'Die well.'--_Rutherford_.
Bailie John Kennedy, of Ayr, was the remarkable son of a remarkable
father. Old Hugh Kennedy's death-bed was for long a glorious tradition
among the godly in the West of Scotland. The old saint was visited in
his last hours on earth with a joy that was unspeakable and full of
glory: the mere report of it made an immense impression both on the
Church and the world. And his son John, who stood entranced beside his
father's chariot of fire, never forgot the transporting sight. He did
not need Rutherford's warning never to forget his father's example and
his father's end. For John Kennedy was a 'choice Christian,' as a well-
known writer of that day calls him. And he was not alone. There were
many choice Christians in that day in Scotland. Were there ever more,
for its size, in any land or in any church on the face of the earth? I
do not believe there ever were. Next to that favoured land that produced
the Psalmists and the Prophets, I know no land that, for its numbers,
possessed so many men and women of a profoundly spiritual experience, and
of an adoring and heavenly mind, as Scotland possessed in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. The Wodrow volumes should be studied
throughout by every lover of his church and his country, and especially
by every student of divinity and church history.
But we need go no further than Samuel Rutherford's letter-bag; for, when
we open it, what rich treasures of the religious life pour out of it!
What minds and what hearts those men and women had! And how they gave up
their whole mind and heart to the life of godliness in the land, and to
the life of God in their own hearts! How thin and poor our religious
life appears beside theirs! What minister in Scotland to-day could write
such letters? And to whom could he address them after they were written?
Was it the persecution? Was it the new reformation doctrines? Was it
the masculine and Pauline preaching: preaching, say, like Robert Bruce's
and Rutherford's that did it? What was it that raised up in Scotland
such a crop of ripe and rich saints? Who are these, and whence came
they?
Rutherford was always on the outlook for opportunities to employ his
private pen for the conversion of sinners, and for the comfort, the
upbuilding, and the holiness of God's people. From his manse at Anwoth,
from his prison at Aberdeen, from his class-room at St. Andrews, and from
the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster, his letter-bag went out full of
those messages, so warm, so tender, so powerful, to his multitudinous
correspondents. Public events, domestic joys and sorrows, personal
matters, special providences,--to turn them all to a good result
Rutherford was always on the watch.
News had come to Rutherford's ears of an almost fatal accident that
Kennedy had had through his boat being swept out to sea; and that was too
good a chance to lose of trying to touch his correspondent's heart yet
more deeply about death, and the due preparation for it. Read his letter
to John Kennedy on his deliverance from shipwreck. See with what
apostolic dignity and sweetness he salutes Kennedy. See how he lifts up
Kennedy's accident out of the hands of winds and waves, and traces it all
up to the immediate hand of God. See how he speaks of Kennedy's reprieve
from death; and how the spared man should make use of his lengthened
days. Altogether, a noble, powerful, apostolic letter; a letter that
must have had a great influence in making Bailie Kennedy the choice
Christian that he was and that he became. We have only three letters
preserved of Rutherford's to Kennedy. But we have sufficient evidence
that they were fast and dear friends. Rutherford writes to Kennedy from
Aberdeen, upbraiding him for forgetting him; and what a letter that also
is! It stands well out among the foremost of his letters for fulness of
all the great qualities of Rutherford's intellect and heart.
But it is with the shipwreck letter that we have to do to-night; and with
the expressions in it we have taken for our text: 'Die well, for the last
tide will ebb fast.' 'It is appointed to all men once to die,' says the
Apostle, in a most solemn passage. Think of that, think often of that,
think it out, think it through to the end. God has appointed our death.
He has our name down in His seven-sealed Book; and when the Lamb opens
the Book, and finds the place, He reads our name, and all that is
appointed us till death, and after death. The exact and certain time of
our death is all appointed; the place of it also; and all the
circumstances. Just when it is to happen; to-night, to-morrow, this
year, next year, perhaps not this dying century; we shall perhaps live to
write A.D. 1901 on our letters. Near or afar off, it is all appointed.
And all the circumstances of it also. I don't know why Rutherford should
say to Kennedy that it is a terrible thing to 'die in one's day clothes,'
unless he hides a parable under that. But whether in day clothes or
night clothes; whether like Dr. Andrew Thomson, our first minister, in
Melville Street, and with his hand on the latchkey of his own door; or,
like Dr. Candlish, his successor, in his bed, and repeating, now
Shakespeare, and now the Psalmist; by the upsetting of a boat, the shape
in which death came near to Kennedy, or by the upsetting of a coach, as I
escaped myself, not being ready. 'The Lord knew,' writes Rutherford,
'that you had forgotten something that was necessary for your journey,
and let you go back for it. You had not all your armour on wherewith to
meet with the last enemy.' By day or by night; by land or by sea; alone,
or surrounded by weeping friends; in rapture like Hugh Kennedy, or in
thick darkness like your Lord; all, all is appointed. Just think of it;
the types may be cast, the paper may be woven, the ink may be made that
is to announce to the world your death and mine. It is all appointed,
and we cannot alter it or postpone it. The only thing we have any hand
in is this: whether our death, when it comes, is to be a success or a
failure; that is to say, whether we shall die well or ill. Since we die
but once, then, and since so much turns upon it, let us take advice how
we are to do it well. We cannot come back to make a second attempt; if
we do not shoot the gulf successfully, we cannot climb back and try the
leap again; we die once, and, after death, the judgment. Now, when we
have any difficult thing before us, how do we prepare ourselves for it?
Do we not practise it as often as we possibly can? If it is running in a
race, or wrestling in a match, or playing a tune, or shooting at a
target, do we not assiduously practise it? Yes, every sensible man is
careful to have his hand and his foot accustomed to the trial before the
appointed day comes. Practice makes perfect: practise dying, then, as
Rutherford counsels you, and you will make a perfect thing of your death,
and not otherwise. But how are we to practise dying? Fore-fancy it, as
Rutherford says. Act it over beforehand; die speculatively, as Goodwin
says. Say to yourself, Suppose this were death at my door to-night.
Suppose he were to visit me in the night, what would I say to him, and
what would he say to me? Make acquaintance with death, Rutherford writes
to Lady Kenmure also. Learn his ways, his manner of approach, his
language, and his look. Conjure him up, practise upon him, have your
part rehearsed and ready to be performed. Let not a heathen be
beforehand with you in dying. Seneca said that every night after his
lamp was out, and the house quiet, he went over all his past day, and
looked at it all in the light of death. What he did after that he does
not tell us; but Rutherford will tell you if you consult him what you
should do. Well, that is one way of practising dying. For Sleep is the
brother of Death. And to meet the one brother right will prepare us to
meet the other. Speculate at night, then--speculate and say, Suppose
this were my last night. Suppose, O my soul, thou wert to cast anchor to-
morrow in Eternity, how shouldst thou close thine eyes to-night?
Speculate also at other men's funerals. When the clod thuds down on
their coffin, think yourself inside of it. When you see the undertaker's
man screwing down the lid, suppose it yours. Take your own way of doing
it; only, practise dying, and let not death spring upon you unawares. Die
daily, for, as Dante says, 'The arrow seen beforehand slacks its flight.'
Writing to another old man, Rutherford points out to him the gracious
purpose of God in appointing him his death in old age. 'It is,' says
Rutherford, 'that you may have full leisure to look over all your
accounts and papers before you take ship.' What a tangle our papers also
are in as life goes on; and what need we have of a time of leisure to set
things right before we hand them over. Rutherford, therefore, makes us
see old Carlton on his bed with his pillows propping him up, and a drawer
open on the bed, and bundles of old letters and bills spread out before
him. Old love letters; old business letters; his mother's letters to him
when he was a boy at Edinburgh College; letters in cipher that no human
eye can read but those old, bleared, weeping eyes that fill that too late
drawer with their tears. The old voyager is looking over his papers
before he takes ship. And he comes on things he had totally forgotten:
debts he had thought paid; petitions he had thought answered; promises he
had thought fulfilled; till he calls young Carlton, his son, to his
bedside, and tells him things that break both men's hearts to say and to
hear; and commits to his son and heir sad duties that should never have
been due; debts, promises, obligations, reparations, such that, to
remember them, is a terrible experience on an old man's deathbed. But
what mercy that he was not carried off, and his drawer unopened!
Now, speaking of taking ship, when we are preparing for a voyage, and a
visit to another country and another city, we 'read up,' as we say,
before we set sail. Before we start for Rome we read our Tacitus and our
Horace, our Gibbon and our Merivale. If it is Florence we take down
Vasari and Dante, Lord Lindsay and Mrs. Jamieson, and so on. Now, if
Eternity holds for us a new world, with cities and peoples that are all
new to us, should we not prepare ourselves for them also? Have you,
then, laid in a library for your old age, when, like old Carlton, you
will be lying waiting at the water-side? What books do you read when you
wish to put on the mind of a man who intends to die well? 'Read to me
where I first cast my anchor,' said John Knox, when dying, to his weeping
wife. Does your wife know where you first cast your anchor? Does she
know already what to read to you when you are preparing for the last
voyage?
And then, having prepared for, and practised dying well, play the man and
perform it well when the day comes. 'Die as your father died,' says
Rutherford to Kennedy. Now, that is too much to ask of any man, because
old Hugh Kennedy's deathbed was what it was by the special grace of God.
You cannot command any man to die in rapture. But Rutherford does not
mean that, as he is careful to explain. He means, as he says, 'die
believing.' It will be your last act as a believer, therefore do it
well. You have been practising faith all your days; show that practice
makes perfection at the end. As Rutherford said to George Gillespie when
he was on his deathbed, 'Hand over all your bills, paid and unpaid, to
your surety. Give him the keys of the drawer, and let him clear it out
for himself after you are gone.' And then, with the ruling passion
strong in death, he added, 'Die not on sanctification but on
justification, die not on inherent but on imputed righteousness.' And
then, to come to the very last act of all, there is what we call the
death-grip. A dying man feels the whole world giving way under him. All
he built upon, leaned upon, looked to, is like sliding sand, like sinking
water; and he grasps at anything, anybody, the bedpost, the bed-curtains,
the bed-clothes, his wife's hand, his son's arm, the very air sometimes.
On what, on whom will you seize hold in your last gasp and death-grip?
'Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!'