“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21
How ominously these words follow each other in the text — “live,” “die.”
There is but a comma between them, and surely as it is in the words so is it
in reality. How brief the distance between life and death! In fact there is
none. Life is but death’s vestibule, and our pilgrimage on earth is but a
journey to the grave. The pulse that preserves our being beats our death
march, and the blood which circulates our life is floating it onward to the
deeps of death. To-day we see our friends in health, to-morrow we hear of
their decease. We clasped the hand of the strong man but yesterday, and
to-day we close his eyes. We rode in the chariot of comfort but an hour
ago, and in a few more hours the last black chariot must convey us to the
home of all living. Oh, how closely allied is death to life! The lamb teat
sporteth in the field must soon feel the knife. The ox that loweth in the
pasture is fattening for the slaughter. Trees do but grow that they may be
felled. Yea, and greater things than these feel death. Empires rise and
flourish, they flourish but to decay, they rise to fall. How often do we take
up the volume of history, and read of the rise and fall of empires. We hear
of the coronation and the death of kings. Death is the black servant who
rides behind the chariot of life. See life! and death is close behind it. Death
reacheth far throughout this world, and hath stamped all terrestrial things
with the broad arrow of the grave. Stars die mayhap; it is said that
conflagrations have been seen far off in the distant ether, and astronomers
have marked the funerals of worlds, the decay of those mighty orbs that we
had imagined set for ever in sockets of silver to glisten as the lamps of
eternity. But blessed be God, there is one place where death is not life’s
brother, where life reigns alone; “to live,” is not the first syllable which is
to be followed by the next, “to die.” There is a land where deathknells are
never tolled, where winding-sheets are never woven, where graves are
never digged. Blest land beyond the skies! To reach it we must die. But if
after death we obtain a glorious immortality, our text is indeed true: “To
die is gain.”
If you would get a fair estimate of the happiness of any man you must
judge him in these two closely connected things, his life and his death. The
heathen Solon said, “Call no man happy until he is dead; for you know not
what changes may pass upon him in life.” We add to that — Call no man
happy until he is dead; because the life that is to come, if that be miserable,
shall far outweigh the highest life of happiness that hath been enjoyed on
earth. To estimate a man’s condition we must take it in all its length. We
must not measure that one thread which reacheth from the cradle to the
coffin. We must go further; we must go from the coffin to the resurrection,
and from the resurrection on throughout eternity. To know whether acts
are profitable, I must not estimate their effects on me for the hour in which
I live, but for the eternity in which I am to exist. I must not weigh matters
in the scales of time; I must not calculate by the hours, minutes and
seconds of the clock, but I must count and value things by the ages of
eternity.
Come, then, beloved; we have before us the picture of a man, the two sides
of whose existence will both of them bear inspection; we have hi life, we
have his death: we have it said of his life, “to live is Christ,” of his death,
“to die is gain;” and if the same shall be said of any of you, oh! ye may
rejoice! Ye are amongst that thrice happy number whom the Lord hath
loved, and whom he delighteth to honor.
We shall now divide our text very simply into these two points, the good
man’s life, and the good man’s death.
I. As to HIS LIFE, we have that briefly described thus: “For me to live is
Christ.” The believer did not always live to Christ. When he was first born
into this world he was a slave of sin, and an heir of wrath, even as others.
Though he may have afterwards become the greatest of saints, yet until
divine grace hath entered his heart, he is “in the gall of bitterness and in the
bonds of iniquity.” He only begins to live to Christ when God the Holy
Spirit convinceth him of his sin, and of his desperate evil nature, and when
by grace he is brought to see the dying Savior making a propitiation for his
guilt. From that moment when by faith he sees the slaughtered victim of
Calvary, and casts his whole life on him, to be saved, to be redeemed, to be
preserved, and to be blest by the virtue of his atonement and the greatness
of his grace, from that moment the man begins to live to Christ.
And now shall we tell you as briefly as we can what living to Christ means.
It means, first, that the life of a Christian derives its parentage from
Christ. “For me to live is Christ.” The righteous man has two lives. He has
one which he inherited from his parents; he looks back to an ancestral race
of which he is the branch, and he traces his life to the parent stock; but he
has a second life, a life spiritual, a life which is as much above mere mental
life, as mental life is above the life of the animal or the plant; and for the
source of this spiritual life he looks not to father or mother, nor to priest
nor man, nor to himself, but he looks to Christ. He says, “O Lord Jesus,
the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace, thou art my spiritual parent;
unless thy Spirit had breathed into my nostrils the breath of a new, holy and
spiritual life, I had been to this day “dead in trespasses and sins.” I owe my
third principle, my spirit, to the implantation of thy grace. I had a body and
a soul by my parents, I have received the third principle, the spirit from
thee, and in thee I live, and move, and have my being. My new, my best,
my highest my most heavenly life, is wholly derived from thee. To thee I
ascribe it. My life is hid with Christ in God. It is no longer I that live, but
Christ that liveth in me.” And so the Christian says, “For me to live is
Christ,” because for me to live is to live a life whose parentage is not of
human origin, but of divine, even of Christ himself. Again he intended to
say, that Christ was the sustenance of his life, the food his newborn spirit
fed upon. The believer hath three parts to be sustained. The body, which
must have its proper nutriment; the soul, which must have knowledge and
thought to supply it; and the spirit which must feed on Christ. Without
bread I become attenuated to a skeleton, and at last I die; without thought
my mind becomes dwarfed, and, and dwindles itself until I become the
idiot, with a soul that hath just life, but little more. And without Christ my
newborn spirit must become a vague shadowy emptiness. It cannot live
unless it feeds on that heavenly manna which came down from heaven.
Now the Christian can say, “The life that I live is Christ,” because Christ is
the food on which he feeds and the sustenance of his new-born Spirit.
The apostle also meant, that the fashion of his life was Christ. I suppose
that every man living has a model by which he endeavors to shape his life.
When we start in life, we generally select some person, or persons, whose
combined virtues shall be to us the mirror of perfection. “Now,” says Paul,
“if you ask me after what fashion I mould my life, and what is the model by
which I would sculpture my being, I tell you, it is Christ. I have no fashion,
no form, no model by which to shape my being, except the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, the true Christian, if he be an upright man, can say the same.
Understand, however what I mean by the word “upright.” An upright man
mean” a straightt up man — a man that does not cringe and bow, and fawn
to other men’s feet; a man that does not lean for help on other men, but
just stands with his head heavenward, in all the dignity of his independence,
leaning nowhere except on the arm of the Omnipotent. Such a man will
take Christ alone to be his model and pattern. This is the very age of
conventionalities. People dare not now do a thing unless everybody else
does the same. You do not often say, “Is a thing right?” The most you say
is, “Does so-and-so do it?” You have some great personage or other in
your family connection, who is looked upon as being the very standard of
all propriety; and if he do it, then you think you may safely do it. And oh!
what an outcry there is against a man who dares to be singular, who just
believes that some of your conventionalities are trammels and chains, and
kicks them all to pieces and says, “I am free!” The world is at him in a
minute; all the ban-dogs of malice and slander are at him, because he says,
“I will not follow your model! I will vindicate the honor of my Master, and
not take your great masters to be for ever my pattern.” Oh! I would to God
that every statesman, that every minister, that every Christian were free to
hold that his only form, and his only fashion for imitation, must be the
character of Christ. I would that we could scorn all superstitious
attachments to the ancient errors of our ancestors; and whilst some would
be for ever looking upon age and upon hoary antiquity with veneration, I
would we had the courage to look upon a thing, not according to its age,
but according to its rightness, and so weigh everything, not by its novelty,
or by its antiquity, but by its conformity to Christ Jesus and his holy
Gospel; rejecting that which is not, though it be hoary with years, and
believing that which is, even though it be but the creature of the day, and
saying with earnestness, “For me to live is not to imitate this man or the
other, but ‘for me to live is Christ.’”
I think, however, that the very center of Paul’s idea would be this: The end
of his life is Christ. You think you see Paul land upon the shores of
Philippi. There, by the river-side, were ships gathered and many merchant
men. There you would see the merchant busy with his ledger, and
overlooking his cargo, and he paused and put his hand upon his brow, and
said as he griped his money-bag, “For me to live is gold.” And there you
see his humbler clerk, employed in some plainer work, toiling for his
master, and he, perspiring with work mutters between his teeth, “For me to
live is to gain a bare subsistence.” And there stands for a moment to listen
to him, one with a studious face and a sallow countenance, and with a roll
full of the mysterious characters of wisdom. “Young man,” he says, “for
me to live is learning.” “Aha! aha!;” says another, who stands by, clothed
in mail, with a helmet on his head, “I scorn your modes of life, for me to
live is glory.” But there walks one, a humble tent-maker, called Paul; you
see the lineaments of the Jew upon his face, and he steps into the middle of
them all and says, “For me to live is Christ.” Oh! how they smile with
contempt upon him, and how they scoff at him, for having chosen such an
object! “For me to live is Christ.” And what did he mean! The learned man
stopped, and said, “Christ! who is he? Is he that foolish, mad fellow, of
whom I have heard, who was executed upon Calvary for sedition?” The
meek reply is, “It is he who died, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
“What?” says the Roman soldier, “and do you live for a man who died a
slave’s death? What glory will you get by fighting his battles?” What profit
is there in your preaching, chimes in the trader. Ah! and even the
merchant’s clerk thought Paul mad; for he said, “How can he feed his
family? how will he supply his wants if all he liveth for is to honor Christ?”
Ay, but Paul knew what he was at. He was the wiser man of them all. He
knew which way was right for heaven, and which would end the best. But,
right or wrong, his soul was wholly possessed with the idea — “For me to
live is Christ.”
Brethren and sisters, can you say, as professing Christians, that you live up
to the idea of the apostle Paul? Can you honestly say that for you to live is
Christ? I will tell you my opinion of many of you. You join our churches
you are highly respectable men; you are accepted among us as true and real
Christians; but in all honesty and truth I do not believe that for you to live
is Christ. I see many of you whose whore thoughts are engrossed with the
things of earth; the mere getting of money; the amassing of wealth, seems
to be your only object. I do not deny that you are liberal, I will not dare to
say that you are not generous, and that your cheque-book does not often
bear the mark of some subscription for holy purposes, but I dare to say,
after all, that you cannot in honesty say that you live wholly for Christ.
You know that when you go to your shop or your warehouse, you do not
think, in doing business, that you are doing it for Christ; you dare not be
such a hypocrite as to say so. You must say that you do it for selfaggrandisement,
and for family advantage. “Well!” says one, “and is that a
mean reason?” By no means; not for you, if you are mean enough to ask
that question, but for the Christian it is. He professes to live for Christ;
then how IS it he dares to profess to live for his Master, and yet does not
do so, but lives for mere worldly gain? Let me speak to many a lady here.
You would be shocked if I should deny your Christianity. You move in the
highest circles of life, and you would be astonished if I should presume to
touch your piety, after your many generous donations to religious objects;
but I dare to do so. You — what do you do? You rise late enough in the
day: you have your carriage out, and call to see your friends, or leave your
card by way of proxy. You go to a party in the evening; you talk nonsense,
and come home and go to bed. And that is your life from the beginning of
the year to the end. It is just one regular round. There comes the dinner or
the ball, and the conclusion of the day; and then Amen, so be it, for ever.
Now you don’t live for Christ. I know you go to church regularly, or
attend at some dissenting chapel; all well and good. I shall not deny your
piety, according to the common usage of the term, but I deny that you have
got to anything like the place where Paul stood when he said, “For me to
live is Christ.” I, my brethren, know that with much earnest seeking I have
failed to realize the fullness of entire devotion to the Lord Jesus. Every
minister must sometimes chasten himself and say, “Am I not sometimes a
little warped in my utterances? Did I not in some sermon aim to bring out a
grand thought instead of stating a home truth? Have I not kept back some
warning that I ought to have uttered, because I feared the face of man?”
Have we not all good need to chasten ourselves, because we must say that
we have not lived for Christ as we should have done? And yet there are, I
trust, a noble few, the elite of God’s elect, a few chosen men and women
on whose heads there is the crown and diadem of dedication, who can truly
say, “I have nothing in this world I cannot give to Christ — I have said it,
and mean what I have said —
‘Take my soul and body’s powers,
All my goods and all my hours,
All I have, and all I am.’
Take me, Lord, and take me for ever.” These are the men who make our
missionaries; these are the women to make our nurses for the sick, these
are they that would dare death for Christ; these are they who would give of
their substance to his cause; these are they who would spend and be spent,
who would bear ignominy, and scorn, and shame if they could but advance
their Master’s interest. How many of this sort have I here this morning?
Might I not count many of these benches before I could find a score? Many
there are who do in a measure carry out this principle; but who among us is
there (I am sure he standeth not here in this pulpit) that can dare to say he
hath lived wholly for Christ, as the apostle did? And yet, till there be more
Pauls, and more men dedicated to Christ, we shall never see God’s
kingdom come, nor shall we hope to see his will done on earth, even as it is
in heaven.
Now, this is the true life of a Christian, its source, its sustenance, its
fashion, and its end, all gathered up in one word, Christ Jesus; and, I must
add, its happiness, and its glory, is all in Christ. But I must detain you no
longer.
II. I must go to the second point, THE DEATH OF THE CHRISTIAN. Alas,
alas, that the good should die; alas, that the righteous should fall! Death,
why dost thou not hew the deadly upas? Why dost thou not mow the
hemlock? Why dost thou touch the tree beneath whose spreading branches
weariness hath rest? Why dost thou touch the flower whose perfume hath
made glad the earth? Death, why dost thou snatch away the excellent of
the earth, in whom is all our delight? If thou wouldest use thine axe, use it
upon the cumber-grounds, the trees that draw nourishment, but afford no
fruit; thou mightest be thanked then. But why wilt thou cut down the
cedars, why wilt thou fell the goodly trees of Lebanon? O Death, why dost
thou not spare the church? Why must the pulpit be hung in black; why
must the missionary station be filled with weeping? Why must the pious
family lose its priest, and the house its head? O Death, what art thou at?
touch not earth’s holy things; thy hands are not fit to pollute the Israel of
God. Why dost thou put thine hand upon the hearts of the elect? Oh stay
thou, stay thou; spare the righteous, Death, and take the bad! But no, it
must not be; death comes and smites the goodliest of us all; the most
generous, the most prayerful, the most holy, the most devoted must die.
Weep, weep, weep, O church, for thou hast lost thy martyrs; weep, O
church, for thou hast lost thy confessors, thy holy men are fallen. Howl, fir
tree, for the cedar hath fallen, the godly fail, and the righteous are cut off.
But stay awhile; I hear another voice. Say ye thus unto the daughter of
Judah, spare thy weeping. Say ye thus unto the Lord’s flock, Cease, cease
thy sorrow thy martyrs are dead, but they are glorified; thy ministers are
gone, but they have ascended up to thy Father, and to their Father, thy
brethren are buried in the grave, but the archangel’s trumpet shall awake
them, and their spirits are ever now with God.
Hear ye the words of the text, by way of consolation, “To die is gain.” Not
such gain as thou wishest for, thou son of the miser, not such gain as thou
art hunting for, thou man of covetousness and self-love; a higher and a
better gain is that which death brings to a Christian.
My dear friends, when I discoursed upon the former part of the verse, it
was all plain. No proof was needed; ye believed it, for you saw it clearly.
“To live is Christ,” hath no paradox in it. But “To die is gain,” is one of the
Gospel riddles which only the Christian can truly understand. To die is not
gain if I look upon the merely visible, to die is loss, it is not gain. Hath not
the dead man lost his wealth? though he had piles of riches, can he take
anything with him? Hath it not been said, “Naked came I out of my
mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither.” “Dust thou art, and unto
dust shalt thou return.” And which of all thy goods, canst thou take with
thee? The man had a fair estate and a goodly mansion; he hath lost that. He
can no more tread those painted halls, nor walk those verdant lawns. He
had abundance of fame and honor; he hath lost that, so far as his own sense
of it is concerned, though still the harp string trembles at his name. He has
lost his wealth, and buried though he may be in a costly tomb, yet is he as
poor as the beggar who looked upon him in the street in envy. That is not
gain, it is loss and he hath lost his friends: he hath left behind him a
sorrowing wife and children, fatherless, without his guardian care; he hath
lost the friend of his bosom, the companion of his youth. Friends are there
to weep over him, but they cannot cross the river with him; they drop a
few tears into his tomb, but with him they must not and cannot go. And
hath he not lost all his learning, though he hath toiled ever so much to fill
his brain with knowledge? What is he now above the servile slave, though
he hath acquired all knowledge of earthly things? Is it not said,
“Their memory and their love are lost
Alike unknowing and unknown?”
Surely death is loss. Hath he not lost the songs of the sanctuary and the
prayers of the righteous? Hath he not lost the solemn assembly, and the
great gathering of the people? No more shall the promise enchant his ear,
no more shall the glad tidings of the gospel wake his soul to melody. He
sleeps in the dust, the Sabbath-bell tolls not for him, the sacramental
emblems are spread upon the table, but not for him. He hath gone to his
grave, he knoweth not that which shall be after him. There is neither work
nor device in the grave, whither we all are hastening. Surely death is loss.
When I look upon thee, thou clay-cold corpse, and see thee just preparing
to be the palace of corruption and the carnival for worms, I cannot think
that thou hast gained. When I see that thine eye hath lost light, and thy lip
hath lost its speech, and thine ears have lost hearing, and thy feet have lost
motion, and thy heart hath lost its joy, and they that look out of the
windows are darkened, the grinders have failed, and no sounds of tabret
and of harp wake up thy joys, O clay-cold corpse, than hast lost, lost
immeasurably. And yet my text tells me it is not so. It says, “To die is
gain.” It looks as if it could not be thus, and certainly it is not, so far as I
can see. But put to your eye the telescope of faith, take that magic glass
which pierces through the veil that parts us from the unseen. Anoint your
eyes with eyesalve, and make them so bright that they can pierce the ether
and see the unknown worlds. Come, bathe yourself in this sea of light, and
live in holy revelation and belief, and then look, and oh how changed the
scene! Here is the corpse, but there the spirit; here is the clay, but there the
soul, here is the carcase, but there the seraph. He is supremely blest; his
death is gain. Come now, what did he lose? I will show that in everything
he lost, he gained far more. He lost his friends, did he? His wife, and his
children, his brethren in church fellowship, are all lea to weep his loss. Yes,
he lost them, but, my brethren what did he gain? He gained more friends
than e’er he lost. He had lost many in his lifetime, but he meets them all
again. Parents, brethren and sisters who had died in youth or age, and
passed the stream before him, all salute him on the further brink. There the
mother meets her infant, there the father meets his children, there the
venerable patriarch greets his family to the third and fourth generation,
there brother clasps brother to his arms, and husband meets with wife, no
more to be married or given in marriage, but to live together, like the
angels of God. Some of us have more friends in heaven than in earth. We
have more dear relations in glory, than we have here. It is not so with all of
us, but with some it is so; more have crossed the stream than are left
behind. But if it be not so, yet what friends we have to meet us there! Oh, I
reckon on the day of death if it were for the mere hope of seeing the bright
spirits that are now before the throne; to clasp the hand of Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob, to look into the face of Paul the apostle, and grasp the
hand of Peter; to sit in flowery fields with Moses and David, to bask in the
sunlight of bliss with John and Magdalene. Oh how blest! The company of
poor imperfect saints on earth is good; but how much better the society of
the redeemed. Death is no loss to us by way of friends. We leave a few, a
little band below, and say to them, “Fear not little flock,” and we ascend
and meet the armies of the living God, the hosts of his redeemed. “To die is
gain.” Poor corpse! thou hast lost thy friends on earth; nay, bright spirit,
thou hast received a hundred fold in heaven.
What else did we say he lost? We said he lost all his estate, all his
substance and his wealth. Ay, but he has gained infinitely more. Though he
were rich as CrÏsus, yet he might well give up his wealth for that which he
hath attained. Were his fingers bright with pearls, and hath he lost their
brilliancy? The pearly gases of heaven glisten brighter far. Had he gold in
his storehouse? Mark ye, the streets of heaven are paved with gold, and he
is richer far. The mansions of the redeemed are far brighter dwelling places
than the mansions of the richest here below. But it is not so with many of
you. You are not rich, you are poor. What can you lose by death? You are
poor here, you shall be rich there. Here you suffer toil, there you shall rest
for ever. Here you earn your bread by the sweat of your brow but there, no
toil Here wearily you cast yourself upon your bed at the week’s end, and
sigh for the Sabbath, but there Sabbaths have no end. Here you go to the
house of God, but you are distracted with worldly cares and thoughts of
suffering; but there, there are no groans to mingle with the songs that
warble from immortal tongues, Death will be gain to you in point of riches
and substance.
And as for the means of grace which we leave behind, what are they when
compared with what we shall have hereafter? Oh, might I die at this hour, I
think I would say something like this, “Farewell Sabbaths, — I am going to
the eternal Sabbath of the redeemed. Farewell minister; I shall need no
candle, neither light of the sun, when the Lord God shall give me light, and
be my life for ever and ever. Farewell ye songs and sonnets of the blessed;
farewell, I shall not need your melodious burst; I shall hear the eternal and
unceasing hallelujahs of the beatified. Farewell, ye prayers of God’s people;
my spirit shall hear for ever the intercessions of my Lord, and join with the
noble army of martyrs in crying, ‘O Lord, how long?’ Farewell, O Zion!
Farewell, house of my love, home of my life! Farewell, ye temples where
God’s people sing and pray; farewell, ye tents of Jacob, where they daily
burn their offering! -I am going to a better Zion than you, to a brighter
Jerusalem, to a temple that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is
God!” O my dear friends, in the thought of these things, do we not, some
of us, feel as if we could die!
“E’en now by faith we join our hands
With those that went before,
And greet the blood-besprinkled bands
Upon th’ eternal shore.
One army of the living God,
At his command we bow,
Part of the host have crossed the flood,
And part are crossing now.”
We have not come to the margin yet, but we shall be there soon: we soon
expect to die.
And again, one more thought. We said that when men died they lost their
knowledge, we correct ourselves. Oh, no, when the righteous die they
know infinitely more than they could have known on earth.
“There shall I see and hear and know
All I desired or wished below;
And every power find sweet employ,
In that eternal world of joy.”
“Here we see through a glass darkly, but there face to face.” There, what
“eye hath not seen nor ear heard” shall be fully manifest to us. There,
riddles shall be unravelled, mysteries made plain, dark texts enlightened,
hard providences made to appear wise. The meanest soul in heaven knows
more of God than the greatest saint on earth. The greatest saint on earth
may have it said of him, “Nevertheless he that is least in the kingdom of
heaven is greater than he.” Not our mightiest divines understand so much
of theology as the lambs of the flock of glory. Not the greatest masterminds
of earth understand the millionth part of the mighty meanings which
have been discovered by souls emancipated from clay. Yes, brethren, “To
die is gain.” Take away, take away that hearse, remove that shroud; come,
put white plumes upon the horse’s heads and let gilded trappings hang
around them. There, take away that fife, that shrill sounding music of the
death march. Lend me the trumpet and the drum. O hallelujah, hallelujah,
hallelujah; why weep we the saints to heaven; why need we lament? They
are not dead, they are gone before. Stop, stop that mourning, refrain thy
tears, clap your hands, clap your hands.
“They are supremely blest,
Have done with care and sin and woe;
And with their Savior rest.”
What! weep! weep! for heads that are crowned with coronals of heaven?
Weep, weep for hands that grasp the harps of gold? What, weep for eyes
that see the Redeemer? What, weep for hearts that are washed from sin,
and are throbbing with eternal bliss! What, weep for men that are in the
Saviour’s bosom? -No, weep for yourselves, that you are here. Weep that
the mandate has not come which bids you to die. Weep that you must
tarry. But weep not for them. I see them turning back on you with loving
wonder, and they exclaim, “Why weepest thou?” What, weep for poverty
that it is clothed in riches? What, weep for sickness, that it hath inherited
eternal health? What, weep for shame, that it is glorified; and weep for
sinful mortality, that it hath become immaculate? Oh, weep not, but rejoice.
“If ye knew what it was that I have said unto you, and whither I have gone,
ye would rejoice with a joy that no man should take from you.” “To die is
gain.” Ah, this makes the Christian long to die — makes him say,
“Oh, that the word were given!
O Lord of Hosts, the wave divide,
And land us all in heaven!”
And now, friends, does this belong to you all? Can you claim an interest in
it? Are you living to Christ? Does Christ live in you? For if not, your death
will not be gain. Are you a believer in the Savior? Has your heart been
renewed, and your conscience washed in the blood of Jesus? If not, my
bearer, I weep for thee. I will save my tears for lost friends; there, with this
handkerchief I’d staunch mine eyes for ever for my best beloved that shall
die, if those tears could save you. O, when you die, what a day! If the
world were hung in sackcloth, it could not express the grief that you would
feel. You die. O death! O death! how hideous art thou to men that are not
in Christ! And yet, my hearer, thou shalt soon die. Save me thy bed of
shrieks, thy look of gall, thy words of bitterness! Oh that thou couldst be
saved the dread hereafter! Oh! the wrath to come! the wrath to come! the
wrath to come! who is he that can preach of it? Horrors strike the guilty
soul! It quivereth upon the verge of death; no, on the verge of hell. It
looketh over, clutching hard to life, and it heareth there the sullen groans,
the hollow moans, and shrieks of tortured ghosts, which come up from the
pit that is bottomless, and it clutcheth firmly to life, clasps the physician,
and bids him hold, lest he should fall into the pit that burneth. And the
spirit looketh down and seeth all the fiends of everlasting punishments, and
back it recoileth. But die it must. It would barter all it hath to coin an hour;
but no, the fiend hath got its grip, and down it must plunge. And who can
tell the hideous shriek of a lost soul? It cannot reach heaven; but if it could,
it might well be dreamed that it would suspend the melodies of angels,
might make even God’s redeemed weep, if they could hear the wailings of
a damned soul. Ah! you men and women, ye have wept; but if you die
unregenerate, there will be no weeping like that, there will be no shriek like
that, no wail like that. May God spare us from ever hearing it or uttering it
ourselves! Oh, how the grim caverns of Hades startle, and how the
darkness of night is frighted, when the wail of a lost soul comes up from
the ascending flames, whilst it is descending in the pit. “Turn ye, turn ye;
why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Christ is preached to you. “This is a
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners.” Believe on him and live, ye guilty, vile,
perishing; believe and live. But this know — if ye reject my message, and
depise my Master, in that day when he shall judge the world in
righteousness by that man, Jesus Christ, I must be a swift witness against
you. I have told you — tat your soul’s peril reject it. Receive my message,
and you are saved; reject it — take the responsibility on your own head.
Behold, my skirts are clear of your blood. If ye be damned, it is not for
want of warning. Oh God grant, ye may not perish.
