Think Well On't/Day 8
THE EIGHTH DAY.
On the sentiments we shall have at the hour of our death.
CONSIDER, Christian soul, what will be thy sentiments at the hour of death with regard to this world, and all its perishable goods, vain honours, false riches and cheating pleasures. Alas! the world must then end in thy regard; it will turn upside down before thy eyes; and thou wilt begin to see clearly the nothingness of all those things on which thou hast here set thy heart. How wilt thou then despise all worldly honours and preferments, when thou seest thyself at the brink of the grave, where the worms will make no distinction between the king and the beggar! How little account wilt thou then make of the esteem of men, who now will think no more of thee? How wilt thou undervalue thy riches, which must now be left behind thee, when six foot of land, a coffin and a shroud, will be all thy possession? How despicable will all worldly pleasures then seem to thee, which, at the best, could never give thee any true satisfaction, and now fly from thee, and dissolve into smoke in thy sight! Ah! my poor soul, enter now into the same sentiments which thou shalt certainly have at the hour of thy death: thus, and only thus, thou shalt be out of danger of being deceived by this deceitful world.
2. Consider, what will then be thy thoughts with regard to thy sins; when the curtain will begin to be withdrawn, with which thy busy self-love has industriously hidden or disguised the deformity and malice of thy crimes: and they shall be set before thy eyes in their true light: when so many things which thou wast willing to persuade thyself were but small faults, or none at all, will present themselves before thee in other kind of colours, as great and hideous offences: when that false conscience, which thou hast framed to thyself, and under the cover of which thou hast passed over many things in thy confessions, as light and inconsiderable, which thou wast ashamed to declare, or unwilling to forsake, shall no longer be able to maintain itself at the approach of death. Ah! what anguish, what confusion, what dreadful temptations of despair must such a sight as this give to the dying sinner? Learn thou, my soul, to take better measures now in time, and thus to prevent so great a misery.
3. Consider, and take a nigher view of the lamentable state of a sinner at the hour of his death: when all things seem to conspire against him, and whichever way he looks for any ease or comfort, he can find none. Before his eyes he sees a whole army of sins mustered up; a viper's brood of his own offspring, which stick close to him, and, assailing him with their united forces, make him already begin to feel the gripes of that never-dying worm of conscience, which shall be the eternal torment of the damned. Oh! how gladly would he shake off this troublesome company: but all in vain; they are resolved not to leave him. If he looks back into his past life, to seek for some good works, to oppose to this army of sins; alas! he finds the good that he has done has been so inconsiderable, so insignificant, as to give him no hopes of its weighing down the scales, when balanced with his multiplied crimes. His very prayers, the confessions and communions which he has made, fly now in his face, and upbraid him with his wretched negligence, and his sacrilegious abuse of these great means of salvation. The sight of all things about him, his wife, his children, his friends, his worldly goods, which he has loved more than his God, serve for nothing now but to increase his anguish. And what is his greatest misery is, that the agonies of his sickness give him little or no leisure or ability to apply himself seriously to the greatest and most difficult of all concerns, which is, a perfect conversion to God after a long habit of sin. Oh! how truly may the sinner now repeat those words of the Psalmist: the sorrows of death have encompassed me, and the perils of hell have found me: Psalm cxiv. 3. Oh! what unspeakable anguish must it be to see himself just embarking upon eternity, an infinite and endless duration, an immense ocean, to whose further shore the poor sailor can never reach; and to have so much reason to fear, it will be to him an eternity of woe.
4. Consider, my soul, what thy sentiments will be at the hour of thy death, with relation to the service of God, to virtue and devotion: how lovely then will the way of virtue appear to thee! How wilt thou then wish to have followed that charming path! Oh! what a satisfaction is it to a dying man to have lived well! What a comfort to see himself now at the end of all his labours and dangers; to find himself at the gates of eternal rest, of everlasting peace, after a long and doubtful war! He may now securely come down from his watchtower, and repose himself for ever in the kingdom of his father. Oh! what a pleasure, what a joy to look forward into that blessed eternity! Oh! how precious in the sight of God is the death of his saints: Psalm cxv. 15. Ah! Let my soul die the death of the just, and let my last end be like to theirs: Numb. xxiii. Christians, if we would die the death of the just, we must live the life of the just! The only security for a good death, is a good life.
5. Consider, or rather conclude, from the foregoing considerations on death, to make it the whole business of your life to prepare for death. Upon dying well depends nothing less than eternity. If we die ill, we are lost, and lost for ever. As then we came into the world for nothing else but to provide for eternity, so we may truly say, we came into the world for nothing else but to learn to die well. This is the great lesson we must all study. Alas! if we miss it, when we are called to the trial, an endless woe must of necessity be the consequence. Ah! how hard it is to learn to perform that well which can be done but once.