[331] Psalm lxxviii. 41.
[332] Numb. xiv. 22, 23.
[333] Josh. xxiii. 12, 13.
[334] Deut. xiii. 12-16.
[335] Josh. xxii. 11, 12.
[336] Josh. xxii. 11, 12.
[337] Josh. xxii. 17.
[338] Tertullian.
[339] Psalm cvii. 26.
[340] Matt. xii. 45.
[341] John, v. 14.
[342] Mark, xiv. 70.
[343] Ecclus. ii. 18.
[344] Ecclus. i. 21.
[345] 2 Cor. xi. 25.
[346] 1 Tim. i. 19.
_DEATH'S DUEL,_
_OR, A CONSOLATION TO THE SOUL
AGAINST THE DYING LIFE AND LIVING
DEATH OF THE BODY._
_DELIVERED IN A SERMON AT WHITEHALL, BEFORE
THE KING'S MAJESTY, IN THE BEGINNING
OF LENT, 1630._
_BY THAT LATE LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE,
JOHN DONNE, DR. IN DIVINITY, AND DEAN
OF ST. PAUL'S, LONDON._
_BEING HIS LAST SERMON, AND CALLED BY HIS
MAJESTY'S HOUSEHOLD, THE DOCTOR'S OWN
FUNERAL SERMON._
_TO THE READER_
_This sermon was, by sacred authority, styled the author's own funeral
sermon, most fitly, whether we respect the time or matter. It was
preached not many days before his death, as if, having done this, there
remained nothing for him to do but to die; and the matter is of
death--the occasion and subject of all funeral sermons. It hath been
observed of this reverend man, that his faculty in preaching continually
increased, and that, as he exceeded others at first, so at last he
exceeded himself. This is his last sermon; I will not say it is
therefore his best, because all his were excellent. Yet thus much: a
dying man's words, if they concern ourselves, do usually make the
deepest impression, as being spoken most feelingly, and with least
affectation. Now, whom doth it concern to learn both the danger and
benefit of death? Death is every man's enemy, and intends hurt to all,
though to many he be occasion of greatest good. This enemy we must all
combat dying, whom he living did almost conquer, having discovered the
utmost of his power, the utmost of his cruelty. May we make such use of
this and other the like preparatives, that neither death, whensoever it
shall come, may seem terrible, nor life tedious, how long soever it
shall last._
_DEATH'S DUEL_
PSALM LXVIII. 20, _in fine_.
_And unto God the Lord belong the issues of death (i.e. from death)._
Buildings stand by the benefit of their foundations that sustain and
support them, and of their buttresses that comprehend and embrace them,
and of their contignations that knit and unite them. The foundations
suffer them not to sink, the buttresses suffer them not to swerve, and
the contignation and knitting suffers them not to cleave. The body of
our building is in the former part of this verse. It is this: _He that
is our God is the God of salvation_; _ad salutes_, of salvations in the
plural, so it is in the original; the God that gives us spiritual and
temporal salvation too. But of this building, the foundation, the
buttresses, the contignations, are in this part of the verse which
constitutes our text, and in the three divers acceptations of the words
amongst our expositors: _Unto God the Lord belong the issues from
death_, for, first, the foundation of this building (that our God is the
God of all salvation) is laid in this, that _unto_ this _God the Lord
belong the issues of death_; that is, it is in his power to give us an
issue and deliverance, even then when we are brought to the jaws and
teeth of death, and to the lips of that whirlpool, the grave. And so in
this acceptation, this _exitus mortis_, this issue of death is
_liberatio á morte_, a deliverance from death, and this is the most
obvious and most ordinary acceptation of these words, and that upon
which our translation lays hold, the _issues from death_. And then,
secondly, the buttresses that comprehend and settle this building, that
he that is our God is the God of all salvation, are thus raised; _unto
God the Lord belong the issues of death_, that is, the disposition and
manner of our death; what kind of issue and transmigration we shall have
out of this world, whether prepared or sudden, whether violent or
natural, whether in our perfect senses or shaken and disordered by
sickness, there is no condemnation to be argued out of that, no judgment
to be made upon that, for, howsoever they die, _precious in his sight is
the death of his saints_, and with him are the issues of death; the ways
of our departing out of this life are in his hands. And so in this sense
of the words, this _exitus mortis_, the issues of death, is _liberatio
in morte_, a deliverance in death; not that God will deliver us from
dying, but that he will have a care of us in the hour of death, of what
kind soever our passage be. And in this sense and acceptation of the
words, the natural frame and contexture doth well and pregnantly
administer unto us. And then, lastly, the contignation and knitting of
this building, that he that is our God is the God of all salvations,
consists in this, _Unto_ this _God the Lord belong the issues of death_;
that is, that this God the Lord having united and knit both natures in
one, and being God, having also come into this world in our flesh, he
could have no other means to save us, he could have no other issue out
of this world, nor return to his former glory, but by death. And so in
this sense, this _exitus mortis_, this issue of death, is _liberatio per
mortem_, a deliverance by death, by the death of this God, our Lord
Christ Jesus. And this is Saint Augustine's acceptation of the words,
and those many and great persons that have adhered to him. In all these
three lines, then, we shall look upon these words, first, as the God of
power, the Almighty Father rescues his servants from the jaws of death;
and then as the God of mercy, the glorious Son rescued us by taking upon
himself this issue of death; and then, between these two, as the God of
comfort, the Holy Ghost rescues us from all discomfort by his blessed
impressions beforehand, that what manner of death soever be ordained for
us, yet this _exitus mortis_ shall be _introitus in vitam_, our issue in
death shall be an entrance into everlasting life. And these three
considerations: our deliverance _à morte, in morte, per mortem_, from
death, in death, and by death, will abundantly do all the offices of the
foundations, of the buttresses, of the contignation, of this our
building; that he that is our God is the God of all salvation, because
_unto_ this _God the Lord belong the issues of death_.
First, then, we consider this _exitus mortis_ to be _liberatio à morte_,
that with _God the Lord are the issues of death_; and therefore in all
our death, and deadly calamities of this life, we may justly hope of a
good issue from him. In all our periods and transitions in this life,
are so many passages from death to death; our very birth and entrance
into this life is _exitus à morte_, an issue from death, for in our
mother's womb we are dead, so as that we do not know we live, not so
much as we do in our sleep, neither is there any grave so close or so
putrid a prison, as the womb would be unto us if we stayed in it beyond
our time, or died there before our time. In the grave the worms do not
kill us; we breed, and feed, and then kill those worms which we
ourselves produced. In the womb the dead child kills the mother that
conceived it, and is a murderer, nay, a parricide, even after it is
dead. And if we be not dead so in the womb, so as that being dead we
kill her that gave us our first life, our life of vegetation, yet we are
dead so as David's idols are dead. In the womb we have _eyes and see
not, ears and hear not_.[347] There in the womb we are fitted for works
of darkness, all the while deprived of light; and there in the womb we
are taught cruelty, by being fed with blood, and may be damned, though
we be never born. Of our very making in the womb, David says, _I am
wonderfully and fearfully made_, and _such knowledge is too excellent
for me_,[348] for even that _is the Lord's doing, and it is wonderful in
our eyes_;[349] ipse fecit nos, _it is he that made us, and not we
ourselves_,[350] nor our parents neither. _Thy hands have made and
fashioned me round about_, saith Job, _and_ (as the original word is)
_thou hast taken pains about me, and yet_ (says he) _thou dost destroy
me_. Though I be the masterpiece of the greatest master (man is so), yet
if thou do no more for me, if thou leave me where thou madest me,
destruction will follow. The womb, which should be the house of life,
becomes death itself if God leave us there. That which God threatens so
often, the shutting of a womb, is not so heavy nor so discomfortable a
curse in the first as in the latter shutting, nor in the shutting of
barrenness as in the shutting of weakness, when _children are come to
the birth, and no strength to bring forth_.[351]
It is the exaltation of misery to fall from a near hope of happiness.
And in that vehement imprecation, the prophet expresses the highest of
God's anger, _Give them, O Lord, what wilt thou give them? give them a
miscarrying womb._ Therefore as soon as we are men (that is, inanimated,
quickened in the womb), though we cannot ourselves, our parents have to
say in our behalf, _Wretched man that he is, who shall deliver him from
this body of death?_[352] if there be no deliverer. It must be he that
said to Jeremiah, _Before I formed thee I knew thee, and before thou
camest out of the womb I sanctified thee_. We are not sure that there
was no kind of ship nor boat to fish in, nor to pass by, till God
prescribed Noah that absolute form of the ark.[353] That word which the
Holy Ghost, by Moses, useth for the ark, is common to all kind of boats,
_thebah_; and is the same word that Moses useth for the boat that he was
exposed in, that his mother laid him in an ark of bulrushes. But we are
sure that Eve had no midwife when she was delivered of Cain, therefore
she might well say, _Possedi virum à Domino, I have gotten a man from
the Lord_,[354] wholly, entirely from the Lord; it is the Lord that
enabled me to conceive, the Lord that infused a quickening soul into
that conception, the Lord that brought into the world that which himself
had quickened; without all this might Eve say, my body had been but the
house of death, and _Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis, To God the Lord
belong the issues of death_. But then this _exitus à morte_ is but
_introitus in mortem_; this issue, this deliverance, from that death,
the death of the womb, is an entrance, a delivering over to another
death, the manifold deaths of this world; we have a winding-sheet in our
mother's womb which grows with us from our conception, and we come into
the world wound up in that winding-sheet, for we come to seek a grave.
And as prisoners discharged of actions may lie for fees, so when the
womb hath discharged us, yet we are bound to it by cords of hestæ, by
such a string as that we cannot go thence, nor stay there; we celebrate
our own funerals with cries even at our birth; as though our threescore
and ten years' life were spent in our mother's labour, and our circle
made up in the first point thereof; we beg our baptism with another
sacrament, with tears; and we come into a world that lasts many ages,
but we last not. _In domo Patris_, says our Saviour, speaking of heaven,
_multæ mansiones_, divers and durable; so that if a man cannot possess a
martyr's house (he hath shed no blood for Christ), yet he may have a
confessor's, he hath been ready to glorify God in the shedding of his
blood. And if a woman cannot possess a virgin's house (she hath embraced
the holy state of marriage), yet she may have a matron's house, she hath
brought forth and brought up children in the fear of God. _In domo
Patris, in my Father's house_, in heaven, there _are many
mansions_;[355] but here, upon earth, the _Son of man hath not where to
lay his head_,[356] saith he himself. _Nonne terram dedit filiis
hominum?_ How then hath God given this earth to the sons of men? He hath
given them earth for their materials to be made of earth, and he hath
given them earth for their grave and sepulchre, to return and resolve to
earth, but not for their possession. _Here we have no continuing
city_,[357] nay, no cottage that continues, nay, no persons, no bodies,
that continue. Whatsoever moved Saint Jerome to call the journeys of the
Israelites in the wilderness,[358] mansions; the word (the word is
_nasang_) signifies but a journey, but a peregrination. Even the Israel
of God hath no mansions, but journeys, pilgrimages in this life. By what
measure did Jacob measure his life to Pharaoh? _The days of the years of
my pilgrimage._[359] And though the apostle would not say _morimur_,
that whilst we are in the body we are dead, yet he says, _perigrinamur_,
whilst we are in the body we are but in a pilgrimage, and we are _absent
from the Lord_:[360] he might have said dead, for this whole world is
but an universal churchyard, but our common grave, and the life and
motion that the greatest persons have in it is but as the shaking of
buried bodies in their grave, by an earthquake. That which we call life
is but _hebdomada mortium_, a week of death, seven days, seven periods
of our life spent in dying, a dying seven times over; and there is an
end. Our birth dies in infancy, and our infancy dies in youth, and youth
and the rest die in age, and age also dies and determines all. Nor do
all these, youth out of infancy, or age out of youth, arise so, as the
phoenix out of the ashes of another phoenix formerly dead, but as a
wasp or a serpent out of a carrion, or as a snake out of dung. Our youth
is worse than our infancy, and our age worse than our youth. Our youth
is hungry and thirsty after those sins which our infancy knew not; and
our age is sorry and angry, that it cannot pursue those sins which our
youth did; and besides, all the way, so many deaths, that is, so many
deadly calamities accompany every condition and every period of this
life, as that death itself would be an ease to them that suffer them.
Upon this sense doth Job wish that God had not given him an issue from
the first death, from the womb, _Wherefore thou hast brought me forth
out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye seen me! I
should have been as though I had not been._[361] And not only the
impatient Israelites in their murmuring (_would to God we had died by
the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt_),[362] but Elijah himself,
when he fled from Jezebel, and went for his life, as that text says,
under the juniper tree, requested that he might die, and said, _It is
enough now, O Lord, take away my life_.[363] So Jonah justifies his
impatience, nay, his anger, towards God himself: _Now, O Lord, take, I
beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better to die than to
live_.[364] And when God asked him, _Dost thou well to be angry for
this?_ he replies, _I do well to be angry, even unto death_. How much
worse a death than death is this life, which so good men would so often
change for death! But if my case be as Saint Paul's case, _quotidiè
morior_, that I die daily, that something heavier than death fall upon
me every day; if my case be David's case, _tota die mortificamur; all
the day long we are killed_, that not only every day, but every hour of
the day, something heavier than death fall upon me; though that be true
of me, _Conceptus in peccatis, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did
my mother conceive me_ (there I died one death); though that be true of
me, _Natus filius iræ_, I was born not only the child of sin, but the
child of wrath, of the wrath of God for sin, which is a heavier death:
yet _Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis, with God the Lord are the issues
of death_; and after a Job, and a Joseph, and a Jeremiah, and a Daniel,
I cannot doubt of a deliverance. And if no other deliverance conduce
more to his glory and my good, yet he hath the keys of death,[365] and
he can let me out at that door, that is, deliver me from the manifold
deaths of this world, the _omni die_, and the _tota die_, the every
day's death and every hour's death, by that one death, the final
dissolution of body and soul, the end of all. But then is that the end
of all? Is that dissolution of body and soul the last death that the
body shall suffer (for of spiritual death we speak not now). It is not,
though this be _exitus à morte_: it is _introitus in mortem_; though it
be an issue from manifold deaths of this world, yet it is an entrance
into the death of corruption and putrefaction, and vermiculation, and
incineration, and dispersion in and from the grave, in which every dead
man dies over again. It was a prerogative peculiar to Christ, not to die
this death, not to see corruption. What gave him this privilege? Not
Joseph's great proportion of gums and spices, that might have preserved
his body from corruption and incineration longer than he needed it,
longer than three days, but it would not have done it for ever. What
preserved him then? Did his exemption and freedom from original sin
preserve him from this corruption and incineration? It is true that
original sin hath induced this corruption and incineration upon us; if
we had not sinned in Adam, _mortality had not put on immortality_[366]
(as the apostle speaks), nor _corruption had not put on incorruption_,
but we had had our transmigration from this to the other world without
any mortality, any corruption at all. But yet since Christ took sin upon
him, so far as made him mortal, he had it so far too as might have made
him see this corruption and incineration, though he had no original sin
in himself; what preserved him then? Did the hypostatical union of both
natures, God and man, preserve him from this corruption and
incineration? It is true that this was a most powerful embalming, to be
embalmed with the Divine Nature itself, to be embalmed with eternity,
was able to preserve him from corruption and incineration for ever. And
he was embalmed so, embalmed with the Divine Nature itself, even in his
body as well as in his soul; for the Godhead, the Divine Nature, did not
depart, but remained still united to his dead body in the grave; but yet
for all this powerful embalming, his hypostatical union of both natures,
we see Christ did die; and for all his union which made him God and man,
he became no man (for the union of the body and soul makes the man, and
he whose soul and body are separated by death as long as that state
lasts, is properly no man). And therefore as in him the dissolution of
body and soul was no dissolution of the hypostatical union, so there is
nothing that constrains us to say, that though the flesh of Christ had
seen corruption and incineration in the grave, this had not been any
dissolution of the hypostatical union, for the Divine nature, the
Godhead, might have remained with all the elements and principles of
Christ's body, as well as it did with the two constitutive parts of his
person, his body and his soul. This incorruption then was not in
Joseph's gums and spices, nor was it in Christ's innocency, and
exemption from original sin, nor was it (that is, it is not necessary to
say it was) in the hypostatical union. But this incorruptibleness of his
flesh is most conveniently placed in that; _Non dabis, thou wilt not
suffer thy Holy One to see corruption_; we look no further for causes or
reasons in the mysteries of religion, but to the will and pleasure of
God; Christ himself limited his inquisition in that _ita est, even so,
Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight_. Christ's body did not see
corruption, therefore, because God had decreed it should not. The humble
soul (and only the humble soul is the religious soul) rests himself upon
God's purposes and the decrees of God which he hath declared and
manifested, not such as are conceived and imagined in ourselves, though
upon some probability, some verisimilitude; so in our present case
Peter proceeds in his sermon at Jerusalem, and so Paul in his at
Antioch.[367] They preached Christ to have been risen without seeing
corruption, not only because God had decreed it, but because he had
manifested that decree in his prophet, therefore doth Saint Paul cite by
special number the second Psalm for that decree, and therefore both
Saint Peter and Saint Paul cite for it that place in the sixteenth
Psalm;[368] for when God declares his decree and purpose in the express
words of his prophet, or when he declares it in the real execution of
the decree, then he makes it ours, then he manifests it to us. And
therefore, as the mysteries of our religion are not the objects of our
reason, but by faith we rest on God's decree and purpose--(it is so, O
God, because it is thy will it should be so)--so God's decrees are ever
to be considered in the manifestation thereof. All manifestation is
either in the word of God, or in the execution of the decree; and when
these two concur and meet it is the strongest demonstration that can be:
when therefore I find those marks of adoption and spiritual filiation
which are delivered in the word of God to be upon me; when I find that
real execution of his good purpose upon me, as that actually I do live
under the obedience and under the conditions which are evidences of
adoption and spiritual filiation; then, so long as I see these marks and
live so, I may safely comfort myself in a holy certitude and a modest
infallibility of my adoption. Christ determines himself in that, the
purpose of God was manifest to him; Saint Peter and Saint Paul determine
themselves in those two ways of knowing the purpose of God, the word of
God before the execution of the decree in the fulness of time. It was
prophesied before, said they, and it is performed now, Christ is risen
without seeing corruption. Now, this which is so singularly peculiar to
him, that his flesh should not see corruption, at his second coming, his
coming to judgment, shall extend to all that are then alive; their hestæ
shall not see corruption, because, as the apostle says, and says as a
secret, as a mystery, _Behold I shew you a mystery, we shall not all
sleep_ (that is, not continue in the state of the dead in the grave),
_but we shall all be changed in an instant_, we shall have a
dissolution, and in the same instant a redintegration, a recompacting of
body and soul, and that shall be truly a death and truly a resurrection,
but no sleeping in corruption; but for us that die now and sleep in the
state of the dead, we must all pass this posthume death, this death
after death, nay, this death after burial, this dissolution after
dissolution, this death of corruption and putrefaction, of vermiculation
and incineration, of dissolution and dispersion in and from the grave,
when these bodies that have been the children of royal parents, and the
parents of royal children, must say with Job, _Corruption, thou art my
father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister_. Miserable
riddle, when the same worm must be my mother, and my sister and myself!
Miserable incest, when I must be married to my mother and my sister, and
be both father and mother to my own mother and sister, beget and bear
that worm which is all that miserable penury; when my mouth shall be
filled with dust, and the _worm shall feed, and feed sweetly_[369] upon
me; when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction, if the poorest
alive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment in being
made equal to princes, for they shall be equal but in dust. _One dieth
at his full strength, being wholly at ease and in quiet; and another
dies in the bitterness of his soul, and never eats with pleasure_; but
_they lie down alike in the dust, and the worm covers them_.[370] In
Job and in Isaiah,[371] it covers them and is spread under them, _the
worm is spread under thee, and the worm covers thee_. There are the mats
and the carpets that lie under, and there are the state and the canopy
that hang over the greatest of the sons of men. Even those bodies that
were _the temples of the Holy Ghost_ come to this dilapidation, to ruin,
to rubbish, to dust; even the Israel of the Lord, and Jacob himself,
hath no other specification, no other denomination, but that _vermis
Jacob_, thou worm of Jacob. Truly the consideration of this posthume
death, this death after burial, that after God (with whom are the issues
of death) hath delivered me from the death of the womb, by bringing me
into the world, and from the manifold deaths of the world, by laying me
in the grave, I must die again in an incineration of this flesh, and in
a dispersion of that dust. That that monarch, who spread over many
nations alive, must in his dust lie in a corner of that sheet of lead,
and there but so long as that lead will last; and that private and
retired man, that thought himself his own for ever, and never came
forth, must in his dust of the grave be published, and (such are the
revolutions of the grave) be mingled with the dust of every highway and
of every dunghill, and swallowed in every puddle and pond. This is the
most inglorious and contemptible vilification, the most deadly and
peremptory nullification of man, that we can consider. God seems to have
carried the declaration of his power to a great height, when he sets the
prophet Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, and says, _Son of man, can
these bones live?_ as though it had been impossible, and yet they did;
the Lord laid _sinews upon them, and flesh, and breathed into them, and
they did live_. But in that case there were bones to be seen, something
visible, of which it might be said, Can this thing live? But in this
death of incineration and dispersion of dust, we see nothing that we
call that man's. If we say, Can this dust live? Perchance it cannot; it
may be the mere dust of the earth, which never did live, never shall. It
may be the dust of that man's worm, which did live, but shall no more.
It may be the dust of another man, that concerns not him of whom it was
asked. This death of incineration and dispersion is, to natural reason,
the most irrecoverable death of all; and yet _Domini Domini sunt exitus
mortis, unto God the Lord belong the issues of death_; and by
recompacting this dust into the same body, and remaining the same body
with the same soul, he shall in a blessed and glorious resurrection give
me such an issue from this death as shall never pass into any other
death, but establish me into a life that shall last as long as the Lord
of Life himself.
And so have you that that belongs to the first acceptation of these
words (_unto God the Lord belong the issues of death_); That though from
the womb to the grave, and in the grave itself, we pass from death to
death, yet, as Daniel speaks, _the Lord our God is able to deliver us,
and he will deliver us_.
And so we pass unto our second accommodation of these words (_unto God
the Lord belong the issues of death_); that it belongs to God, and not
to man, to pass a judgment upon us at our death, or to conclude a
dereliction on God's part upon the manner thereof.
Those indications which the physicians receive, and those presagitions
which they give for death or recovery in the patient, they receive and
they give out of the grounds and the rules of their art; but we have no
such rule or art to give a presagition of spiritual death and damnation
upon any such indication as we see in any dying man; we see often
enough to be sorry, but not to despair; we may be deceived both ways: we
use to comfort ourself in the death of a friend, if it be testified that
he went away like a lamb, that is, without any reluctation; but God
knows that may be accompanied with a dangerous damp and stupefaction,
and insensibility of his present state. Our blessed Saviour suffered
colluctations with death, and a _sadness even in his soul to death_, and
an agony even to a bloody sweat in his body, and expostulations with
God, and exclamations upon the cross. He was a devout man who said upon
his death-bed, or death-turf (for he was a hermit), _Septuaginta annos
Domino servivisti, et mori times?_ Hast thou served a good master
threescore and ten years, and now art thou loth to go into his presence?
Yet Hilarion was loth. Barlaam was a devout man (a hermit too) that said
that day he died, _Cogita te hodie cæpisse servire Domino, et hodie
finiturum_, Consider this to be the first day's service that ever thou
didst thy Master, to glorify him in a Christianly and a constant death,
and if thy first day be thy last day too, how soon dost thou come to
receive thy wages! Yet Barlaam could have been content to have stayed
longer forth. Make no ill conclusions upon any man's lothness to die,
for the mercies of God work momentarily in minutes, and many times
insensibly to bystanders, or any other than the party departing. And
then upon violent deaths inflicted as upon malefactors, Christ himself
hath forbidden us by his own death to make any ill conclusion; for his
own death had those impressions in it; he was reputed, he was executed
as a malefactor, and no doubt many of them who concurred to his death
did believe him to be so. Of sudden death there are scarce examples be
found in the Scriptures upon good men, for death in battle cannot be
called sudden death; but God governs not by examples but by rules, and
therefore make no ill conclusion upon sudden death nor upon distempers
neither, though perchance accompanied with some words of diffidence and
distrust in the mercies of God. The tree lies as it falls, it is true,
but it is not the last stroke that fells the tree, nor the last word nor
gasp that qualifies the soul. Still pray we for a peaceable life against
violent death, and for time of repentance against sudden death, and for
sober and modest assurance against distempered and diffident death, but
never make ill conclusions upon persons overtaken with such deaths;
_Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis, to God the Lord belong the issues of
death_. And he received Samson, who went out of this world in such a
manner (consider it actively, consider it passively in his own death,
and in those whom he slew with himself) as was subject to interpretation
hard enough. Yet the Holy Ghost hath moved Saint Paul to celebrate
Samson in his great catalogue,[372] and so doth all the church. Our
critical day is not the very day of our death, but the whole course of
our life. I thank him that prays for me when the bell tolls, but I thank
him much more that catechises me, or preaches to me, or instructs me how
to live. _Fac hoc et vive_, there is my security, the mouth of the Lord
hath said it, _do this and thou shalt live_. But though I do it, yet I
shall die too, die a bodily, a natural death. But God never mentions,
never seems to consider that death, the bodily, the natural death. God
doth not say, Live well, and thou shalt die well, that is, an easy, a
quiet death; but, Live well here, and thou shalt live well for ever. As
the first part of a sentence pieces well with the last, and never
respects, never hearkens after the parenthesis that comes between, so
doth a good life here flow into an eternal life, without any
consideration what manner of death we die. But whether the gate of my
prison be opened with an oiled key (by a gentle and preparing sickness),
or the gate be hewn down by a violent death, or the gate be burnt down
by a raging and frantic fever, a gate into heaven I shall have, for from
the Lord is the cause of my life, and _with God the Lord are the issues
of death_. And further we carry not this second acceptation of the
words, as this _issue of death_ is _liberatio in morte_, God's care that
the soul be safe, what agonies soever the body suffers in the hour of
death.
But pass to our third part and last part: As this issue of death is
_liberatio per mortem_, a deliverance by the death of another.
_Sufferentiam Job audiisti, et vidisti finem Domini_, says Saint James
(v. 11), _You have heard of the patience of Job_, says he: all this
while you have done that, for in every man, calamitous, miserable man, a
Job speaks. Now, _see the end of the Lord_, sayeth that apostle, which
is not that end that the Lord proposed to himself (salvation to us), nor
the end which he proposes to us (conformity to him), but _see the end of
the Lord_, says he, the end that the Lord himself came to, death, and a
painful and a shameful death. But why did he die? and why die so? _Quia
Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis_ (as Saint Augustine, interpreting this
text, answers that question),[373] because to this _God our Lord
belonged the issues of death. Quid apertius diceretur?_ says he there,
what can be more obvious, more manifest than this sense of these words?
In the former part of this verse it is said, He that is _our God is the
God of salvation; Deus salvos faciendi_, so he reads it, the God that
must save us. Who can that be, says he, but Jesus? For therefore that
name was given him because he was to save us. And to this Jesus, says
he, this Saviour,[374] _belong the issues of death_; _Nec oportuit eum
de hac vita alios exitus habere quam mortis_: being come into this life
in our mortal nature, he could not go out of this life any other way but
by death. _Ideo dictum_, says he, therefore it is said, _to God the Lord
belonged the issues of death; ut ostenderetur moriendo nos salvos
facturum_, to show that his way to save us was to die. And from this
text doth Saint Isidore prove that Christ was truly man (which as many
sects of heretics denied, as that he was truly God), because to him,
though he were _Dominus Dominus_ (as the text doubles it), God the Lord,
yet to _him, to God the Lord belonged the issues of death_; _oportuit
eum pati_; more cannot be said than Christ himself says of himself;
_These things Christ ought to suffer_;[375] he had no other way but
death: so then this part of our sermon must needs be a passion sermon,
since all his life was a continual passion, all our Lent may well be a
continual Good Friday. Christ's painful life took off none of the pains
of his death, he felt not the less then for having felt so much before.
Nor will any thing that shall be said before lessen, but rather enlarge
the devotion, to that which shall be said of his passion at the time of
due solemnization thereof. Christ bled not a drop the less at the last
for having bled at his circumcision before, nor will you a tear the less
then if you shed some now. And therefore be now content to consider with
me how _to this God the Lord belonged the issues of death_. That God,
this Lord, the Lord of life, could die, is a strange contemplation; that
the Red Sea could be dry, that the sun could stand still, that an oven
could be seven times heat and not burn, that lions could be hungry and
not bite, is strange, miraculously strange, but super-miraculous that
God _could_ die; but that God _would_ die is an exaltation of that. But
even of that also it is a super-exaltation, that God should die, must
die, and _non exitus_ (said Saint Augustine), God the Lord had no issue
but by death, and _oportuit pati_ (says Christ himself), all this Christ
ought to suffer, was bound to suffer; _Deus ultimo Deus_, says David,
God is the God of revenges, he would not pass over the son of man
unrevenged, unpunished. But then _Deus ultionum libere egit_ (says that
place), the God of revenges works freely, he punishes, he spares whom he
will. And would he not spare himself? he would not: _Dilectio fortis ut
mors, love is strong as death_;[376] stronger, it drew in death, that
naturally is not welcome. _Si possibile_ says Christ, _if it be
possible, let this cup pass_, when his love, expressed in a former
decree with his Father, had made it impossible. _Many waters quench not
love._[377] Christ tried many: he was baptised out of his love, and his
love determined not there; he mingled blood with water in his agony, and
that determined not his love; he wept pure blood, all his blood at all
his eyes, at all his pores, in his flagellation and thorns (_to the Lord
our God belonged the issues of blood_), and these expressed, but these
did not quench his love. He would not spare, nay, he could not spare
himself. There was nothing more free, more voluntary, more spontaneous
than the death of Christ. It is true, _libere egit_, he died
voluntarily; but yet when we consider the contract that had passed
between his Father and him, there was an _oportuit_, a kind of necessity
upon him: all this _Christ ought to suffer_. And when shall we date this
obligation, this _oportuit_, this necessity? When shall we say that
began? Certainly this decree by which Christ was to suffer all this was
an eternal decree, and was there any thing before that that was eternal?
Infinite love, eternal love; be pleased to follow this home, and to
consider it seriously, that what liberty soever we can conceive in
Christ to die or not to die; this necessity of dying, this decree is as
eternal as that liberty; and yet how small a matter made he of this
necessity and this dying? His Father calls it but a bruise, and but a
bruising of his heel[378] (the serpent shall bruise his heel), and yet
that was, that the serpent should practise and compass his death.
Himself calls it but a baptism, as though he were to be the better for
it. I _have a baptism to be baptised with_,[379] and he was in pain till
it was accomplished, and yet this baptism was his death. The Holy Ghost
calls it joy (_for the joy which was set before him he endured the
cross_),[380] which was not a joy of his reward after his passion, but a
joy that filled him even in the midst of his torments, and arose from
him; when Christ calls his _calicem_ a cup, and no worse (_Can ye drink
of my cup_)[381], he speaks not odiously, not with detestation of it.
Indeed it was a cup, _salus mundo_, a health to all the world. And _quid
retribuam_, says David, _What shall I render to the Lord?_[382] Answer
you with David, _Accipiam calicem, I will take the cup of salvation_;
take it, that cup is salvation, his passion, if not into your present
imitation, yet into your present contemplation. And behold how that Lord
that was God, yet could die, would die, must die for our salvation. That
Moses and Elias talked with Christ in the transfiguration, both Saint
Matthew and Saint Mark[383] tells us, but what they talked of, only
Saint Luke; _Dicebant excessum ejus_, says he, _They talked of his
disease, of his death, which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem_.[384]
The word is of his _exodus_, the very word of our text, _exitus_, his
_issue by death_. Moses, who in his exodus had prefigured this issue of
our Lord, and in passing Israel out of Egypt through the Red Sea, had
foretold in that actual prophecy, Christ passing of mankind through the
sea of his blood; and Elias, whose exodus and issue of this world was a
figure of Christ's ascension; had no doubt a great satisfaction in
talking with our blessed Lord, _de excessu ejus_, of the full
consummation of all this in his death, which was to be accomplished at
Jerusalem. Our meditation of his death should be more visceral, and
affect us more, because it is of a thing already done. The ancient
Romans had a certain tenderness and detestation of the name of death;
they could not name death, no, not in their wills; there they could not
say, _Si mori contigerit_, but _si quid humanitas contingat_, not if or
when I die, but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me. To us
that speak daily of the death of Christ (he was crucified, dead, and
buried), can the memory or the mention of our own death be irksome or
bitter? There are in these latter times amongst us that name death
freely enough, and the death of God, but in blasphemous oaths and
execrations. Miserable men, who shall therefore be said never to have
named Jesus, because they have named him too often; and therefore hear
Jesus say, _Nescivi vos, I never knew you_, because they made themselves
too familiar with him. Moses and Elias talked with Christ of his death
only in a holy and joyful sense, of the benefit which they and all the
world were to receive by that. Discourses of religion should not be out
of curiosity, but to edification. And then they talked with Christ of
his death at that time when he was in the greatest height of glory, that
ever he admitted in this world, that is, his transfiguration. And we are
afraid to speak to the great men of this world of their death, but
nourish in them a vain imagination of immortality and immutability. But
_bonum est nobis esse hic_ (as Saint Peter said there), _It is good to
dwell here_, in this consideration of his death, and therefore transfer
we our tabernacle (our devotions) through some of those steps which God
the Lord made to his _issue of death_ that day. Take in the whole day
from the hour that Christ received the passover upon Thursday unto the
hour in which he died the next day. Make this present day that day in
thy devotion, and consider what he did, and remember what you have done.
Before he instituted and celebrated the sacrament (which was after the
eating of the passover), he proceeded to that act of humility, to wash
his disciples' feet, even Peter's, who for a while resisted him. In thy
preparation to the holy and blessed sacrament, hast thou with a sincere
humility sought a reconciliation with all the world, even with those
that have been averse from it, and refused that reconciliation from
thee? If so, and not else, thou hast spent that first part of his last
day in a conformity with him. After the sacrament he spent the time till
night in prayer, in preaching, in psalms: hast thou considered that a
worthy receiving of the sacrament consists in a continuation of holiness
after, as well as in a preparation before? If so, thou hast therein also
conformed thyself to him; so Christ spent his time till night. At night
he went into the garden to pray, and he prayed prolixious, he spent much
time in prayer, how much? Because it is literally expressed, that he
prayed there three several times,[385] and that returning to his
disciples after his first prayer, and finding them asleep, said, _Could
ye not watch with me one hour_,[386] it is collected that he spent three
hours in prayer. I dare scarce ask thee whither thou wentest, or how
thou disposedst of thyself, when it grew dark and after last night. If
that time were spent in a holy recommendation of thyself to God, and a
submission of thy will to his, it was spent in a conformity to him. In
that time, and in those prayers, was his agony and bloody sweat. I will
hope that thou didst pray; but not every ordinary and customary prayer,
but prayer actually accompanied with shedding of tears and dispositively
in a readiness to shed blood for his glory in necessary cases, puts thee
into a conformity with him. About midnight he was taken and bound with a
kiss, art thou not too conformable to him in that? Is not that too
literally, too exactly thy case, at midnight to have been taken and
bound with a kiss? From thence he was carried back to Jerusalem, first
to Annas, then to Caiaphas, and (as late as it was) then he was examined
and buffeted, and delivered over to the custody of those officers from
whom he received all those irrisions, and violences, the covering of his
face, the spitting upon his face, the blasphemies of words, and the
smartness of blows, which that gospel mentions: in which compass fell
that gallicinium, that crowing of the cock which called up Peter to his
repentance. How thou passedst all that time thou knowest. If thou didst
any thing that needest Peter's tears, and hast not shed them, let me be
thy cock, do it now. Now, thy Master (in the unworthiest of his
servants) looks back upon thee, do it now. Betimes, in the morning, so
soon as it was day, the Jews held a council in the high priest's hall,
and agreed upon their evidence against him, and then carried him to
Pilate, who was to be his judge; didst thou accuse thyself when thou
wakedst this morning, and wast thou content even with false accusations,
that is, rather to suspect actions to have been sin, which were not,
than to smother and justify such as were truly sins? Then thou spentest
that hour in conformity to him; Pilate found no evidence against him,
and therefore to ease himself, and to pass a compliment upon Herod,
tetrarch of Galilee, who was at that time at Jerusalem (because Christ,
being a Galilean, was of Herod's jurisdiction), Pilate sent him to
Herod, and rather as a madman than a malefactor; Herod remanded him
(with scorn) to Pilate, to proceed against him; and this was about eight
of the clock. Hast thou been content to come to this inquisition, this
examination, this agitation, this cribration, this pursuit of thy
conscience; to sift it, to follow it from the sins of thy youth to thy
present sins, from the sins of thy bed to the sins of thy board, and
from the substance to the circumstance of thy sins? That is time spent
like thy Saviour's. Pilate would have saved Christ, by using the
privilege of the day in his behalf, because that day one prisoner was to
be delivered, but they choose Barabbas; he would have saved him from
death, by satisfying their fury with inflicting other torments upon him,
scourging and crowning with thorns, and loading him with many scornful
and ignominious contumelies; but they regarded him not, they pressed a
crucifying. Hast thou gone about to redeem thy sin, by fasting, by alms,
by disciplines and mortifications, in way of satisfaction to the justice
of God? That will not serve, that is not the right way; we press an
utter crucifying of that sin that governs thee: and that conforms thee
to Christ. Towards noon Pilate gave judgment, and they made such haste
to execution as that by noon he was upon the cross. There now hangs that
sacred body upon the cross, rebaptized in his own tears, and sweat, and
embalmed in his own blood alive. There are those bowels of compassion
which are so conspicuous, so manifested, as that you may see them
through his wounds. There those glorious eyes grew faint in their sight,
so as the sun, ashamed to survive them, departed with his light too.
And then that Son of God, who was never from us, and yet had now come a
new way unto us in assuming our nature, delivers that soul (which was
never out of his Father's hands) by a _new way_, a voluntary emission of
it into his Father's hands; for though _to this God our Lord belonged
these issues of death_, so that considered in his own contract, he must
necessarily die, yet at no breach or battery which they had made upon
his sacred body issued his soul; but _emisit_, he gave up the ghost; and
as God breathed a soul into the first Adam, so this second Adam breathed
his soul into God, into the hands of God.
There we leave you in that blessed dependency, to hang upon him that
hangs upon the cross, there bathe in his tears, there suck at his
wounds, and lie down in peace in his grave, till he vouchsafe you a
resurrection, and an ascension into that kingdom which He hath prepared
for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen.