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And it is a mercy to have so near a friend to be a helper to your soul; to join with you in prayer and other holy exercises; to watch over you and tell you of your sins and dangers, and to stir up in you the grace of God, and remember to you of the life to come, and cheerfully accompany you in the ways of holiness.Richard Baxter,A Christian Directoiy: or, Sum ofPractical7heology, and Cases of Conscience, 11.1 (7he Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter [London: James Duncan, 1830], IV, 30).
We are more sure to arise out of our graves than out of our beds.
The dying words of Mr. Ash, the Puritan, are well-deserving of notice. He said, "When I consider my best duties, I sink, I die, I despair. But when I think of Christ, I have enough. He is all and in all.
Few are ever saved on their death-beds. One thief on the cross was saved that none should despair; but only one, that none should presume.
Death is a believer's ferryman to ferry him over to the land of rest; it opens the portal into heaven…. The day of a Christian's death is the birthday of his heavenly life; it is his ascension day to glory; it is his marriage day with Jesus Christ. After his funeral begins his marriage. Well then might Solomon say, "Better is the day of a man's death than the day of his birth."
Thou art young; thou canst not therefore say thou shalt not die as yet. Alas! Measure the coffins in the churchyard and thou wilt find some of thy length. Young and old are within the reach of death's scythe. Old men, indeed, go to death; their age calls for it. But young men cannot hinder death's coming unto them.
For the day of death to the body is, as one saith, the birthday of eternity to the soul.
There is also a lawful contempt of death. We freely grant it, that in two cases a believer may contemn it. First, when it is propounded to them in a temptation on purpose to scare them from Christ and duty, then they should slight it as in Revelation 12:11. They loved not their lives to the death. Secondly, when the natural evil of death is set in competition with the enjoyment of God in glory, then a believer should despise it, as Christ is said to do (Heb. 12:2), though His was a shameful death. But upon all other accounts and considerations, it is the height of stupidity and security to despise it.
A grave with Christ is a comfortable place.
Oh then let not believers stand in fear of the grave. He that hath one foot in heaven need not fear to put the other into the grave.
If there certainly be such an eternal state into which souls pass immediately after death, how great a change then doth death make upon every man and woman! Oh, what a serious thing is it to die! It is your passage out of the swift river of time into the boundless and bottomless ocean of eternity. You that now converse with sensible objects, with men and women like yourselves, enter then into the world of spirits. You that now see the continual revolutions of days and nights, passing away one after another, will then be fixed in a perpetual now. Oh, what a serious thing is death!
Death mine enemy shall then set me free from the devil's temptation, the world's enticements, the outrage of men, the arrows of the Almighty, and the lustings of mine own flesh—all which have all my days stung my soul and battered my body. My soul! Take courage unto this last encounter.
We are manifestly mistaken concerning death. For the last gasp is not death. To live is to die. For how much we lived, so much we die; every step of life is a step of death. He that hath lived half his days is dead the half of himself. Death gets first our infancy, then our youth, and so forward. All that thou hast lived is dead.
Death is our birthday; we say falsely when we call death the last day. For it is indeed the beginning of an everlasting day, and is there any grievance in that? Death is the funeral of our vices and the resurrection of our graces. Death was the daughter of sin, and in death shall that be fulfilled: "The daughter shall destroy the mother." We shall never more be infected with sin nor troubled with ill natures.
The serious thoughts of death may do that for you which neither friends, counsel, example, prayers, sermons, tears have done to this very day. Well, remember this: to labor not to die is labor in vain, and to put this day far from you and to live without fear of death is to die living. Death seizes on old men and lays wait for the youngest. Death is oftentimes as near to the young man's back as it is to the old man's face.
What is this life but a smoke, a vapor, a shadow, a warfare, a bubble of water, a word, grass, a flower? Thou shalt die is most certain, but of the time no man can tell when. The longer in this life thou dost remain, the more thou sinnest, which will turn to thy more pain. By cogitation of death our minds be often in manner oppressed with darkness because we do but remember the night of the body, forgetting the light of the mind and of the resurrection. Thereto remember the good things that after this life shall ensue without wavering in certainty of faith, and so shall the passage of death be more desired.
Death takes away difference between king and beggar and tumbles both the knight and the pawn into one bag.
We walk in this world as a man in a field of snow; all the way appears smooth, yet cannot we be sure of any step. All are like actors on a stage; some have one part, and some another. Death is still busy among us. Here drops one of the players. We bury him with sorrow, and to our scene again. Then falls another—yea all, one after another—till death be left alone upon the stage. Death is that damp which puts out all the dim lights of vanity. Yet man is easier to believe that all the world shall die than to suspect himself.
Wicked men can be delighted in talking together of their wickedness; and should not Christians then be delighted in talking of Christ, and the heirs of heaven in talking of their inheritance? This may make our hearts revive, as did Jacob's to hear the message that called him to Goshen, and to see the chariots that should bring him to Joseph. O that we were furnished with skill and resolution to turn the stream of men's common discourse to these more sublime and precious things! and, when men begin to talk of things unprofitable, that we could tell how to put in a word for heaven, and say, as Peter of his bodily food, "Not so, for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean!"Saints Everlasting Rest, https://ccel.org/ccel/b/baxter/saints_rest/cache/saints_rest.pdf
In public our speeches are long, and we quite over-run their understandings and memories, and they are confounded and at a loss, and not able to follow us, and one thing drives out another, and so they know not what we said. But in private we can take our work gradatim, and take our hearers along with us; and, by our questions, and their answers, we can see how far they understand us, and what we have next to do. In public, by length and speaking alone we lose their attention; but when they are interlocutors, we can easily cause them to attend.Reformed Pastor, https://ccel.org/ccel/b/baxter/pastor/cache/pastor.pdf
I know that preaching the gospel publicly is the most excellent means, because we speak to many at once. But it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to a particular sinner, as to himself: for the plainest man that is, can scarcely speak plain enough in public for them to understand; but in private we may do it much more. In public we may not use such homely expressions, or repetitions, as their dulness requires, but in private we mayReformed Pastor, https://ccel.org/ccel/b/baxter/pastor/cache/pastor.pdf
. I have found by experience, that some ignorant persons, who have been so long unprofitable hearers, have got more knowledge and remorse of conscience in half an hour's close discourse, than they did from ten years' public preachingReformed Pastor, https://ccel.org/ccel/b/baxter/pastor/cache/pastor.pdf
They will under stand a familiar speech, who understand not a sermon; and they will have far greater help for the application of it to themselves. Besides, you will hear their objections, and know
where it is that Satan hath most advantage of them, and so may be able to show them their errors, and confute their objections, and more effectually convince them. We can better bring them to the point, and urge them to discover their resolutions for the future, and to promise the use of means and reformation, than otherwise we could do. What more proof need we of this, than our own experience? I seldom deal with men purposely on this great
business, in private, serious conference, but they go away with some seeming convictions, and promises of new obedience, if not some deeper remorse, and sense of their conditionReformed Pastor, https://ccel.org/ccel/b/baxter/pastor/cache/pastor.pdf
Let your holy conference with others be much about the glorious excellencies, works, and mercies of the Lord in way of praise and admiration. This is indeed to speak to edification and as the "oracles of God."
Against all that I have said in behalf of discipline you will plead, "Our people are not ready for it; they will not yet bear it." But is not the meaning of this that you will not bear the trouble and hatred which it will occasion? I beseech you, in order that you may make a comfortable account to the Chief Shepherd and that you may not be found unfaithful in the house of God, that you do not shrink from duty because of the trouble that may attend it. Reformed Pastor
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