"The swelling of Jordan."--_Jeremiah_.
"Fore-fancy your deathbed," says Samuel Rutherford. "Take an essay," he
says in his greatest book, that perfect mine of gold and jewels, _Christ
Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself_--"Take an essay and a lift at your
death, and look at it before it actually comes to your door." And so we
shall. Since it is appointed to all men once to die, and after death the
judgment; and since our death and our judgment are the only two things
that we are absolutely sure about in our whole future, we shall
henceforth fore-fancy those two events much more than we have done in the
past. And to assist us in that; to quicken our fancy, to kindle it, to
captivate it, and to turn our fancy wholly to our salvation, we have all
the entrancing river-scenes in the _Pilgrim's Progress_ set before us; a
succession of scenes in which Bunyan positively revels in his exquisite
fancies, clothing them as he does, all the time, in language of the
utmost beauty, tenderness, pathos, power, and dignity. Let us take our
stand, then, on the bank of the river and watch how pilgrim after pilgrim
behaves himself in those terrible waters. We are all voluntary
spectators to-night, but we shall all be compulsory performers before we
know where we are.
1. On entering the river even Christian suddenly began to sink. Fore-
fancy that. All the words he spake still tended to discover that he had
great horror of mind and hearty fears that he would die in that river;
here also he was much in the troublesome thoughts of the sins he had
committed both since and before he began to be a pilgrim. Fore-fancy
that also, all you converted young men. Hopeful, therefore, had much to
do to keep his brother's head above water; yea, sometimes he would be
quite gone down, and then in a while he would rise up again half-dead.
Then I saw in my dream that Christian was in a muse a while; to whom also
Hopeful added this word, "Be of good cheer; Jesus Christ maketh thee
whole." And with that Christian broke out with a loud voice, "When thou
passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers
they shall not overflow thee." Then they both took courage and the enemy
was after that as still as a stone till they were gone over. Fore-fancy
that also. There is one other thing out of that crossing that I hope I
shall remember when I am in the river: "Be of good cheer," said Hopeful
to his sinking fellow--"Be of good cheer, my brother, I feel the bottom,
and it is good." "Hold His hand fast," wrote Samuel Rutherford to Lady
Kenmure. "He knows all the fords. You may be ducked in His company but
never drowned. Put in your foot, then, and wade after Him. And be sure
you set your feet always upon the stepping-stones." Yes; fore-fancy
those stepping-stones, and often practise your feet upon them before the
time.
2. "Good woman," said the post to Christiana, the wife of Christian the
pilgrim; "Hail, good woman, I bring thee tidings that the Master calleth
for thee, and expecteth thee to stand in His presence in clothes of
immortality within this ten days." Fore-fancy that also. Now the day
was come that she must be gone. And so the road was full of people to
see her take her journey. But, behold, all the banks beyond the river
were full of horses and chariots which were come down from above to
accompany her to the city gate. So she came forth and entered the river
with a beckon of farewell to those that followed her to the river-side.
And thus she went and entered in at the gate with all the ceremonies of
joy that her husband had done before her. Fore-fancy, if you can, some
of those ceremonies of joy.
3. When Mr. Fearing came to the river where was no bridge, there again
he was in a heavy case. Now, he said, he should be drowned for ever and
never see that Face with comfort he had come so many miles to behold. And
here also I took notice of what was very remarkable; the water of that
river was lower at this time than ever I saw it in all my life. So he
went over at last not much above wet-shod. Fore-fancy and fore-arrange,
if it be possible, for a passage like that. When he was going tip to the
gate Mr. Greatheart began to take his leave of him, and to wish him a
good reception above. "I shall," he said, "I shall." Be fore-assured,
also, of a reception like that.
4. In process of time there came a post to the town again, and his
business was this time with Mr. Ready-to-halt. So he inquired him out
and said to him, "I am come to thee in the name of Him whom thou hast
loved and followed, though upon crutches. And my message is to tell thee
that He expects thee at His table to sup with Him in His kingdom the next
day after Easter." After this Mr. Ready-to-halt called for his fellow-
pilgrims and told them, saying, "I am sent for, and God shall surely
visit you also. These crutches," he said, "I bequeath to my son that he
may tread in my steps, with a hundred warm wishes that he may prove
better than I have done." When he came to the brink of the river, he
said, "Now I shall have no more need of these crutches, since yonder are
horses and chariots for me to ride on." The last words he was heard to
say were, "Welcome life!" Let all ready-to-halt hearts fore-fancy all
that.
5. Then Mr. Feeble-mind called for his friends and told them what errand
had been brought to him, and what token he had received of the truth of
the message. "As for my feeble mind," he said, "that I shall leave
behind me, for I shall have no need of that in the place whither I go.
When I am gone, Mr. Valiant, I desire that you would bury it in a dung-
hill." This done, and the day being come in which he was to depart, he
entered the river as the rest. His last words were, "Hold out faith and
patience." Fore-fancy such an end as that to your feeble mind also.
6. Did you ever know a family, or, rather, the relics of a family, where
there was just a decrepit old father and a lone daughter left to nurse
him through his second childhood? All his other children are either
married or dead; but both marriage and death have spared Miss Much-afraid
to watch over the dotage-days of Mr. Despondency; till one summer
afternoon the old man fell asleep in his chair to waken where old men are
for ever young. And in a day or two there were two new graves side by
side in the old churchyard. Even death could not divide this old father
and his trusty child. And so when the time was come for them to depart,
they went down together to the brink of the river. The last words of Mr.
Despondency were, "Farewell night and welcome day." His daughter went
through the river singing, but none could understand what it was she
said. Fore-fancy that, all you godly old men, with a daughter who has
made a husband and children to herself of her old father.
7. As I hear Old Honest shouting "Grace reigns!" I always remember what
a lady told me about a saying of her poor Irish scullery-girl. The
mistress and the servant were reading George Eliot's Life together in the
kitchen, and when they came to her deathbed, on the pillow of which
Thomas A'Kempis lay open, "Mem," said the girl, "I used to read that old
book in the convent; but it is a better book to live upon than to die
upon." Now, that was exactly Old Honest's mind. He lived upon one book,
and then he died upon another. He lived according to the commandments of
God, but he died according to the comforts of the Gospel. Now, we read
in his history how that the river at that time overflowed its banks in
some places. But Mr. Honest had in his lifetime spoken to one
Good-conscience to meet him at the river, the which he also did, and lent
him his hand, and so helped him over. All the same, the last words of
Mr. Honest still were, "Grace reigns!" And so he left the world. Fore-
fancy whether or no you are making, as one has said, "an assignation with
terror" at that same river-side.
8. Standfast was the last of the pilgrims to go over the river.
Standfast was left longest on this side the river because his Master
could best trust him here. His Master had to take away many of His other
servants from the evil to come, but He could trust Standfast. You can
safely trust a man who takes to his knees in every hour of temptation, as
Standfast was wont to do. "This river," he said, "has been a terror to
many. Yea, the thoughts of it have often frighted me also. The waters,
indeed, are to the palate bitter, and to the stomach cold; yet the
thoughts of what I am going to, and of the conduct that awaits me on the
other side, doth lie as a glowing coal at my heart. I see myself now at
the end of my journey, and my toilsome days are all ended. I am going
now to see that head that was crowned with thorns, and that face that was
spit upon for me. His name has been to me as a civet-box, yea, sweeter
than all perfumes. His word I did use to gather for my food, and for
antidotes against my faintings. He has held me up, and I have kept
myself from mine iniquities. Yea, my steps hath He strengthened in the
way." Now, while he was thus in discourse his countenance changed, his
strong man bowed down under him, and after he had said, "Take me, for I
come to Thee," he ceased to be seen of them. Fore-fancy, if you have the
face, an end like that for yourself.
This, then, is how Christian and Hopeful and Christiana and Old Honest
and all the rest did in the swelling river. But the important point is,
HOW WILL YOU DO? Have you ever fore-fancied how you will do? Have you
ever, among all your many imaginings, imagined yourself on your deathbed?
Have you ever thought you heard the doctor whisper, "To-night"? Have you
ever lain low in your bed and listened to the death-rattle in your own
throat? And have you still listened to the awful silence in the house
after all was over? Have you ever shot in imagination the dreadful gulf
that stands fixed between life and death, and between time and eternity?
Have you ever tried to get a glimpse beforehand of your own place where
you will be an hour after your death, when they are putting the grave-
clothes on your still warm body, and when they are measuring your corpse
for your coffin? Where will you be by that time? Have you any idea? Can
you fancy it? Did you ever try? And if not, why not? "My lord," wrote
Jeremy Taylor to the Earl of Carbery, when sending him the first copy of
the _Holy Dying_,--"My lord, it is a great art to die well, and that art
is to be learnt by men in health; for he that prepares not for death
before his last sickness is like him that begins to study philosophy when
he is going to dispute publicly in the faculty. The precepts of dying
well must be part of the studies of them that live in health, because in
other notices an imperfect study may be supplied by a frequent exercise
and a renewed experience; but here, if we practise imperfectly once, we
shall never recover the error, for we die but once; and therefore it is
necessary that our skill be more exact since it cannot be mended by
another trial." How wise, then, how far-seeing, how practical, and how
urgent is the prophet's challenge and demand. "How wilt thou do in the
swelling of Jordan?"
1. Well, then, let us be practical before we close, and let us descend
to particulars. Let us take the prophet's question and run it through
some parts and some practices of our daily life as already dying men.
And, to begin with, I have such a great faith in good books, whether we
are to live or die, that I am impelled to ask you all at this point, and
under shelter of this plain-spoken prophet, What books have you laid in
for your deathbed, and for the weeks and months and even years before
your death bed? What do you look forward to be reading when Jordan is
beginning to swell and roll for you and to leap up toward your doorstep?
If you get good from good books--everybody does not--but supposing you
are one of those who do, what books can you absolutely count upon,
without fail, to put you in the best possible frame for the river, and
for the convoy across, and for the ceremonies of joy on the other side?
What special Scriptures will you have read every day to you? "Read,"
said John Knox to his weeping wife, "read where I first cast my anchor."
An old lady I once knew used to say to me at every visit, "The
Fifty-first Psalm." She was the daughter of a Highland minister, and the
wife of a Highland minister, and the mother of a Highland minister, and
of an elder to boot. "The Fifty-first Psalm," she said, and sometimes,
"One of Hart's hymns also." What is your favourite psalm and hymn? Mr.
James Taylor of Castle Street has several large-type libraries in his
catalogue. Mr. Taylor might start a much worse paying speculation than a
large-type library for the river-side; or, some select booklets for
deathbeds. The series might well open with "The Ninetieth Psalm" in
letters an inch deep. Scholars die as well as illiterates, and there
might be provided for them, among other things, _The Phaedo_ in two
languages, Plato's and Jowett's. Then _The Seven Sayings from the
Cross_. Bellarmine's _Art of Dying Well_ would stand well beside John
Bunyan's _Dying Sayings_. And, were I the editor, I would put in Bishop
Andrewes' _Private Devotions_, if only for my own last use. Then Richard
Baxter's _Saint's Rest_, and John Howe's Platonico-Puritan book,
_Blessedness of the Righteous_. Then Bernard's "New Jerusalem," "The
Sands of Time are sinking," "Rock of Ages," and such like. These are
some of the little books I have within reach of my bed against the hour
when the post blows his first horn for me. You might tell me some of
your deathbed favourites.
2. Who will be your most welcome minister during your last days on
earth? For whom would you send to-night if the post were suddenly to
sound his horn at your side on your way home from church? I can well
believe it would not be your own minister. I have known fathers and
mothers in this congregation to send for other ministers than their own
minister when terrible trouble came upon them, and both my conscience and
my common sense absolutely approved of the step they took. Five students
were once sitting and talking together in a city in which there was to be
an execution to-morrow morning. They were talking about the murderer who
was to be executed in the morning, and about the minister he had sent for
to come to see him. And, like students, they began to put it to one
another--Suppose you were to be executed to-morrow, for what minister in
the city, or even in the whole land, would you send? And, like students
again, they said--Let each one write down on a piece of paper the name of
the minister he would choose to be beside him at the last, and we shall
see each man's last choice. They did so, when to their astonishment it
was discovered that they had all written the same minister's name! I do
not know that they all went to his church every Sabbath while they were
young and, well, and not yet under sentence of death. I do not think
they did. For when I was in his church there was only a handful of old
and decayed-looking people in it. The chief part of the congregation
seemed to me to be a charity school. And I gathered from all that a
lesson--several lessons, and this among the rest--that crowded passages
do not always wait upon the best pastors; and this also, that a waft of
death soon discovers to us a true minister from an incompetent and a
counterfeit minister.
3. Writing to one of his correspondents about his correspondent's long-
drawn-out deathbed, Samuel Rutherford said to him, "It is long-drawn-out
that you may have ample time to go over all your old letters and all your
still unsettled accounts before you take ship." Have you any such old
letters lying still unanswered? Have you any such old accounts lying
still unsettled? Have you made full reparation and restitution for all
that you and yours have done amiss? Fore-fancy that you will soon be
summoned into His presence who has said: "herefore, if thou bring thy
gift before the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught
against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way;
first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him."
You know all about Zacchaeus. I need not tell his story over again. But
as I write these lines I take up a London newspaper and my eyes light on
these lines: "William Avary was a man of remarkable gifts, both of mind
and character. He dedicated the residue of his strength wholly to works
of piety. In middle age he failed in business, and in his old age, when
better days came, he looked up such of his old creditors as could be
found and divided among them a sum of several thousand pounds." Look up
such of your old creditors as you can find, and that not in matters of
money alone. And, be sure you begin to do it now, before the horn blows.
For, as sure as you take your keys and open your old repositories, you
will come on things you had completely forgotten that will take more time
and more strength, ay, and more resources, than will then be at your
disposal. Even after you have begun at once and done all that you can
do, you will have to do at last as Samuel Rutherford told George
Gillespie to do: "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."
4. And then, pray often to God for a clear mind between Him and you, and
for a quick, warm, and heaven-hungry heart at the last. And take a
promise from those who watch beside your bed that they will not drug and
stupefy you even though you should ask for it. Whatever your pain, and
it is all in God's hand, make up your mind, if it be possible, to bear
it. It cannot be greater than the pain of the cross, and your Saviour
would not touch their drugs, however well-intended. He determined to
face the swelling of Jordan and to enter His Father's house with an
unclouded mind. Try your very uttermost to do the same. I cannot
believe that the thief even would have let the gall so much as touch his
lips after Christ had said to him, "To-day thou shalt be with Me in
Paradise!" Well, if your mind was ever clear and keen, let it be at its
clearest and its keenest at the last. Let your mind and your heart be
full of repentance, and faith, and love, and hope, and all such saying
graces, and let them all be at their fullest and brightest exercise, at
that moment. Be on the very tip-toe of expectation as the end draws
near. Another pang, another gasp, one more unutterable sinking of heart
and flesh as if you were going down into the dreadful pit--and then the
abundant entrance, and the beatific vision! What wilt thou do then? What
wilt thou say then? Hast thou thy salutation and thy song ready? And
what will it be?