his family, as they stood around his dying bed, with the memorable words, “Trust in God, and you have nothing to fear”; at Martyn in the solitudes of Persia, writing thus s few days before his death--“I sat alone, and thought with sweet comfort and peace of God, in solitude my company, my friend, and comforter”; at Dwight exclaiming, when the seventeenth chapter of John was’ read to him, “Oh, what triumphant truths!”; at Evarts shouting “Glory! Jesus reigns! “ as he closed his eyes on death; at Payson uttering the language of assurance, as he grappled with his last enemy--“The battle is fought! the battle is fought! and the victory is won for ever!” In a word, look at the great cloud of witnesses, who in the faith of Jesus have triumphed over death and the grave, and peacefully closed their eyes on this world in joyful hope of opening them in another and a better, and you will learn in what estimation religion is held, when the scenes of earth are retiring, and those of eternity are opening upon the vision of dying men. Think of it as we may, while the event is viewed as future and distant, we shall all find, when the last hour comes, that it is indeed a serious matter to die. A future state, said the Duke of Buckingham, dying in despair, may well strike terror into a man who has not acted well in life; and he must have an uncommon share of courage indeed who does not shrink at the presence of God. And even Lord Chesterfield, sceptic and devotee of pleasure as he was, was compelled to acknowledge, as the closing scene drew on, “When one does see death near, let the best or the worst people say what they please, it is a serious consideration.” “Remorse for the past,” exclaimed the dying Altamont, “throws my thoughts on the future. Worse dread of the future strikes them back on the past. I turn and turn, and find no ray of light. Death is knocking at my doors; in a few hours more I shall draw my last gasp; and then the judgment, the tremendous judgment! How shall I appear, all unprepared as I am, before the all-knowing and omnipotent God?” “O eternity, eternity,” cried the distracted Newport, as he lay upon his death-bed, contemplating the solemn scenes before him, “who can paraphrase on the words for ever and ever?” Such are the confessions that are wont to be made by dying men; such the feelings and thoughts that crowd upon the mind as the last hour approaches. And in view of them we may remark:
1. They are founded in truth; there is just cause for them It is true that life is short, and that time is of infinite value. It is true that this world contains nothing which can satisfy the wants of the immortal mind. It is true that a moral life is utterly insufficient as a preparation for death and the judgment. It is true that an irreligious life is a life of extreme folly and presumption, and that a saving interest in Christ is a matter of supreme importance to every living man. And the wonder is, not that dying men should feel these things to be true, and be deeply affected by them, but that living men should treat them with indifference.
2. That many of my hearers will, in a short time, view the subject in a very different light from that in which they now contemplate it. Some of you are young, and in the buoyant feelings of youth and health scarcely think it possible that you may soon be called to death and the judgment. Some of you are profoundly careless of your immortal well-being, and are so enamoured of the things of the world that you seldom think of your latter end. Others of you are perhaps sceptical as to the reality of a change of heart to fit you for the closing scene; others of you still, who bear the Christian name, are probably deceived as to the ground of your hope, or are living in a state of backsliding from God, awfully unprepared for His summons to leave the world. To all such the Son of man is likely to come in an hour they think not of; and when He comes, they will be thrown into fearful consternation, and the dreams with which they are now deluded will vanish for ever.
3. It is the part of true wisdom to cherish those views and feelings now, which we know we shall regard as of supreme importance when we come to die. Why should any spend life in treasuring materials for sorrow, disappointment, and despair in the dying hour? Why should any gather food for the worm that never dies, or fuel for the fire that is never quenched?
4. The confessions of dying men are of no avail, only as they indicate the folly of sin and the value of religion. They do not change the character--they do not fit the soul for death or for heaven. The strong bands of sin are not so dissolved, nor is it so that the love of God and Christ is inspired in the bosom, and mettness acquired for a place among the redeemed in heaven. Be wise, then, in this your day, to attend to the things which belong to your peace, lest they be hid for ever from your eyes. Go learn the value of religion in the peaceful and triumphant death of those that die in the Lord; go learn its value in the remorse and despair of those that die in neglect of Christ and His salvation. (J. Hawes, D. D.)
The inevitable ending
1. Consider the statement in itself. It affirms a universal law. “What man is he that liveth and shall not see death?”
2. How are we to account for this great law?
(1) It is, says our science, a law of nature: it is an inevitable incident in the chemical development of animal organism. From the moment of our birth we carry within us the seeds, the secrets of our dissolution. The operation of the law may be delayed by precautions which interrupt the action of the causes which would more immediately precipitate it: it may be prematurely enforced through the rapid development of some latent poison or weakness in the system; but in the end will have its way anyhow.
(2) It is, says faith, a law of religion. I had better said, it is a law of the Divine government. We do not deny that death is the term of a process which the chemistry of the human body renders inevitable, because we also see in it a great moral act of the living God, a fact which belongs, in all its highest aspects, purely to the spiritual, to the supersensuous world. Death, it has been finely said by a modern writer, is the very masterpiece of the Divine justice. It is not merely a consequence, it is a measure, of sin. It is God’s way of tracing out, as if before our very eyes, what, in His judgment, sin is, because sin has lodged itself in the inmost recesses of our complex being, where spirit and body find their unseen, their unimagined, point of unity, and so is transmitted with the inheritance of life from sire to son. Therefore, we may dare to say, it was necessary, if sin was to be exposed and vanquished, if it was to be torn forth by the very roots, from the nature with which it was so mercilessly interwoven, that God should sever the most secret bonds which unite soul and body--that He should break up this mould of life which had been so deeply dishonoured in the interests of His enemy. And yet in doing this He was only letting sin take its natural course, for sin is in its essence the germ of death. Death is merely the prolongation into the sphere of physical existence of that disorganisation which sin induces into the sphere of spirit. Death is destruction spreading downwards from a higher to a lower department of being, like a fire which has broken out in the upper story of a palace, and which goes on to enwrap in its fury the floors beneath.
3. The practical bearings of this appointment to die. It teaches us our highest work in this life. We live that we may prepare to die. There are four lines of preparation.
(1) There is the discipline of resignation. It may seem hard to part with so many friends, so many interests, so much work, so many hopes, so many enthusiasms. But there is no help for it, and it is better, for our own sakes, and still more for the honour of our God, that we should bow to the inevitable.
(2) There is the discipline of repentance.
(3) There is the training of prayer--I should speak more accurately--of worship. When we pray, really shutting out the things and thoughts of time, cleansing the inner temple of the soul; when we behold the realities over which death has no power, the realities which have no relation to time--the everlasting throne, the unceasing intercession--we are not onlyinsensibly suffused with the light which streams down from that other world; we learn here upon earth how to behave ourselves in that majestic presence; we learn the manners of another climate, the habits of another society, before our time. And this worship is a training for death.
(4) There is the discipline of voluntary sacrifice. By sacrifice man does not merely learn to await death; he goes out to welcome it. He learns how to transfigure a stern necessity into the sublimest of virtues. His life is not simply to be taken from him: he will have the privilege of offering it to God; for each true act of sacrifice, each surrender, whether in will or in act, of self, carries with it the implied power of controlling the whole being, not merely on ordinary occasions, but at the crisis, at the trial time of destiny. Like his Lord, the Christian must, by many a free surrender of that which he desires, or of that which he loves, prepare himself for the last great act which awaits him when, anticipating, controlling the final struggle, the last agony, the rent, the pang of separation between his body and his soul, he will exclaim with the Redeemer, “Into Thy hands, O Father, I commend my spirit”; but he will add, because he is a sinner--a redeemed sinner--“for Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of Truth.” (Canon Liddon.)
The time of each man’s death Divinely appointed
The fact that God has chosen us to salvation does not make us careless of the means of salvation; so the fact that God has fixed the day, the hour, and the mode of my death, will not make me less attentive to the duties that devolve upon me as a rational, a sensible and a reasonable being. And the practical fact that we find, wherever that thought is cherished, is, that they who believe it most strictly are most attentive to present duties, but most fearless of possible perils. (J. Cumming, D. D.)
Death
I had an interview with death. The place, a lonely dell, winter-bound, swathed in spotless snow. The time, new-risen morn; the last star paling, as if in fear, retired, but not extinguished. A spirit strengthened me to brave the enemy of life, and gave me courage to upbraid his cruelty. My speech I do remember well, and death’s reply. Said I, in heightened tone, as if to keep uncertain courage steadfast and ardent: “Monster, of thee no man speaks well. Thy silent tread makes the house tremble, and in thy cold breath all flowers die. No little child is safe from death’s all-withering touch: nor mothers dost thou spare, nor lovers weaving life’s story into coloured dream, nor saints in lowly prayer. Why not content thyself with warring and succeeding in the gloomy jungle? Smite the tiger crouching for his prey, or the lion in his fierceness, or fly after the punting wolf, or lodge an arrow in the heart of the proud eagle. Why devastate our homes? Why kill our little ones? Why break our hearts and mock our thirst with the brine of useless tears? O death! I would that thou wert dead.” Then death answered me, and filled me with amaze. “Believe me,” said the weird defendant, “thy reasoning is false, thy reproach an unintelligent assault.” His voice was gentle, and through all his pallor there gleamed the outline of a smile. I saw transfigured death. “I am God’s servant. The flock must be brought home. I go to bring the wanderers to the fold. The lambs are God’s, not yours; or yours but to watch and tend until He sends for them. Through your own fatherhood read God’s heart. Through your own watching for the child’s return conceive the thought that glows in love Divine.” He paused. Said I: “Could not some brighter messenger be sent? An angel with sunlight in his eyes and music in his voice? Thou dost affright us so, and make us die so oft in dying once. If our mother could but come, or some kindred soul, or old pastor, whose voice we know; any but thou, so cold, so grim.” “I understand thee well,” said death, “but thou dost not understand thyself. Why does God send this cold snow before the spring? Why icebergs first, then daffodils? My grimness, too, thou dost not comprehend. The living have never seen me. Only the dying can see death. I am but a mask. The angel thou dost pine for is behind. Sometimes angel-mother, sometimes father, sometimes a vanished love, but always, to the good and true, the very image of the Christ. No more revile me. I am a visored friend.” The dell was then transformed. The snow gleamed like silver. The day a cloudless blue. And suddenly living images filled the translucent space. And then I asked of death if he could tell whence came they? And he said: “These are mine. A reaper I, as well as shepherd. I put in the sharp sickle; I bound the sheaves; I garnered the precious harvest; and when I come angels sing ‘Harvest home.’” (J. Parker, D. D.)
Death common to all
A beautiful story is told of Buddha and a poor woman who came to ask him if there was any medicine which would bring back to life her dead child. When he saw her distress he spoke tenderly to her, and he told her that there was one thing which might cure her son. He bade her bring him a handful of mustard seed, common mustard seed; only he charged her to bring it from some house where neither father or mother, child nor servant had died. So the woman took her dead baby in her arms, and went from door to door asking for the mustard seed, and gladly was it given to her; but when she asked whether any had died in that house, each one made the same sad answer “I have lost my husband,” or “My child is dead,” or “Our servant has died.” So with a heavy heart the woman went back to Buddha, and told him how she had failed to get the mustard seed, for that she could not find a single house where none had died. Then Buddha showed her lovingly that she must learn not to think of her own grief alone, but must remember the griefs of others, seeing that all alike are sharers in sorrow and death. (Heralds of the Cross.)
Preparation for death:
Prepare to die whilst you are in health. It is an ill time to calk the ship when at sea, tumbling up and down in a storm: this should have been looked to when she was in port. And as bad is it to begin and trim a soul for heaven when tossing on a sick bed. Things that are done in a hurry are seldom done well. Those poor creatures, I fear, go in an ill dress into another world who begin to provide for it when they are dying but alas, they must go, though they have not time to put on proper clothes. (W. Gurnall.)
Death should be first prepared for:
There was a young man who once went to the city of Rome. He was an intense student. He had studied by the midnight lamp until his face was pale and his eyes were dim, and as he passed along the streets of Rome, he met one who asked him wherefore he had come. The young man replied: “I have come that I may improve and have opportunities for reading.” “And when you have done that, what then?” The youth’s eye brightened with the instinctive ardour of youth, as he said, “Who can tell? I may become a bishop.” “And when you have become a bishop, what then?” It seemed almost a vain thing, but still elasticity and youthful hope were there; and he said, “I may become a cardinal.” “And when you become a cardinal, what then?” “It seems almost madness.” was the reply, “but who can tell? I may become Pope.” “And when you have become Pope, what then?” Poor lad! he had got to the end, and he said, “Well, I suppose I must die.” “Ah!” said the wise old man, “first get ready for that which must be, and afterwards for that which may be. You may be a bishop; you must die. You may be a cardinal; you must die. You may be Pope; but you must die. First make ready for that which must be.” That was wise advice. (S. Coley.)
Certainty of death
A good old man who used to go about doing good in the Tasmanian “bush” stood, shortly before his death, in a small country place of worship to preach the gospel. In the course of his simple address he pulled out a large watch which had long been his faithful companion. “This watch of mine,” said he, “has been going for many years--tick, tick, tick. It is one of the old-fashioned sort and a real trusty one, but it stopped the other day, and has refused to go again. Now, I have lived to old age, healthy and well for the most part: my heart has been beating and my pulse throbbing--tick, tick, tick--“very much like the watch; but I shall stop some day, and be numbered with the dead.” From the way in which the earnest pastor uttered those words, his little congregation knew he spake as a dying man to dying men, and that he realised that he was as likely to go as any. Hence the power which accompanied the exhortation that followed. (Thos. Spurgeon.)
Death inevitable:
John Asgill distinguished himself by maintaining in a treatise, now forgotten, that death is no natural necessity, and that to escape it is within the range of the humanly practicable. But Asgill’s biography, like every other, has for a last page the inevitable “And he died.” (Francis Jacox.)
Death
Death is a black camel which kneels at every door. (Persian proverb.)
Exits
Death hath ten thousand several doors for men to take their exits. (John Webster.)
Death as a messenger:
Death is like a postman, who knocks alike at the door of rich and poor; and brings to this man wedding cards, and to his neighbour a funeral envelope; to one the pleasant news that his richly-laden vessel has arrived in port, and to another tidings of disaster and bankruptcy.
Death as a liberator:
Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console. (C. Colton.)
We can die but once:
Daniel Webster once attended church in a quiet country village. The clergyman was a simple-hearted, pious old man, who rose and named his text with the utmost simplicity. He then said, “My friends, we can die but once!”--and paused. Said Webster: “Frigid and weak as these words might seem at first, they were to me among the most impressive and awakening I ever heard. I never felt so sensibly that I must die at all as when that devout old man told me I could die but once.”
Death the universal lot:
There is a fig-tree in India, the branches of which, after growing to a certain height, bend, and grow down into the ground. This tree is a symbol of every human life. From the dust we came, and to the dust we return.
Unprepared for death:
It is said of the celebrated Caesar Borgia, that in his last moments he exclaimed, “I have provided, in the course of my life, for everything except death; and now, alas! I am to die, although entirely unprepared.”
After this the judgment
The last judgment
I. THE CERTAINTY OF JUDGMENT TO COME. TO get rid of the doctrine, a man must plunge into the gloomy absurdities of atheism. And is he safe there? He has conscience still left; he is rebuked for sin. There is its premonition. What passes thus in the court of conscience, may be called
