SERMON X.
ON THE DEATH OF A SINNER, AND THAT OF A RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER.
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." — Rev. xiv. 13.
There is something peculiarly striking and incomprehensible in the human passions.
All men wish to live: they look upon death as the most dreadful of all evils: all their passions attach them to life: yet, nevertheless, those very passions incessantly urge them toward that death for which they feel such horror; nay, it should even seem, that their only purpose in life is to accelerate the moment of death.
All men natter themselves that they shall die the death of the righteous; they wish it, they expect it. Knowing the impossibility of remaining for ever on this earth, they trust that, before the arrival of their last moment, the passions which at present pollute and hold them in captivity, shall be completely overcome. They figure to themselves, as horrible, the lot of a sinner who expires in his iniquity and under the wrath of God; yet, nevertheless, they tranquilly prepare for themselves the same destiny. This dreadful period of human life, which is death in sin, strikes and appals them: yet, like fools, they blindly and merrily pursue the road which leads to it. In vain do we announce to them, that, in general, men die as they have lived. They wish to live the life of a sinner, yet, nevertheless, to die the death of the righteous.
My intention, at present, is not to undeceive you with regard to an illusion so common and so ridiculous, (let us reserve this subject for another occasion); but since the death of the righteous appears so earnestly to be wished for, and that of the sinner so dreadful to you, I mean, by a representation of them both, to excite your desires for the one, and to awaken your just terrors for the other. As you must finally quit this world in one of these two situations, it is proper to familiarize yourselves with a view of them both, that, by placing before your eyes the melancholy spectacle of the one, and the soothing consolations of the other, you may be enabled to judge which of the lots awaits you; and, consequently, to adopt the necessary means to secure the decision in your favour.
In the picture of the expiring sinner, you will see in what the world, with all its glory and pleasures, terminates; from the recital of the last moments of the righteous man, you will learn to what virtue conducts, in spite of all its momentary checks and troubles. In the one, you will see the world from the eyes of a sinner in the moment of death; and how vain, frivolous, and different from what it seems at present, will it then appear to you! In the other, you will see virtue from the eyes of the expiring righteous man: how grand and inestimable will your heart then acknowledge it to be!
In the one, you will comprehend all the misery of a soul which has lived forgetful of its God; in the other, the happiness of him who has lived only to please and to serve him; in a word, the picture of the death of the sinner will make you wish to live the life of the righteous; and the image of the death of the just will inspire you with a holy horror at the life of the sinner.
Part I. — In vain do we repel the image of death: every day brings it nearer. Youth glides away; years hurry on; and, like water, says the scripture, spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, we rapidly course toward the abyss of eternity, where, for ever swallowed up, we can never return upon our steps to appear once more upon the earth.
I know that the brevity and uncertainty of life are continual subjects of conversation to us. The deaths of our relations, our friends, our companions, frequently sudden, and always unexpected, furnish us with a thousand reflections on the frailty of every thing terrestrial.
We are incessantly repeating that the world is nothing, that life is but a dream, and that it is a striking folly our interesting ourselves so deeply for what must pass so quickly away. But these are merely words: they are not the sentiments of the heart: they are discourses offered up at the shrine of custom; and that very custom occasions their being immediately and for ever forgot.
Now, my brethren, form to yourselves a destiny on this earth agreeable to your own wishes: lengthen out, in your own minds, your days to a term beyond your most sanguine hopes. I even wish you to indulge in the enjoyment of so pleasing an illusion: but, at last, you must follow the track which your forefathers have trod; you will at last see that day arrive, to which no other shall succeed; and that day will be the day of your eternity. Happy if you die in the Lord: miserable if you depart in sin. One of these lots awaits you. In the final decision upon all men there will be only two sides — the right and the left: two divisions — the goats and the sheep. Allow me, then, to recall you to the bed of death, and to expose to your view the double spectacle of this last hour, so terrible to the sinner, and so consolatory to the righteous man.
I say, terrible to the sinner, who, lulled by vain hopes of a conversion, at last reaches this fatal moment, full of desires, empty of good works, having ever lived a stranger to the Lord, and unable now to make any offering to him but of his crimes, and the anguish of seeing a period put to those days which he vainly believed would have endured for ever. Now, nothing can be more dreadful than the situation of this unfortunate wretch in the last moments of his life? Whichever way his mind is employed, whether in recalling the past, or considering what is acting around him: in a word, whether he penetrates into that awful futurity upon the brink of which he hangs, or limits his reflections to the present moment, these objects, the only ones which can occupy his thoughts, or present themselves to his fancy, only open to him the blackest prospects, which overwhelm him with despair.
For what can the past offer to a sinner, who, extended upon the bed of death, begins now to yield up dependence upon life, and reads, in the countenances of those around him, the dreadful intelligence that all is over with him? What now does he see in that long course of days which he has run through upon the earth? Alas! he sees only vain cares and anxieties; pleasures which passed away before they could be enjoyed, and iniquities which must endure for ever.
Vain cares. His whole life, which now appears to have occupied but a moment, presents itself to him, and in it he views nothing but one continued restraint and a useless agitation. He recalls to his mind all he has suffered for a world which now flies from him; for a fortune which now vanishes; for a vain reputation, which accompanies him not into the presence of God; for friends, whom he loses; for masters, who will soon forget him; for a name, which will be written only on the ashes of his tomb. What regret must agitate the mind of this unfortunate wretch, when he sees that his whole life has been one continued toil, yet that nothing to the purpose has been accomplished for himself! What regret, to have so often done violence to his inclinations, without gaining the advance of a single step toward heaven! — to have always believed himself too feeble for the service of God, and yet to have had the strength and the constancy to fall a martyr to vanity and to a world which is on the eve of perishing!
Alas! it is then that the sinner, overwhelmed, terrified at his own blindness and mistake, no longer finding but an empty space in a life which the world had alone engrossed; perceiving, that, after a long succession of years upon the earth, he has not yet begun to live; leaving history, perhaps, full of his actions, the public monuments loaded with the transactions of his life, the world filled with his name, and nothing, alas! which deserves to be written in the book of eternity, or which may follow him into the presence of God. Then it is, though too late, that he begins to hold a language to himself, which we have frequent opportunities of hearing. "I have lived, then, only for vanity? Why have I not served my God as I have served my masters? Alas! were so many anxieties, and so much trouble, necessary to accomplish my own destruction? Why, at least, did I not receive my consolation in this world? I should have enjoyed the present, that fleeting moment which passes away from me; and I should not then have lost all. But my life has been always filled with anxieties, subjections, fatigues, and restraints, and all these in order to prepare for me everlasting misery. What madness, to have suffered more toward my own ruin, than was required to have accomplished my salvation; and to have regarded the life of the upright, as a melancholy and an insupportable one; seeing they have done nothing so difficult for God, that I have not performed an hundred-fold for the worlds which is nothing, and from which I have consequently nothing to expect."
Yes, my brethren, it is in that last moment that your whole life will present itself to your view; but in very different colours from those in which it appears to you to-day. At present you count upon services performed for the state; places which you have filled; actions in which you have distinguished yourselves; wounds, which still bear testimony to your valour; the number of your campaigns; the splendour of your orders; all these appear objects of importance and reality to you. The public applauses which accompany them; the rewards with which they are followed; the fame which publishes them; the distinctions attached to them; all these only recall your past days to you, as days full, occupied, marked each by some memorable action, and by events worthy of being for ever preserved to posterity. You even distinguished yourselves, in your own minds, from those indolent characters of your own rank, who have led an obscure, idle, and useless life, and dishonoured their names by that slothful effeminacy which has kept them always groveling in the dust. But, on the bed of death, in that last moment when the world flies off and eternity approaches, your eyes will be opened; the scene will be changed; the illusion, which at present magnifies these objects, will be dissipated. You will see things as they really are; and that which formerly appeared so grand, so illustrious, as it was done only for the sake of the world, of glory, of fortune, will no longer appear of the least importance to you.
You will no longer find any thing real in your life but what you shall have done for God; nothing praiseworthy but works of faith and of piety; nothing great but what will merit eternity; and a single drop of cold water in the name of Jesus Christ, a single tear shed in his presence, and the slightest mortification suffered for his sake, will all appear more precious, more estimable to you, than all the wonders which the world admires, and which shall perish with it.
Not that the dying sinner finds only cares and anxieties thrown away in his past life, he finds the remembrance likewise of his pleasures; but this very remembrance depresses and overwhelms him: pleasures, which have existed only for a moment: he now perceives that he has sacrificed his soul, and his eternal welfare, to a fugitive moment of passion and voluptuousness. Alas! life had appeared too long to him to be entirely consecrated to God. He was afraid to adopt too early the side of virtue, lest he should be unable to support its duration, its weariness, and its consequences. He looked forward to the years he had still to run as to an immense space, through which he must travel under the weight of the cross, and separated from the world in the practice of Christian works. This idea alone had always suspended his good intentions; and, in order to return to God, he waited the last stage of life as the one in which perseverance is most certain. What a surprise in this last hour, to find that what had to him appeared so long has in reality been but an instant; that his infancy and old age so nearly touch each other, that they only form, as I may say, one day: and that, from his mother's breast, he has made but one step towards the grave. Nor is this the bitterest pang which he experiences in the remembrance of his pleasures; they have vanished like a dream; but he, who formerly claimed an honour to himself from their gratification, is now covered with confusion and shame at their recollection: so many shameful excesses; such weakness and debauchery. He, who piqued himself upon reason, elevation of mind, and haughtiness toward man; O my God! he then finds himself the weakest, the most despicable of sinners! Apparently, perhaps, a life of prudence, yet sunk in all the infamy of the senses and the puerility of the passions! A life of glory in the eyes of men; but, in the sight of God, the most shameful, the most deserving of contempt and disgrace! A life which success, perhaps, had continually accompanied; yet, nevertheless, in private, the most absurd, the most trifling, the most destitute of reflection and wisdom!
Pleasures, in a word, which have been the source of all his chagrins; which have empoisoned every enjoyment of life; which have changed his happiest days into days of madness and lamentation.
Pleasures for which he has ever paid dear, and of which he has never experienced but the anxieties and the bitterness: such are the foundations of this frivolous happiness. His passions alone have rendered life miserable to him; and the only moments of tranquillity he has enjoyed in the whole course of his life, are those in which his heart has been sheltered from their influence. "The days of my pleasures are fled," says the sinner then to himself, but in a disposition of mind very different from that of Job: " Those days which have occasioned all the sorrows of my life, by which my rest has been broken, and the calm stillness of the night changed into the blackest thoughts and uneasinesses: yet, nevertheless, great God! thou wilt still punish the sorrows and distresses of my unfortunate life! All the bitterness of my passions is marked against me in the book of thy wrath; and thou preparest for me, in addition to gratifications which have always been the source of all my miseries, a misery without an end, and boundless."
Behold what the expiring sinner experiences in the remembrance of the past: crimes which shall endure for ever; the weaknesses of childhood; the dissipations of youth; the passions and the disorders of a more advanced period: what do I know, perhaps even the shameful excesses of a licentious old age. Ah! my brethren, whilst in health, we perceive only the surface of our conscience; we recall only a vague and confused remembrance of our life; we see only the passions which actually enchain us; a complete life, spent in the habits of iniquity, appears to us only a single crime: but, on the bed of death, the darkness spread over the conscience of the sinner is dissipated. The more he searches into his heart, the more does he discover new stains; the deeper he enters into that abyss, the more do new monsters of horror present themselves to his sight. He is lost in the chaos, and knows not how to proceed. To enlighten it, an entire new life would be necessary: alas! and time flies: scarcely do a few moments now remain to him, and he must precipitate a confession for which the greatest leisure would hardly suffice, and which can precede but an instant the awful judgment of the justice of God. Alas! we often complain, during life, of a treacherous memory, — that we forget every thing, — that the minister of God is under the necessity of remedying our inattention, and of assisting us to know and to judge of ourselves: but in that last moment the expiring sinner shall require no assistance to recall the remembrance of his crimes: the justice of God, which had delivered him up during health to all the profundity of his darkness, will then enlighten him in his wrath.
Every thing around his bed of death awakens the remembrance of some new crime: servants, whom he has scandalized by his example; children, whom he has neglected; a wife, whom he has rendered miserable by unlawful attachments; ministers of the church, whom he has despised; riches, which he has abused; the luxury which surrounds him, for which the poor and his creditors have suffered; the pride and magnificence of his edifices, which have been reared up upon the inheritance of the widow and the orphan, or perhaps by the public calamity: every thing, in a word, the heavens and the earth, says Job, shall reveal his iniquity, and rise up against him; shall recall to him the frightful history of his passions and of his crimes.
Thus, the recollection of the past forms one of the most dreadful situations of the expiring sinner; because in it he finds nothing but labours lost; pleasures which have been dissipated the moment almost of their existence; and crimes which shall endure for ever.
But the scenes around him are not less gloomy to this unfortunate soul: his surprises, his separations, his changes.
His surprises. — He had always flattered himself that the hour of the Lord would not surprise him. Whatever had been said to him on the subject from the pulpit had not prevented him from assuring himself that his conscience should be properly arranged before the arrival of this dreaded moment. He has reached it, however, still loaded with all his crimes, without preparation, without the performance of a single exertion toward appeasing the wrath of the Almighty: he has reached it while he least thought of it, and he is now to be judged.
His surprises. — God strikes him in the zenith of his passions, — in the time when the thoughts of death were more distant from his mind, — when he had attained to places he had long ardently struggled for, and when, like the foolish man in the gospel, he had exhorted his soul to repose itself, and to enjoy in peace the fruit of its labours: it is in this moment that the justice of God surprises him, and he sees life, with every imaginary hope of happiness, blasted for ever.
His surprises. — He is on the brink of the gulf, and the Almighty willeth that no one shall dare to inform him of his situation. His relations flatter him; his friends leave him undeceived; they already lament him in secret as dead, yet they continue to speak of his recovery: they deceive him, in order that he may deceive himself. The Scriptures must be fulfilled: the sinner must be taken by surprise in this last moment. Thou hast said it, O my God! and thy words are the words of truth.
His surprises. — Abandoned by all the succours of art, delivered up alone to anguish and disease, he still cannot persuade himself that death is near. He flatters himself; he still hopes: the justice of God, it would seem, leaves him a remnant of reason, for the sole purpose of seducing himself. From his terrors, his astonishment, his inquietudes, we see clearly that he still comprehends not the necessity of death. He torments, he agitates himself, as if by these means he could escape death: but his agitations are only occasioned by regret for the loss of life, and are not the effects of grief for having wickedly spent it. The blinded sinner must be so to the end; and his death must be similar to his life.
In a word, his surprises. — He sees now that the world has all along deceived him; that it has continually led him from illusion to illusion, and from hope to hope; that things have never taken place exactly as he had promised himself; and that he has always been the dupe of his own errors. He cannot comprehend how his blindness could possibly be so constant; that for such a series of years he could obstinately continue to make such sacrifices for a world, for masters, whose only payment has been vain promises; and that his entire life has been one continued indifference on the part of the world to him, and an intoxication on his to the world. But what overpowers him is, the impossibility of remedying the mistake; that he can die only once; and that, after having badly run his race, he can no more recall the past, or, by retracing his steps, undertake a new trial. Thou art just, O my God! and thou wiliest that the sinner should in advance pronounce against himself, in order that he may afterward be judged from his own mouth.
The surprises of the dying sinner are, therefore, overwhelming; but the separations which take place in that last moment are not less so for him. The more he was attached to the world, to life, to all its works, the more does he suffer when a separation becomes inevitable. Every tie which must now be broken asunder, becomes a wound which rankles in his heart; every separation becomes a new death to his mind.
Separation from the riches which, with such constant and laborious attention he had accumulated, by means, perhaps, repugnant to salvation; in the possession of which he obstinately persisted, in spite of all the reproaches of his conscience, and which he had cruelly refused to the necessities of his brethren. — They now, however, escape from him; the mass of earth is dissipated before his eyes; his love, his regret for their loss, and the guilt of having acquired them, are the only remaining proofs that they were once in his possession.
Separation from the magnificence which surrounds him; from his proud edifices, in whose stately walls he once fondly believed he had erected an asylum against death; from the vanity and luxury of his furniture, of all which no portion shall now remain to him but the mournful cloth which is to encircle him in the tomb; from that air of opulence in the midst of which he had always lived. All escape from him; all abandon him; and he begins to look upon himself as a stranger in the midst of his palaces; where, indeed, he ought always to have considered himself as such; as an unknown, who no longer possesses any thing there; as an unfortunate wretch, whom they are on the point of stripping before his eyes, and whom they only allow to gratify his sight with the spoils for a little while, in order to augment his regret and his punishment.
Separation from his honours and offices, which he leaves, perhaps to a rival; to which he had at last attained, by wading through so many dangers, so many anxieties, so many meannesses, and which he had enjoyed with so much insolence and pride. He is already on the bed of death, stripped of all the marks of his dignities, and of all his titles, preserving that of a sinner alone, which he in vain, and now too late, bestows upon himself. Alas! in this last moment, he would gladly embrace the most servile condition; he would accept, as a favour, the most obscure, and the most grovelling station, could but his days be prolonged on these conditions; he envies the lot of his slaves, whom he leaves behind him; he rapidly advances toward death, and turns back his eyes with regret, to take a lingering look of life.
Separation from his body, for whose gratification he had always lived, and with which, by favouring all its passions, he had contracted such lively and intimate ties. He feels that the house of mud is crumbling into dust; he feels the approaches of death in each of his senses; he no longer holds to life, but by a carcass which moulders away; by the cruel agonies which his diseases make him feel; by the excess of his love for it, and which becomes more lively in proportion as he advances toward the moment of separation: from his relations, from his friends, whom he sees surrounding his bed, and whose tears and lamentations wring his heart, and make him cruelly feel the anguish of losing them for ever.
Separation from the world, where he had enjoyed so many distinguished offices; where he had established, aggrandized, and arranged himself, as if it had been intended for the place of his eternal residence; from the world, in whose smiles he only lived; on whose stage he had ever been one of the principal actors; in whose transactions he had always taken such an active part, and where he had figured with so much splendour, and so many talents, to render himself conspicuous in it. His body now quits it; but his heart and all his affections are centred in it still: the world dies to him, but he himself, in expiring, dies not to the world.
Then it is that the Almighty is great in the eyes of the expiring sinner. It is in that terrible moment, that the whole world, crumbling, disappearing from his sight, he sees only God who remaineth, who filleth all, who alone changeth not, and passeth not away. Formerly he used to complain, with an impious and ironical air, that it is very difficult to feel any fervent emotions for a God whom we see not, and not to love beings whom we perceive, and who interest all our senses. Ah! in this last moment, he shall see only God; the hitherto invisible will now be visible to him; his senses, already extinguished, will reject all sensual objects; all shall vanish around him; and God will take place of those delusions which had misled and deceived him through life.
Thus every thing changes to this unfortunate wretch; and these changes, with his separations and surprises, occasion the last bitterness of the spectacle of death.
Change in his credit and in his authority. — From the moment that nothing farther is to be expected from his life, the world ceases to reckon upon him; his pretended friends withdraw; his dependants already seek, elsewhere, other protectors, and other masters; even his slaves are employed in securing to themselves, after his death, an establishment which may suit them; scarcely, does a sufficient number remain around him to catch his last sighs. All abandon him; all withdraw themselves; he no longer sees around him that eager crowd of worshippers; it is a successor, perhaps, upon whom they already lavish the same attentions; whilst he, says Job, alone in the bed of his anguish, is no longer surrounded but by the horrors of death; already enters into that frightful solitude which the grave prepares for him, and makes bitter reflections on the inconstancy of the world and the little dependence to be placed on men.
Change in the public esteem, with which he had been so flattered, so intoxicated. — Alas! that world, by which he had been so celebrated, has already forgotten him. The change which his death shall necessarily occasion in the scene, may, perhaps engage for a few days the public attention; but this short interval over, and he shall be plunged in oblivion; scarcely will it be remembered that he has existed; every tongue will now be employed in celebrating the abilities of a successor, and exalting his character upon the wrecks of his memory and reputation. He already perceives this neglect; that he has only to die, and the blank will speedily be filled up; that no vestige of him shall even remain in the world; and that the upright alone, who had seen him surrounded with all his pomp, will say to themselves, Where is he now? Where now are those flatterers, which his greatness attracted? Behold to what the world conducts, and what is to be the portion of those who serve it!
Change in his body. — That flesh, which he had flattered, idolized so much; that vain beauty, which had attracted so many glances, and corrupted so many hearts, is already but a spectacle of horror, whose sight is hardly supportable; it is no longer but a carcass, which is approached with dread. That unfortunate creature, who had lighted up so many unjust passions: alas! his friends, his relations, even his slaves avoid him, conceal themselves, dare not approach him but with precaution, and no longer bestow upon him but the common offices of decency, and even these with reluctance. He himself shrinks with horror, and shudders at himself.
"I," says he to himself, who formerly attracted every look, " I call my servants, and they give me no answer; my breath is corrupt; my days are extinct; the grave is ready for me." — Job xix. 17.
Lastly, change in every thing which surrounds him. — His eyes seek some resting-place, some object of comfort, and no where do they find but the dreary representations of death. Yet even still, the remembrance of the past, and the view of the present, would be little to the expiring sinner; could he confine himself to these, he would not be so completely miserable; but the thoughts of a futurity convulse him with horror and despair. That futurity, that incomprehensible region of darkness, which he now approaches, conscience his only companion; that futurity, that unknown land from which no traveller has ever returned, where he knows not whom he shall find, nor what awaits him; that futurity, that fathomless abyss, in which his mind is lost and bewildered, and into which he must now plunge, ignorant of his destiny; that futurity, that tomb, that residence of horror, where he must now occupy his place amongst the ashes and the carcasses of his ancestors; that futurity, that incomprehensible eternity, even the aspect of which he cannot support; that futurity, in a word, that dreadful judgment to which, before the wrath of God, he must now appear, and render account of a life of which every moment almost has been occupied by crimes . Alas! while he only looked forward to this terrible futurity, at a distance, he made an infamous boast of not dreading it; he continually demanded, with a tone of blasphemy and derision, who is returned from it? He ridiculed the vulgar apprehensions, and piqued himself upon his undaunted courage. But from the moment that the hand of God is upon him; from the moment that death approaches near, that the gates of eternity open to receive him, and that he touches upon that terrible futurity, against which he seemed so fortified; ah! he then becomes either weak, trembling, dissolved in tears, raising up suppliant hands to heaven, or gloomy, silent, agitated, revolving within himself the most dreadful thoughts, and no longer expecting more consolation or mercy, from his weak tears and lamentations, than from his frenzies and despair.
Yes, my brethren,- this unfortunate wretch, who had always lulled himself in his excesses; always flattered himself, that one good moment alone was necessary, one sentiment of compunction before death, to appease the anger of God, despairs then of his clemency. In vain he is told of his eternal mercies: he feels to what a degree he is unworthy of them: in vain the minister of the church endeavours to soothe his terrors, by opening to him the bosom of his divine mercy; these promises touch him little, because he knows well that the charity of the church, which never despairs of salvation for its children, cannot, however, alter the awful justice of the judgments of God. In vain is he promised forgiveness of his crimes; a secret and terrible voice resounds from the bottom of his heart, and tells him that there is no salvation for the impious, and that he can have no dependence upon promises which are given to his miseries rather than to the truth. In vain is he exhorted to apply to those last remedies which the church offers to the dying: he regards them as desperate reliefs, which are hazarded when hope is over, and which are bestowed more for the consolation of the living than from any prospect of utility to those who are departing. Servants of Jesus Christ are called in to support him in this last moment; whilst all he is enabled to do, is, secretly to envy their lot, and to detest the misery of his own. His friends and relations are assembled round his bed, to receive his last sighs, and he turns away from them his eyes, because he finds still amidst them the remembrance of his crimes. Death, however, approaches; the minister endeavours to support, by prayer, the spark of life which still remains: " Depart, Christian soul \" says he. He says not to him, Prince, grandee of the world, depart. During his life, the public monuments were hardly sufficient for the number and pride of his titles: in this last moment they give him that title alone which he had received in baptism; the only one to which he had paid no attention, and the only one which can remain to him for ever. Depart, Christian soul. Alas! he had lived as if the body had formed his only being and treasure: he had even tried to persuade himself that his soul was nothing, that man is only a composition of flesh and blood, and that every thing perishes with us: he is now informed that it is his body, which is nothing but a morsel of clay now on the point of crumbling into pieces, and his only immortal being is that soul, that image of Divinity, that intelligence, alone capable of knowing and loving its Creator, which now prepares to quit its earthly mansion and appear before his awful tribunal. Depart, Christian soul. You had looked upon the earth as your country; and it was only a place of pilgrimage from which you must depart. The church thought to have announced glad tidings to you, the expiration of your exilement, in announcing the dissolution of your earthly frame; alas! and it only brings you melancholy and frightful news, and opens the commencement of your miseries and anguish!
Depart, then, Christian soul. — Soul, marked with the seal of salvation, which you have effaced, — redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ which you have trampled under foot, — purified by the grace of regeneration, which you have a thousand times stained, — enlightened by the lights of the faith, which you have always rejected, — loaded with all the tender mercies of heaven, which you have always unworthily profaned — depart, Christian soul. Go, and carry before Jesus Christ that august title, which should have been the illustrious mark of thy salvation, but which now becomes the greatest of thy crimes.
Then, the expiring sinner, no longer finding in the remembrance of the past but regrets which overwhelm him, — in all which takes place around him but images which afflict him, — in the thoughts of futurity but horrors which appal him, — no longer knowing to whom to have recourse, — neither to created beings, who now leave him, — nor to the world, which vanishes, — nor to men, who cannot save him from death, — nor to the just God, whom he looks upon as a declared enemy, and from whom he has no indulgence to expect — a thousand horrors occupy his thoughts; he torments, he agitates himself, in order to fly from death, which grasps him, or at least to fly from himself: from his expiring eyes issue something, I know not what, of dark and gloomy, which expresses the fury of his soul. In his anguish he utters words, interrupted by sobs, which are unintelligible, and to which they know not whether repentance or despair gives birth. He is seized with convulsions which they are ignorant whether to ascribe to the actual dissolution of his body, or to the soul which feels the approach of its Judge. He deeply sighs, and they know not whether the remembrance of his past crimes, or the despair of quitting life, forces from him such groans of anguish. At last, in the midst of these melancholy exertions, his eyes fix, his features change, his countenance becomes disfigured, his livid lips convulsively separate, his whole frame quivers, and, by this last effort, his unfortunate soul tears itself reluctantly from that body of clay, falls into the hands of its God, and finds itself alone at the foot of the awful tribunal.
My brethren, in this manner do those expire who forget their Creator during life. Thus shall you yourselves die, if your crimes accompany you to that last moment.
Every thing will change in your eyes, and you shall not change yourselves: you shall die, and you shall die in sin as you have lived; and your death will be similar to your life. Prevent this misery, O my brethren! live the fife of the righteous, and your death, similar to theirs, will be accompanied with joy, peace, and consolation. This is what I mean to explain in the second part of this Discourse.
Part II. — I know, that even to the most upright souls there is always something terrible in death. The judgments of God, whose profound secrecy they dread, — the darkness of their own conscience, in which they continually figure to themselves hidden sfains, known to the Almighty alone, — the loveliness of their faith, and of their love, which in their own sight magnifies their smallest faults; in a word, the dissolution itself of their earthly frame, and the natural horror we feel for the grave, — all these occasion death to be attended by a natural sensation of dread and repugnance, insomuch that as St. Paul says, the most upright themselves, who anxiously long to be clothed with that immortality promised to them, would yet willingly attain it without being divested of the mortality which encompasses them.
It is not less true, however, that in them grace rises superior to that horror of death which springs from nature; and in that moment, whether they recall the past, consider the present, or look forward to the future, they find in the remembrance of the past the end of their troubles, — in the consideration of the present a novelty which moves them with a holy joy, — in their views toward the future the certainty of an eternity which fills them with rapture, insomuch, that the same situations which are the occasion of despair to the dying sinner, become then an abundant source of consolation to the faithful soul.
I say, whether they recall the past; and here, my brethren, figure to yourselves a righteous character on the bed of death, who has long, by the practice of Christian works, prepared himself for this last moment, has amassed a treasure of righteousness, that he may not appear empty-handed in the presence of his Judge, and has lived in faith, that he may die in peace, and in all the consolations of hope; figure to yourselves this soul, reaching at last that final hour of which he had never lost sight, and with which he had always connected all the troubles, all the wants, all the self-denials, all the events of his mortal life: I say that nothing is more soothing to him than the remembrance of the past, — of his sufferings, of his mortifications, of all the trials which he has undergone. Yes, my brethren, it appears frightful to you at present to suffer for God; the smallest exertions upon yourselves, required by religion, seem to overpower you; you consider as unhappy those who bear the yoke of Jesus Christ, and who, to please him, renounce the world and all its charms; but, on the bed of death, the most soothing reflection to a faithful soul is the remembrance of what he has suffered for his God. He then comprehends all the merit of penitence, and how absurd men are to dispute with God a moment of constraint, which will be entitled to the recompense of a felicity without end and without measure; for then his consolation is, that he has sacrificed only the gratifications of a moment, of which there would only remain to him now the confusion and the shame, — that whatever he might have suffered for the world, would in this moment be lost to him; on the contrary, that the smallest suffering for God, a tear, a mortification, a vain pleasure sacrificed, an improper desire repressed will never be forgotten, but shall last as long as God himself. What consoles him is, that of all the human luxuries and enjoyments, alas! on the bed of death, there remain no more to the sinner who has always indulged in them, than to the righteous man who has always abstained from them; that they are equally past to them both; but that the one shall bear eternally the guilt of having delivered himself up to them, and the other the glory of having known how to vanquish them.
This is what the past offers to a faithful soul on the bed of death: sufferings, afflictions, which have endured but a little while, and are now to be eternally rewarded, — the time of dangers and temptations past, — the attacks made by the world upon his faith at last terminated, — the trials in which his innocence had run so many risks, at last disappeared, — the occasions in which his virtue had so nearly been shipwrecked, at last, for ever removed, — the continual combats which he had to sustain against his passions, at last ended, — and every obstacle which flesh and blood had always placed in the way of his piety, for ever annihilated. How sweet it is, when safely arrived in port, to recall the remembrance of past dangers and tempests! When victorious in the race, how pleasing to retrace, in imagination, our exertions, and to review those parts of the course most distinguished by the toils, the obstacles, and the difficulties which have rendered them celebrated.
The righteous man, then, appears to me, like another Moses, expiring on the holy mountain, where the Lord had marked out to him his grave; " Get thee up into the mountain Abarim, and die," &c., Deut. xxxii. 49; who, before he expired, looking down from that sacred place, and casting his eyes over that extent of country, the nations and kingdoms he had traversed, and now leaves behind him, — reviews, in imagination, the numberless dangers he had escaped, — his battles with so many conquered nations, — the fatigues of the desert, — the snares of Midian, — the murmurs and calamities of his brethren, — the rocks split in pieces, — the dangers of Egypt avoided, — the waters of the Red Sea got over, hunger, thirst, and weariness struggled against, — and touching at last the happy term of so many labours, and viewing from afar that country promised to his father, he sings a song of thanksgiving and praise to God, dies transported with joy, both at the remembrance of so many dangers avoided, and at the prospect of that place of rest which the Lord shows him from afar, and looks upon the holy mountain, where he is to expire, as the reward of his toils, and the happy term of his course.
Not that the remembrance of the past, in recalling to the dying righteous soul the trials and dangers of his past life, does not also remind him of his infidelities and wanderings; but these are errors expiated by the sighs of repentance, wanderings which have fortunately been followed by a renewal of fervour and fidelity, wanderings, which recall to him the mercies of God to his soul, who hath made his crimes the means of his repentance, his passions of his conversion, and his errors of his salvation. The grief for his faults, in his last moment, becomes only a sorrow of consolation and tenderness; the tears which this remembrance draws from him still are no longer but the tears of joy and gratitude.
The former mercies of God to his soul fill him with confidence, and inspire him with a just hope of more; the past conduct of God, with regard to him, comforts his heart, and seems to answer for what he shall experience in future. He no longer, as in the days of his penitence and mourning, figures to himself the Almighty under the idea of a terrible and severe Judge, whom he had insulted, and whom it was necessary to appease; but as the Father of Mercies, and a God of all consolation, who prepares to receive him into his bosom, and there shelter him from all his afflictions.
" Awake, righteous soul," says then to him, in secret, his Lord and his God; " Thou, who hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, thou shalt no more drink it again; the days of thy tribulation are past. Shake thyself from the dust, arise, and sit down; loose thyself from the bands of thy neck. O, captive daughter of Zion! put on thy strength, put on thy beautiful garments: enter into the everlasting joy of thy Lord, where thou shalt obtain gladness and peace, and sorrow, and mourning, shall flee away f Isaiah li. 17, &c.
First consolation of the upright soul in the bed of death; the remembrance of the past. But all which takes place around him; the world which flies from him; all created beings which disappear; all that phantom of vanity which vanishes; this change, this novelty, is the source still of a thousand consolations to him.
We have just seen, that the despair of the dying sinner, in viewing what passes around him, is occasioned by his surprises, his separations, his changes; these are precisely the sources of consolation to the faithful soul in this last moment. Nothing surprises him; he is separated from nothing; in his eyes nothing is changed.
Nothing surprises him. — The hour of the Lord surprises him not: he expected, he longed for it. The thought of this last moment accompanied all his actions, entered into all his projects, regulated all his desires, and animated his whole conduct through life. Every hour, every moment, seemed to him the one which the upright Judge had appointed for that dreadful reckoning, where righteousness itself shall be judged. Thus had he lived, incessantly preparing his soul for that last hour. Thus he expires, tranquil, consoled, without surprise or dread, in the peace of his Lord; death never approaching nearer to him than he had always beheld it; and experiencing no difference between the day of his death and the ordinary ones of his life.
Besides, what occasions the surprise and the despair of the sinner on the bed of death, is to see that the world, in which he had ever placed all his confidence, is nothing, is but a dream, which vanishes and is annihilated.
But the faithful soul, in this last moment, ah! he sees the world in the same light he had always viewed it; as a shadow which flitteth away; as a vapour which deceives at a distance, but, when approached, has neither reality nor substance. He feels, then, the holy joy of having estimated the world according to its merit; of having judged with propriety; of never being attached to what must one day slip from him in a moment; and of having placed his confidence in God alone, who remaineth for ever, eternally to reward those who trust in him.
How sweet, then, to a faithful soul, to say to himself, I have made the happiest choice; how fortunate for me that I attached myself only to God, since he alone will endure to me for ever! My choice was regarded as a folly; the world laughed it to scorn, and found me whimsical and singular in not conforming myself to its ways; but now this last moment verifies all. It is death that decides on which side are the wise or the foolish, and which of the two has judged aright, the worldly or the faithful.
Thus does the upright soul, on the bed of death, view the world and all its glory. When the ministers of the church come to converse with him of God and the nothingness of all human things, these holy truths, so new to the sinner in that last moment, are subjects familiar to him, objects of which he had never lost sight. These consolatory truths are then his sweetest occupation; he meditates upon, he enjoys them, he draws them from the bottom of his heart, where they had always been cherished, to place them full in his view, and he contemplates them with joy. The minister of Jesus Christ speaks no new or foreign language to him; it is the language of his heart: they are the sentiments of his whole life. Nothing soothes him so much, then, as to hear that God spoken of whom he had always loved; those eternal riches, which he had always coveted; that happiness of another life, for which he had always sighed; and the nothingness of that world which he had always despised. All other subjects of conversation become insipid to him; he can listen only to the mercies of the God of his fathers, and he regrets the moments as lost, which must necessarily be devoted to the regulation of an earthly mansion and the succession of his ancestors. Great God! what knowledge! what peace! what delicious transports! what holy emotions of love, of joy, of confidence, of thanksgiving, then fill the soul of this righteous character! His faith is renewed; his love is invigorated; his fervour is excited; his compunction is awakened. The nearer the dissolution of the earthly man approaches, the more is the new man completed and perfected! The more his mansion of clay crumbles, the more is his soul purified and exalted! In proportion as the body falls into ruin, the spirit is disengaged and renewed; like a pure and brilliant flame, which ascends and shines forth with additional splendour, in proportion as it disengages itself from the remains of matter which held it down, and as the substance to which it was attached is consumed and dissipated.
Alas! all discourses upon God fatigue the sinner on the bed of death: they irritate his evils; his head suffers by them, and his rest is disturbed. It becomes necessary to manage his weakness, by venturing only a few words at proper periods; to do it with precaution, lest their length should incommode him; to choose the moments for speaking to him of the God who is ready to judge him, and whom he has never known. Holy artifices of charity are required, nay deception is even necessary sometimes, to make him bestow a thought upon his salvation. Even the ministers of the church but rarely approach him, because they well know that their presence is only an intrusion. They are excluded as disagreeable and melancholy prophets; his friends around him carefully turn the conversation from salvation, as conveying the news of death, and as a dismal subject which wearies him; they endeavour to enliven his spirits by relating the affairs and vanities of the age, which had engrossed him during life. Great God! and thou permittest that this unfortunate wretch should bear, even to death, his dislike to truth; that worldly images shall still occupy him in this last moment; and that they shall dread to speak to him of his God whom he has always dreaded to serve and to know!
But let us not lose sight of the faithful soul. Not only he sees nothing on the bed of death which surprises him, but he is likewise separated from nothing which he laments or regrets. For what can death separate him from to occasion either regret or tears? From the world? Alas! from a world in which he had always lived as an exile; in which he had found only shameful excesses which grieved his faith; rocks, at which his innocence trembled; attentions, which were troublesome to him; subjections, which, in spite of himself, still divided him between heaven and the earth: we feel little regret for the loss of what we have never loved. From his riches and wealth? Alas! his treasure was in heaven: his riches had been the riches of the poor: he loses them not; he only goes to regain them for ever in the bosom of God. From his titles and his dignities? Alas! it is a yoke from which he is delivered. The only title dear to him was the one he had received in baptism, which he now bears to the presence of God, and which constitutes his claim to the eternal promises. From his relations and friends? Alas! he knows he only precedes them by a moment; that death cannot separate those whom charity hath joined upon the earth; and that, soon united together in the bosom of God, they shall again form the church and the same people, and shall enjoy the delights of an immortal society. From his children? He leaves to them the Lord as a father; his example and his instructions as an inheritance; his good wishes and his blessing as a final consolation. And, like David, he expires in intreating for his son Solomon, not temporal prosperities, but a perfect heart, love of the law, and the fear of the God of his fathers. From his body? Alas! from that body which he had always chastised, crucified; which he considered as his enemy; which kept him still dependent upon the senses and the flesh; which overwhelmed him under the weight of so many humiliating wants; from that house of clay which confined him prisoner; which prolonged the days of his banishment and his slavery, and retarded his union with Jesus Christ. Ah! like St. Paul, he earnestly wishes its dissolution: it is an irksome clothing from which he is delivered; it is a wall of separation from his God, which is destroyed, and which now leaves him free and qualified to take his flight toward the eternal mountains. Thus death separates him from nothing, because faith had already separated him from all.
I do not add, that the changes which take place on the bed of death, so full of despair to the sinner, change nothing in the faithful soul. His reason, it is true, decays; but, for a long time past, he had subjected it to the yoke of faith, and extinguished its vain lights before the light of God and the profundity of his mysteries. His expiring eyes become darkened, and are closed upon all visible objects; but long ago they had been fixed on the Invisible alone. His tongue is immoveable; but he had long before planted the guard of circumspection on it, and meditated in silence the mercies of the God of his fathers. All his senses are blunted and lose their natural use; but for a long time past, he had himself interdicted their influence. He had eyes and saw not; ears, and heard not; taste, and relished only the things of heaven. Nothing is changed, therefore, to this soul on the bed of death. His body falls in pieces; all created beings vanish from his eyes; light retires; all nature returns to nothing; and, in the midst of all these changes, he alone changeth not; he alone is always the same.
How grand, my brethren, does faith render the righteous on the bed of death; how worthy of God, of angels, and of men, is the sight of the upright soul in that last moment! It is then that the faithful heart appears master of the world, and of all the created; it is then that, participating already in the greatness and the immutability of the God to whom he is on the eve of being united, he is elevated above all; in the world, without any connexion with it; in a mortal body, without being chained to it; in the midst of his relations and friends, without seeing or knowing them; in the midst of the embarrassments and changes which his death opens to his sight, without the smallest interruption to his tranquillity. He is already fixed in the bosom of God, in the midst of the destruction of all things. Once more my brethren, how grand is it to have lived in the observance of the law of the Lord, and to die in his fear! With what dignity does not faith then display itself in the righteous soul! It is the moment of his glory and triumph; it is the centre at which the whole lustre of his life and of his virtues unite.
How beautiful to see the righteous man, then, moving with a tranquil and majestic pace toward eternity! And with reason did the false prophet cry out, when he saw the triumphal march of the Israelites into the Land of Promise, — " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my end be like his." Numb, xxiii. 10.
And behold, my brethren, what completely fills with joy and consolation the faithful soul on the bed of death: it is the thought of futurity. The sinner, during health, looks forward to a future state with a tranquil eye: but in this last moment, beholding its approach, his tranquillity is changed into shudderings and terror. The upright man, on the contrary, during the days of his mortal life, durst never regard, with a fixed eye, the depth and the extent of God's judgments: he wrought out his salvation with fear and trembling; he shuddered at the very thought of that dreadful futurity, where even the just, if judged without mercy, shall hardly be saved: but, on the bed of death, ah! the God of peace, who displays himself to him, calms his agitations; his fears immediately cease, and are changed into a sweet hope. He already pierces, with expiring eyes, through that cloud of mortality which still surrounds him, and sees the throne of glory, and the Son of Man at his Father's right hand, ready to receive him; that immortal country, for which he had longed so much, and upon which his mind had always dwelt; that holy Zion, which the God of his fathers filleth with his glory and his presence; where he overfloweth the elect with a torrent of delights, and maketh them for ever to enjoy the incomprehensible riches which he hath prepared for those who love him; that city of the people of God, the residence of the saints, the habitation of the just, and of the prophets, where he shall again find his brethren, with whom charity had united him on the earth, and with whom he will bless eternally the tender mercies of the Lord, and join with them in hallelujahs to his praise.
Ah! when also the ministers of the church come to announce to this soul that the hour is come, and that eternity approaches; when they come to tell him in the name of the church, which sends them, " Depart, Christian soul; quit at last that earth where you have so long been a stranger and a captive: the time of trial and tribulation is over: behold at last the upright Judge, who comes to strike off the chains of your mortality: return to the bosom of God from whence you came: quit now a world which was unworthy of you: the Almighty hath at last been touched with your tears; he at last openeth to you the gate of eternity, the gate of the upright: depart faithful soul; go and unite thyself to the heavenly church which expects thee: only remember your brethren whom you leave upon the earth still exposed to temptations and to storms: be touched with the melancholy state of the church here below, which has given you birth in Jesus Christ, and which envies your departure: intreat the end of her captivity, and her re-union with her spouse, from whom she is still separated. Those who sleep in the Lord perish not for ever: we only quit you on the earth in order to regain you in a little time with Jesus Christ in the kingdom of the holy: the body, which you are on the point of leaving a prey to worms and to putrefaction, shall soon follow you, immortal and glorious. Not a hair of your head shall perish. There shall remain in your ashes a seed of immortality, even to the day of revelation, when your parched bones shall be vivified, and again appear more resplendent than light: what happiness for you to be at last quit of all the miseries which still afflict us; to be no longer exposed, like your brethren, to lose that God whom you go to enjoy; to shut your eyes at last on all the scandals which grieve us; on that vanity which seduces us; on those examples which lead us astray; on those attachments which engross us; and on those troubles which consume us! What happiness to quit at last a place where every thing tires and every thing sullies us; where we are a burden to ourselves, and where we only exist in order to be unhappy; and to go to a residence of peace, of joy, of quiet, where our only occupation will be to enjoy the God whom we love!"
What blessed tidings, then, of joy and immortality to this righteous soul! What blessed arrangement! With what peace, what confidence, what thanksgivings, does he not accept it! He raises, like old Simeon, his dying eyes to heaven; and viewing the Lord who cometh inwardly, says to him, " Break, O my God! when thou pleasest, these remains of mortality; these feeble ties which still keep me here: I wait, in peace and in hope, the effects of thine eternal promises." Thus, purified by the expiation of a holy and Christian life, fortified by the last remedies of the church, washed in the blood of the Lamb, supported by the hope of the promises, and ripe for eternity, he shuts his eyes with a holy joy on all sublunary creatures: he tranquilly goes to sleep in the Lord, and returns to the bosom of that God from whence he came.
My brethren, any observation here would be useless. Such is the end of those who have lived in the fear of the Lord: their death is precious before God, like their life. Such is the deplorable end of those who have neglected him to that last hour: the death of sinners is abominable in the eyes of the Lord equally as their life. If you live in sin, you will die in all the horrors and in all the useless regrets of the sinner, and your death shall be an eternal death. If you live in righteousness, you will die in peace, and in the confidence of the just, and your death will be only a passage to a blessed immortality.
Now, to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, now, henceforth, and for evermore. Amen.