# Sermons (Massillon)/Sermon 9

SERMON IX.
ON DEATH.
"Now, when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold there was a dead man' carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." — Luke vii. 12.
Was death ever accompanied with more affecting circumstances? It is an only son, sole successor to the name, titles, and fortune of his ancestors, whom death snatches from an afflicted mother and widow; he is ravished from her in the flower of age, and almost at his entry into life; at a period when, happily past the dangers of infancy, and attained to that first degree of strength and reason, which commences man, he seemed least exposed to the shafts of death, and at last allowed maternal tenderness to breathe from the fears which accompany the uncertain progress of education. The citizens run in crowds, to mingle their tears with those of the disconsolate mother; they assiduously seek to lessen her grief, by the consolation of those vague and common-place discourses to which profound sorrow little attends; with her they surround the mournful bier, and they deck the obsequies with their mourning and presence; the train of this funeral pomp to them is a show; but is it an instruction? They are struck and affected, but are they from it less attached to life? And will hot the remembrance of this death perish in their minds, with the noise and decorations of the funeral?
To similar examples we every day bring the same dispositions. The feelings which an unexpected death awakens in our hearts are the feelings of a day, as though death itself ought to be the concern of a day. We exhaust ourselves in vain reflections on the inconstancy of human things; but, the object which struck us once out of sight, the heart, become tranquil, finds itself the same. Our projects, our cares, our attachments to the world, are not less lively than if we were labouring for eternal ages; and, at our departure from a melancholy spectacle, where we have sometimes seen birth, youth, titles, and fame, wither in a moment, and for ever buried in the grave, we return to the world more occupied with, and more eager than ever after all those vain objects of which we so lately had seen with our eyes, and almost felt with our hands, the insignificancy and meanness.
Let us at present examine the reasons of so deplorable a mistake. Whence comes it that men reflect so little upon death, and that the thoughts of it make such transitory impressions? It is this: the uncertainty of death amuses us, and removes from our mind its remembrance; the certainty of death appals, and forces us to turn our eyes from the gloomy picture: the uncertainty of it lulls and encourages us; whatever is awful and certain, with regard to it, makes us dread the thoughts of it. Now, I wish at present to combat the dangerous security of the first, and the improper dread of the other. Death is uncertain; you are therefore imprudent ​not to be occupied with the thoughts of it, but to allow it to surprise you. Death is certain; you then are foolish to dread the thoughts of it, and it ought never to be out of your sight. Think upon death, because you know not the hour it will arrive: think upon death, because it must arrive. This is the subject of the present Discourse.
Part I. — The first step which man makes in life, is likewise the first toward the grave: from the moment his eyes open to the light, the sentence of death is pronounced against him; and, as though it were a crime to live, it is sufficient that he lives to make him deserving of death. That was not our first destiny. The Author of our being had at first animated our clay with a breath of immortality: he had placed in us a seed of life, which the revolution of neither years nor time could have weakened or extinguished: his work was so perfect, that it might have defied the duration of ages, while nothing external could have dissolved or even injured its harmony. Sin alone withered this divine seed, overturned this blessed order, and armed all created beings against man: and Adam became mortal from the moment he became a sinner: " By sin," , said the apostle, " did death enter into the world."
From our birth, therefore, we all bear it within us. It appears, that, in our mother's womb, we have sucked in a slow poison, with which we come into the world; which makes us languish on the earth, some a longer, others a more limited period, but which always terminates in death. We die every day; every moment deprives us of a portion of life, and advances us a step toward the grave: the body pines, health decays, and every thing which surrounds assists to destroy us; food corrupts, medicines weaken us; the spiritual fire, which internally animates, consumes us; and our whole fife is only a long and painful sickness. Now, in this situation, what image ought to be so familiar to man as death? A criminal condemned to die, whichever way he casts his eyes, what can he see but this melancholy object? And does the longer or shorter period we have to live, make a sufficient difference to entitle us to think ourselves immortal on this earth?
It is true, that the measure of our lots is not alike: some in peace, see their days grow upon them to the most advanced age, and, inheritors of the blessings of their primeval age, expire full of years in the midst of a numerous posterity: others, arrested in the middle of their course, see, like king Hezekiah, the gates of the grave open for them while yet in their prime; and, like him, " seek in vain for the residue of their years:" there are some who only show themselves as it were on the earth, who finish their course with the day, and who, like the flowers of the field, leave scarcely an interval between the instant which views them in their bloom and that which sees them withered and cut off. The fatal moment marked for each is a secret written in the book of life, which the Lamb of God alone has a right to open. We all live, then, uncertain of the duration of our life; and this uncertainty, of itself so fit ​to render us watchful of our last hour, even lulls our vigilance. We never think on death, because we know not exactly in what age of life to place it: we even regard not old age as the term, at least sure and inevitable: the doubt of ever reaching that period, which surely ought to fix and limit our hopes to this side of decrepitude, serves only to stretch them beyond it. Unable to settle itself on any thing certain, our dread becomes a vague and confused feeling, which fixes on nothing; insomuch that the uncertainty, which ought only to dwell on the length or brevity of it, renders us tranquil on our existence itself.
Now I say, in the first place, that of all dispositions, this is the rashest and most imprudent; I appeal to yourselves for this truth. Is an evil which may take place every day, to be more disregarded than another which threatens you only at the expiration of a number of years? What! because your soul may every moment be recalled, you would tranquilly live as though you were never to lose it? Because the danger is always present, circumspection becomes less necessary? But in what other situation or circumstance of life, except that of our eternal salvation, does uncertainty become an excuse for security and neglect? Does the conduct of that servant in the gospel, who, under pretence that his master delayed to return, and that he knew not the hour when he should arrive, applied his property to his own purposes, as if he never were to render account of it, appear to you a prudent discharge of his duty? What other motives has Jesus Christ made use of to exhort us to incessant watching? and what in religion is more proper to awake our vigilance than the uncertainty of this last day?
Ah! my brethren, were the hour unalterably marked for each of us; were the kingdom of God, like the stars, to come at a known and fixed revolution; at our birth, were our portions written on our foreheads, the number of our years, and the fatal day which shall terminate them; that fixed and certain object, however distant, would incessantly employ our thoughts, would agitate and deprive us of every tranquil moment; we would always regard the interval before us as too short; that object, in spite of us, always present to our mind, would disgust us with every thing; would render every pleasure insipid, fortune indifferent, and the whole world tiresome and a burden: that terrible moment, which we would no more lose sight of, would repress our passions, extinguish our animosities, disarm revenge, calm the revolts of the flesh, and mingle itself in all our schemes; and our life, thus limited to a certain number of days, fixed and known, would be only a preparation for that last moment. Are we in our senses, my brethren? Death seen at a distance, at a sure and fixed point, would fill us with dread, detach us from the world and ourselves, call us to God, and incessantly occupy our thoughts; and this same death, uncertain, which may happen every day, every instant, — this same death, which must surprise us when we least expect it, which is perhaps at the gate, engages not our attention, and leaves us tranquil, — what do I say? — leaves us all our passions, our criminal attach​ments, our ardour for the world, pleasures, and fortune: and, because it is not certain that we shall die to-day, we live as if we were to live for ever.
Observe, my brethren, that this uncertainty is in effect accompanied with all the circumstances most capable of alarming, or at least engaging the attention of a prudent man, who makes any use of his reason. In the first place, the surprise of that last day you have to dread, is not one of those rare and singular accidents which befal only some unfortunate wretches, and which it is more prudent to disregard than to foresee. In order to be surprised by death, the question at present is not that the thunder should fall upon your heads, that you should be buried under the ruins of your palaces, that you should be swallowed up by the waves, nor many other accidents, whose singularity renders them more terrible, though less dreaded; it is a common evil; not a day passes, without furnishing some examples; almost all men are surprised by death; all see it approach, while they believe it yet at a distance; all say to themselves, like the foolish man in the gospel, " Why should I be afraid? I have many years yet to come/' In this manner have you seen depart, your relations, friends, and almost all those whose death you have witnessed; every instance surprised you; you expected it not so soon; and you endeavoured to account for it by human reasons, such as the imprudence of the patient, or the want of proper advice and medicines; but the only and true reason is, that the hour of the Lord always takes us by surprise.
The earth is like a vast field of battle, where we are every day engaged with the enemy. You have happily escaped to-day; but you have witnessed the fall of many, who, like you, expected to survive: to-morrow you again must enter the lists; and who has told you that fortune, so capricious with regard to others, to you alone will continue favourable? And since you at last must perish there, are you prudent in building a fixed and permanent habitation on the very spot, perhaps, intended for your tomb? Place yourselves in any possible situation, there is not a moment but may be your last, and has actually been so to some of your brethren; no brilliant action, but may terminate in the eternal shades of the graves; and Herod is struck in the midst of the servile and foolish applauses of his people: no day set apart for the solemn display of worldly magnificence, but may conclude with your funeral pomp; and Jezebel was precipitated, the very day she had chosen to show herself in her greatest pride and ostentation, from the windows of her palace: no festival but may be the feast of death; and Belshazzar expired in the midst of a sumptuous banquet: no repose but may conduct you to an everlasting sleep: and Holofernes, in the heart of his army, and conqueror of so many kingdoms and provinces, fell under the stroke of a simple Jewish woman: no disease, but may be the fatal term of your course; and every day you see the slightest complaints deceive the opinions of the most skilful and the expectations of the patient, and ​almost in an instant take the turn of death: — in a word, figure yourselves in any possible stage or station of life, and with difficulty can you number those who have been surprised in a similar situation; and what right have you to expect, that you alone shall be exempted from a lot common to all? You allow, you confess this; but these confessions are merely words of course, and are never followed by a single precaution to secure you from the danger.
Secondly. Did this uncertainty turn only on the hour, the place, or the manner of your death, it would appear less shocking; for, after all, says a holy father, what matters it to a Christian, whether he shall expire in the midst of his connexions or in the country of strangers; in the bed of sorrow or the abyss of the waves; provided he dies in piety and righteousness? But what renders this terrible, is, the uncertainty whether you shall die in the Lord or in sin; that you shall know not what will be your lot in that other region where conditions change no more; into whose hands, at its departure from the body, your soul, trembling, a stranger and alone, shall fall; whether it shall be surrounded with light, and carried to the foot of the throne on the wings of blessed and happy spirits, or enveloped in darkness, and cast headlong into the gulf: you hang between these two eternities; you know not to which you shall be attached: death alone will disclose the secret; and in this uncertainty you remain tranquil, and indolently wait its approach, as though it were a matter of no importance to you, nor to determine your eternal happiness or misery? Ah! my brethren, were it even true that all ends with us, the impious man would still be foolish in saying, " Let us think not on death; let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." The more he found life agreeable, the more reason would he have to be afraid of death, which to him would, however, be only a cessation of existence. But we, to whom faith opens prospects of punishment or eternal rewards beyond the grave; we, who must reach the gates of death, still uncertain of this dreadful alternative, is there not a folly, — what do I say? — a madness, (not, to be sure, in professing the sentiments of the impious, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,)" in living as though we thought like him! Is it possible we can remain a single instant unoccupied with that decisive moment, and without allaying, by the precautions of faith, that trouble and dread into which this uncertainty must cast a soul who has not yet renounced his eternal hopes?
Thirdly. In all other uncertainties, the number of those who share the same danger may inspire us with confidence; or resources, with which we flatter ourselves, may leave us more tranquil; or, even at the worst, the disappointment becomes a lesson, which teaches us, to our cost, to be more guarded in future. But, in the dreadful uncertainty in question, the number of those who run the same risk can diminish nothing from our danger; all the resources with which we may flatter ourselves on the bed of death, are, in general, merely illusive; and religion itself, which furnishes them, dare ground but small hopes on them: in a word, the mis​take is irremediable; we die only once, and our past folly can no more serve as a lesson to guard us from future error. Our misfortunes indeed open our eyes; but these new lights, which dissipate our blindness, become useless, by the immutability of our state, and are rather a cruel knowledge of our misery, which prepares to tear us with eternal remorse, and to occasion the most grievous portion of our punishment, than wise reflections which may lead us to repentance.
Upon what, then, can you justify this profound and incomprehensible neglect of your last day, in which you live? On youth, which may seem to promise you many years yet to come?
Youth! But the son of the widow of Nain was young. Does death respect ages or rank? Youth! But that is exactly what makes me tremble for you: licentious manners, pleasures to excess, extravagant passions, ambitious desires, the dangers of war, thirst for renown, and the sallies of revenge; is it not during the pursuit or gratification of some one of these passions, that the majority of men finish their career? Adonias, but for his debaucheries, might have lived to a good old age; Absalom, but for his ambition; the king of Sachem's son, but for his love of Dinah; Jonathan, had glory not dug a grave for him in the mountains of Gilboa. Youth! Alas! it is the season of dangers, and the rock upon which life generally splits.
Once more, then, upon what do you found your hopes? On the strength of your constitution? But what is the best established health? A spark which a breath shall extinguish; a single day's sickness is sufficient to lay low the most robust. I examine not after this, whether you do not even flatter yourselves on this point; if a body, exhausted by the irregularities of youth, do not announce to your own minds the sentence of death; if habitual infirmities do not lay open before you the gates of the grave; if disagreeable indications do not menace you with some sudden accident. I wish you to lengthen out your days even beyond your hopes. Alas! my brethren, can any period appear long which must at last come to an end? Look back, and see where now are your youthful years? What trace of solid joy do they leave in your remembrance? Not more than a vision of the night; you dream that you have lived, and behold all that is left to you of it; all that interval, elapsed from your birth to the present day, is like a rapid flash, whose passage the eye, far from dwelling on, can with difficulty see. Had you begun to live even with the world itself, the past would now appear to you neither longer nor more real: all the ages elapsed down to the present day you would look upon as fugitive instants; all the nations which have appeared and disappeared on the earth; all the revolutions of empires and kingdoms; all those grand events which embellish our histories, to you would be only the different scenes of a show which you had seen concluded in a day. Recollect the victories, the captured cities, the glorious treaties, the magnificence, the splendid events of the first years of this reign; most of you have not only witnessed, but have ​shared in their danger and glory; our annals will convey them down to our latest posterity; but to you they are already but a dream, but a momentary flash, which is extinguished, and which every day effaces more and more from your remembrance. What, then, is this small portion you have still to accomplish? Can you believe that the days to come have more reality than those already past? Years appear long while yet at a distance; arrived, they vanish, they slip from us in an instant; and scarcely shall we have looked around us, when, as if by enchantment, we shall find ourselves at the fatal term, which still appeared so distant that we rashly concluded it would never arrive. View the world, such as you have seen it in your youthful days, and such as you now see it: new personages have mounted the stage; the grand parts are filled by new actors; there are new events, new intrigues, new passions, new heroes in virtue as well as in vice, which engage the praises, derisions, and censures of the public; a new world, without your having perceived it, has insensibly risen on the wrecks of the first; every thing passes -with and like you; a velocity, which nothing can stop, drags all into the gulf of eternity: yesterday our ancestors cleared the way for us; and to-morrow we shall do the same for those who are to follow. Ages succeed each other; the appearance of the world incessantly changes; the dead and living continually replace and succeed each other. Nothing stands still; all changes, all wastes away, all has an end. God alone remaineth always the same: the torrent of ages, which sweeps away all men, flows before his eyes; and, with indignation, he sees weak mortals, carried down by that rapid course, insult him while passing; wish, of that transitory instant, to constitute all their happiness; and, at their departure from it, fall into the hands of his vengeance and wrath. Where, says the apostle, amongst us, are now the wise? And a man, were he even capable of governing the world, can he merit that name from the moment that he forgets what he is and what he must be?
Nevertheless, my brethren, what impression on us does the instability of every thing worldly make? The death of our relations, friends, competitors, and masters? We never think that we are immediately to follow them! we think only of decking ourselves out in their spoils; we think not on the little time they had enjoyed them, but only on the pleasure they must have had in their possession: we hasten to profit ourselves from the wreck of each other: we are like those foolish soldiers, who, in the heat of battle, when their companions are every moment falling around them, eagerly load themselves with their clothes; and scarcely are they put on, when a mortal blow at once deprives them of their absurd decorations and life. In this manner the son decks himself with the spoils of the father; closes his eyes; succeeds to his rank, fortune, and dignities; conducts the pomp of his funeral, and leaves it more occupied with, more affected by, the new titles with which he is now invested, than instructed by the last advices of a dying parent; than afflicted for his loss, or even undeceived with regard ​to the things of the earth, by a sight which places before his eyes their insignificancy, and announces to him the same destiny soon. The death of our companions is not a more useful lesson to us: such a person leaves vacant an office which we hasten to obtain; another promotes us a step in the service; claims expire with this one, which might have greatly embarrassed us; that one now leaves us the undisputed favourite of our sovereign; another brings us a step nearer to a certain dignity, and opens the road to a rank which his death alone could render attainable 5 and, on these occasions, our spirits are invigorated; we adopt new measures, and form new projects; and, far from our eyes being opened, by the examples of those whom we see disappear, there issue, even from their ashes, fatal sparks, which inflame all our desires and attachments to the world; and death, that gloomy picture of our misery, reanimates more passions among men than even all the illusions of life. What, then, can detach us from this wretched world, since death itself seems only to knit more strongly the bonds, and strengthen us in the errors which bind us to it.
Here, my brethren, I require nothing from you but reason. What are the natural consequences which good sense alone ought to draw from the uncertainty of death?
First. The hour of death is uncertain: every year, every day, every moment, may be the last of our life. It is absurd, then, by attaching ourselves to what must pass away in an instant, to sacrifice the only riches which are eternal; every thing you do for the earth ought therefore to appear as lost, since you have no interest there; you can depend on nothing there, and can carry nothing from it, but what you shall have done for heaven. The kingdoms of the earth, and all their glory, ought not then for a moment to balance the interests of your eternal welfare, since the greatest fortune cannot assure you of a day more than the most humble; and, since the only consequence which can accrue from it is a more deep and bitter sorrow on the bed of death, when you shall be obliged for ever to part from them, every care, every movement, every desire, ought therefore to centre in establishing for yourselves a permanent and unchangeable fortune, an eternal happiness, which fadeth not away.
Secondly. The hour of your death is uncertain: you ought, then, to expect it every day; never to permit yourselves an action, in which you would wish not to be surprised; to consider all your proceedings as those of a dying man, who every moment expects his soul to be recalled; to act, in every thing, as though you were that instant to render account of your conduct; and, since you cannot answer for the time which is to come, in such a manner to regulate the present that you may have no occasion for the future to repair its errors.
Lastly. The hour of your death is uncertain: delay not then, your repentance. Time presses; hasten, then, your conversion to the Lord; you cannot assure yourselves of a day, and you defer it to a distant and uncertain period to come. Were you unfortunately ​to swallow a mortal poison, would you put off to another day the trial of the only antidote which might save your life? Would the agent of death, which you carried in your bowels, allow of delays and neglect? Such is your state. If you be wise, have instant recourse to your precautions. You carry death in your soul, since in it you carry sin; hasten to apply the remedy, since every moment is precious to him who cannot depend on one. The poisonous beverage which infects your soul cannot long be trifled with; the goodness of God still holds out to you a cure; hasten, once more I say, to secure it, while it is not yet too late. Should entreaties be necessary to determine your compliance, ought not the prospect of relief to be sufficient? Is it necessary to exhort an unfortunate wretch, just sinking in the waves, to exert his endeavours to save himself? Ought you, in this matter, to have occasion for our ministry? Your last hour approaches; you soon shall have to appear before the tribunal of God. You may usefully employ the moment which yet remains to you; almost all those, whose departure from this world you are daily witnessing, allow it to slip from them, and die without having reaped any advantage from it. You imitate their neglect; the same surprise awaits you, and, like them, you will be cut off before the work of reformation has commenced. They had been warned of it, and in the same manner we warn you; their misery touches you not; and the unfortunate lot which awaits you, will not more sensibly affect those to whom we shall one day announce it; it is a succession of blindness, which passes from father to son, and is perpetuated on the earth: we all wish to live better, and we all die before we have begun to reform.
Such, my brethren, are the prudent and natural reflections which the uncertainty of our last hour should lead us to make. But if, on account of its uncertainty, you are imprudent in paying no more attention to it, than as if it were never to arrive, the fearful portion attending its certainty still less excuses your folly, in striving to remove that melancholy image from your mind, under the pretence of its only tending to empoison every comfort, and to destroy the tranquillity of life. This is what I have still to lay before you.
Part II. — Man loves not to dwell upon his nothingness and meanness; whatever recalls to him his origin puts him in mind also of his end, wounds his pride, interests his self-love, attacks the foundation of all his passions, and gives birth to gloomy and disagreeable ideas. To die, to disappear from the earth, to enter the dark abyss of eternity, to become a carcass, the food of worms, the horror of men, the hideous inmate of a tomb; that sight alone revolts every sense, distracts reason, blackens imagination, and empoisons every comfort in life; we dare not fix our looks on so hideous an image; we reject that thought, as the most gloomy and bitter of all. We dread, we fly from every thing which may force its remembrance on our mind, as though it would hasten the approach of the fatal hour. Under a pretence of tenderness, we love not to ​hear mention of our departed friends; care is taken to remove our attention from the places in which they have dwelt, and from everything which, along with their idea, at the same time awakens that of death which has deprived us of them. We dread all melancholy recitals; in that respect we carry our terrors even to the most childish superstition; in every trifle our fancy sees fatal prognostications of death; in the wanderings of a dream, in the nightly sounds of a bird, in the casual number of a company, and in many other circumstances still more ridiculous; every where we imagine it before us; and, for that very reason, we endeavour to expel it from our thoughts.
Now, my brethren, these excessive terrors were pardonable in Pagans, to whom death was the greatest misfortune, seeing they had no expectation beyond the grave; and that, living without hope, they died without consolation. But, that death should be so terrible to Christians is a matter of astonishment; and that the dread of that image should even serve as a pretext to remove its idea from their minds, is still more so.
For, in the first place, I grant that you have reason to dread that last hour; but, as it is certain, I cannot conceive why the terrors of it should prevent your mind from dwelling upon, and endeavouring to anticipate its evils; on the contrary, it seems to me, that in proportion as the danger is great, to which you are exposed, you ought more constantly to keep it in view, and to use every precaution that it may not take you unawares. What! the more the danger alarms you, the more it should render you indolent and careless! The excessive and improper terrors of your imagination should cure you, even of that prudent dread which operates your salvation; and, because you dread too much, you should abandon every thought of it! But, where is the man whom a too lively sense of danger renders calm and intrepid? Were it necessary to march through a narrow and steep defile, surrounded on all sides by precipices, would you order your eyes to be bound, that you might not see your danger, and lest the depth of the gulf below should turn your head? Ah, my dear hearer, you see the grave open before you, and that spectacle alarms you; but, in place of taking all the precautions offered to you by religion, to prevent you falling headlong into the gulf, you cover your eyes that you may not see it; — you fly to dissipation, to chase its idea from your mind; and, like those unfortunate victims of Paganism, you run to the stake, your eyes covered, crowned with flowers, and surrounded by dancing and songs of joy, that you may not have leisure to reflect on the fatal term to which this pomp conducts, and lest you should see the altar, that is to say, the bed of death, where you are immediately to be sacrificed.
Besides, by repelling that thought, could you likewise repel death, your terrors would then at least have an excuse. But think, or think not on it, death always advances; every effort you make to exclude its remembrance brings you nearer to it; and at the appointed hour it will come. What, then, do you gain by turning ​your mind from that thought? Do you lessen the danger? On the contrary you augment it, and render a surprisal inevitable. By averting your eyes, do you soften the horror of that spectacle? Alas! you only multiply its terrors. Were you to familiarize yourselves more with the thoughts of death, your mind, weak and timid, would insensibly accustom itself to it. You would gradually acquire courage to view it without anguish, or at least with resignation on the bed of death; it would no longer be an unusual and strange sight. A long anticipated danger astonishes not: death is only formidable the first time that the imagination dwells upon it; and it is only when not expected, and no provision made against it, that it is to be dreaded.
But, when that thought should even disquiet, and fill you with impressions of dread and sorrow, where would be the disappointment? Are you, upon the earth, to live only in an indolent ease, and solely engrossed by agreeable and smiling objects? We should lose our reason, say you, were we to devote our attention to this dismal spectacle, without the relaxation of pleasures. We should lose our reason! But so many faithful souls, who, in all their actions, mingle that thought; who make the remembrance of that last hour the check to curb their passions, and the most powerful inducement to fidelity; so many illustrious penitents, who have buried themselves alive in their tombs, that they might never lose sight of that object; the holy who every day suffered death, like the apostle, that they might live for ever, have they in consequence of it, lost their reason? You should lose your reason! that is to say, you would regard the world as an exilement, pleasures as an intoxication, sin as the greatest of evils; places, honours, favour, and fortune, as dreams; and salvation as the grand and only object worthy of attention. Is that to lose your reason? Blessed folly! And would that you, from this moment, were amongst the number of these foolish sages. You would lose your reason! Yes, that false, worldly, proud, carnal, and mistaken reason, which seduces you; that corrupted reason, which obscures faith, authorizes the passions, makes us prefer the present moment to eternity, takes the shadow for the substance, and leads all men astray. Yes, that deplorable reason, that vain philosophy, which looks upon as a weakness the dread of a future state, and, because it dreads it too much, seems, in appearance, or endeavours to force itself, not to believe it at all. But that prudent, enlightened, moderate, and Christian reason, that wisdom of the serpent, so recommended in the gospel, it is in that remembrance that you would find it: that wisdom, says the Holy Spirit, preferable to all the treasures and honours of the earth; that wisdom so honourable to man, and which exalts him so much above himself; that wisdom which has formed so many Christian heroes; it is the image always present of your last hour, which will embellish your soul with it. But that thought, you add, should we take it into our head to enter deeply into, and to dwell continually upon it, would be fit to make us renounce all, and to form the most violent and overstrained resolu​tions; that is to say, would detach you from the world, your vices, passions, the infamy of your excesses, and make you lead a chaste, regular and Christian life, alone worthy of reason. These are what the world calls violent and overstrained resolutions. But likewise, under pretence of shunning pretended excesses, would you refuse to adopt the most necessary resolutions? Make a beginning at any rate; the first transports soon begin to abate; and it is much more easy to moderate the excesses of piety than to animate its coldness and indolence. Dread nothing from the excessive fervour and transports of your zeal; you can never, in that respect, go too far. An indolent and sensual heart, such as yours, nursed in pleasures and effeminacy, and void of all taste for whatever pertains to the service of God, does not promise any very great indiscretions in the steps of a Christian life. You know not yourselves; you have never experienced what obstacles all your inclinations will cast in the way of your simplest exertions in piety. Take measures only against coldness and discouragement, which are the only rocks you have to dread. What blindness! In the fear of doing too much for God, we do nothing at all; the dread of bestowing too much attention on our salvation, prevents us from labouring toward it; and we lose ourselves for ever, lest we should too surely attain salvation: we dread chimerical excesses of piety, and we are not afraid of a departure from, and an actual contempt of piety itself. Does the fear of doing too much for fortune and rank check your exertions or cool the ardour of your ambition? Is it not that very hope which supports and animates them? Nothing is too much for the world, but all is excess for God: we fear, and we reproach ourselves, lest we never do enough for an earthly establishment; and we check ourselves, in the dread of doing too much for an eternal fortune.
But I go farther, and say, that it is a criminal ingratitude toward God to reject the thought of death, merely because it disquiets and alarms you; for that impression of dread and terror is a special grace with which you are favoured by God. Alas! how many impious characters exist, who despise it, who claim a miserable merit, in beholding with firmness its approach, and who regard it as the annihilation of their being! How many sages and philosophers in Christianity, who, without renouncing faith, limit all their reflections, all the superiority of their talents, to the tranquil view of its arrival; and who, during life, exert the powers of their reason only in preparing for that last moment; a constancy and serenity of mind equally absurd as the most vulgar terrors; a purpose the most imprudent to which reason can be applied. It is, therefore, a special grace bestowed on you by God, when he permits that thought to have such an energy and ascendancy in your soul; in all probability it is the way by which he wishes to recall you to himself; should you ever quit your erroneous and iniquitous courses, it will be through its influence: your salvation seems to depend on that remedy.
Tremble, my dear hearer, lest your heart should fortify itself ​against these salutary terrors; lest God should withdraw from you this mean of salvation, and harden you against all the terrors of religion. A favour, not only despised but even regarded as a punishment, is soon followed with the indignation, or at least the indifference, of the benefactor. Should that unfortunately be ever the case, then will the image of death leave you all your tranquillity: you will fly to an entertainment the moment you have quitted the solemnity of a funeral; with the same eyes will you behold a hideous carcass, or the criminal object of your passion; then will you be even pleased with yourself for having soared above all these vulgar fears, and even applaud yourself for a change so terrible toward your salvation. Profit, then, toward the regulation of your manners, by that sensibility, while it is yet left to you by God. Let your mind dwell on all the objects proper to recall that image, while yet it has influence to disturb the false peace of your passions. Visit the tomb of your ancestors, in the presence of their ashes, to meditate on the vanity of all earthly things. Go and ask, what now, in these dark habitations of death, remains to them of all their pleasures, dignities, and splendour? Open yourself these gloomy dwellings, and, reflecting on what they had formerly been in the eyes of men, see what they now are; spectres, whose presence you with difficulty can support; loathsome masses of worms and putrefaction: such are they in the eyes of men; but what are they in the sight of God? Descend, in idea, into these dwellings of horror and infection, and choose beforehand your own place; figure yourself, in that last hour, extended on the bed of anguish, struggling with death, your limbs benumbed and already seized with a mortal coldness, your tongue already bound in the chains of death; your eyes fixed, covered with a cloud of confusion, and before which all things begin to disappear: your relations and friends around you, offering up ineffectual wishes for your recovery, and augmenting your fears and regrets, by the tenderness of their sighs and the abundance of their tears: reflect upon that sight, so instructive, so interesting; you then, in the dismal struggles of that last combat, proving that you are still in life only by the convulsions which announce your death; the whole life annihilated to you; despoiled for ever of all your dignities and titles; accompanied solely by your works, and ready to appear in the presence of God. This is not a prediction; it is the history of all those who die every day to your knowledge, and it is the anticipation of your own. Think upon that terrible moment; the day, perhaps, is not far removed, yet, however distant it may be, you will at last reach it, and the interval will seem to you only an instant; and the only consolation you then can have, shall be, to have made the study of, and preparation for death, the employment of your life.
Lastly. As my final argument: — trace to their source these excessive terrors, which render the image and thoughts of death so terrible, and you will undoubtedly find them originating from the disorders of a criminal conscience: it is not death which you ​dread, it is the justice of God which awaits you beyond it, to punish the infidelities and crimes of your life: it is, that, covered as you are with the most shameful wounds, which disfigure in you his image, you are not in a state to present yourselves before him: and that to die in your present situation, must be to perish for ever. Purify, then, your conscience, put an end to, and expiate your criminal passions; recall God to your heart; no longer offer to his sight any thing worthy of his anger or punishment; place yourselves in a state to hope something, after death, from his infinite mercy: then shall you see that last moment approach with less dread and trembling; and the sacrifice which you shall have already made to God, of the world and your passions, will not only render easy, but even sweet and consoling, the sacrifice you will then make to him of your life.
For say, What has death so fearful to a faithful soul? From what does it separate him? From a world which shall perish, and which is the country of the reprobate; from his riches, which torment him, of which the use is surrounded with dangers, and which he is forbid to use in the gratification of the senses; from his relations and friends, whom he precedes only by a moment, and who shall soon follow him; from his body, which hitherto had been either a rock to his innocence or a perpetual obstacle to his holy desires; from his offices and dignities, which, in multiplying his duties, augmented his dangers; lastly, from life, which to him was only an exilement, and an anxious desire to be delivered from it. What does death bestow on him, to compensate for what it takes away? It bestows unfading riches, of which none can ever deprive him; eternal joys, which he shall enjoy without fear or remorse; the peaceable and certain possession of God himself, from which he can never be degraded; deliverance from all his passions, which had ever been a constant source of disquiet and distress; an unalterable peace, which he never could find on the earth; and, lastly, the society of the just and happy, in place of that of sinners, from whom it separates him. What then, O my God! has the world so delightful, to attach a faithful soul? To him it is a vale of tears, where dangers are infinite, combats daily, victories rare, and defeats certain; where every gratification must be denied to the senses; where all tempts, and all is forbidden to us; where we must fly from and dread most, what most pleases us; in a word, where, if you suffer not, if you weep not, if you resist not to the utmost extremity, if you combat not without ceasing, if you hate not yourself, you are lost. What, then, do you find so amiable, so alluring, so capable of attaching a Christian soul? And to die, is it not a gain and a triumph for him?
Besides, death is the only object he looks forward to; it is the only consolation which supports the fidelity of the just. Do they bend under afflictions? They know that their end is near; that the short and fleeting tribulations of this life shall soon be followed by a load of eternal glory; and in that thought they find ​an inexhaustible source of patience, fortitude, and joy. Do they feel the law of the members warring against the law of the spirit, and exciting commotions which bring innocence to the very brink of the precipice? They are not ignorant, that after the dissolution of the earthly frame, it shall be restored to them pure and celestial; and that, delivered from these bonds of misery, they shall then resemble the heavenly spirits; and that remembrance soothes and strengthens them. Do they groan under the weight of the yoke of Jesus Christ; and their faith, more weak, is it on the point of relaxing and sinking under the rigid duties of the gospel? Ah! the day of the Lord is nigh; they almost touch the blessed recompense; and the end of their course, which they already see, animates, and gives them fresh vigour. Hear in what manner the apostle consoled the first Christians: My brethren, said he to them, time is short, the day approaches, the Lord is at the gate, and he will not delay: rejoice then; I again say to you, rejoice. Such was the only consolation of men, persecuted, insulted, proscribed, trampled upon, regarded as the scum of the earth, the disgrace of the Jews, and the scoff of the Gentiles. They knew that death would soon dry up their tears; that for them there would then be neither mourning, sorrow, nor sufferance; that all would be changed: and that thought softened every pain. Ah! whosoever had told these generous justifiers of faith, that the Lord would never make them know death, but would leave them to dwell for ever on the earth, would have shaken their faith, tempted their constancy, and, by robbing them of that hope, would have deprived them of every consolation.
You, my brethren, are, no doubt, little surprised at this, because death must appear a refuge to men afflicted and unhappy as they were. You are mistaken; it was neither their persecutions nor sufferings which occasioned their distress and sorrow; these were their joy, consolation, and pride; we glory, said they, in tribulations; it was the state of separation in which they still lived from Jesus Christ, that alone was the source of their tears, and what rendered death so desirable.
While we are in the body, said the apostle, we are separated from the Lord; and that separation was a state of anguish and sorrow to these faithful Christians. Piety consists in wishing for a re-union with Jesus Christ, our Head; in sighing for the happy moment which shall incorporate us with the chosen of God, in that mystical body, which, from the beginning of the world is forming, of every tongue, every tribe, and every nation; which is the completion of the designs of God, and which will glorify him, with Jesus Christ, to all eternity. Here we are like branches torn from their stem; like strangers wandering in a foreign land; like fettered captives in a prison, waiting their deliverance; like children, banished for a time from their paternal inheritance and mansion: in a word, like members separated from their body. Since Jesus Christ, our Head, ascended to heaven, the earth is no longer the place of our establishment: we look forward, in blessed expectation, to the coming of ​the Lord. That desire constitutes all our piety and consolation; and a Christian, not to long for that happy moment, but to dread, and even look upon it as a misfortune, 'is to fly in the face of Jesus Christ: to renounce all communication with him; to reject the promises of faith and the glorious title of a citizen of heaven; it is to centre our happiness on the things of the earth, to doubt of a future state, to regard religion as a dream, and to believe that all dies with us.
No, my brethren, death has nothing to a just soul but what is pleasing and desirable. Arrived at that happy moment, he, without regret, sees a world perish, which he had never loved, and which to him had never appeared otherwise than a confusion of vanities: his eyes close with pleasure on all those vain shows which the earth offers, which he had always regarded as the splendour of a moment, and whose dangerous illusions he had never ceased to dread: he feels, without uneasiness, — what do I say? — with satisfaction, that mortal body, which had been the subject of all his temptations, and the fatal source of all his weaknesses, become clothed with immortality: he regrets nothing on the earth, where he leaves nothing, and from whence his heart flies along with his soul? he even complains, not that he is carried off in the middle of his career, and that his days are concluded in the flower of his age; on the contrary, he thanks his deliverer for having abridged his sufferings with his years, for having exacted only a portion of his debt as the price of his eternity, and for having speedily consummated his sacrifice, lest a longer residence in a corrupted world should have perverted his heart. His trials, his mortifications, which had cost so much to the weakness of the flesh, are then his sweetest reflections: he sees that all now vanishes, except what he has done for God; that all now abandon him, his riches, relations, friends, and dignities, his works alone remaining; and he is transported with joy, to think that he had never placed his trust in the favour of princes, in the children of men, in the vain hopes of fortune, in things which must soon perish, but in the Lord alone, who remaineth eternally, and in whose bosom he goes to experience that peace and tranquillity which mortals cannot bestow. Thus tranquil on the past, despising the present, transported to touch at last that futurity, the sole object of his desires, already seeing the bosom of Abraham open to receive him, and the Son of Man, seated at the right hand of his Father, holding out for him the crown of immortality, he sleeps in the Lord: he is wafted by blessed spirits to the habitation of the holy, and returns to the place from whence he originally came.
May you, my brethren, in this manner see your course terminated.