01.03. Chapter 3

CHAPTER III. Of the Act of Dying. What we may conceive of it. With Gospel Relief suited thereunto.

I Conceive death, the progress of it over the human frame, with the act of dying, to be distinct. Death is inherent in our bodies and constitutions. It is nothing but the mortality of our bodies, which cannot take place without such and such giving way: it may be instantly, but it is produced by certain physical causes. Hence I apprehend it is that some, from a good sound understanding of the human frame, have expressed most exactly the precise time of their dissolution, In our bodies we are the subjects of a sensitive, animal, and rational life. This the soul, by its indwelling in the body, hath its enjoyments of. Yet these lives are not in the soul, but in the body: the soul is the subject of intellectual and rational life. This does not expire and cease with the body. At death, we lose no other life than what alone belongs to the body; which consists in that sense, motion, feeling, and perception, which belong to it; all which is vegetive, sensitive, and animal. With respect to which, the death of it comes on all the nerves, and parts of it, so as to affect the whole frame, to deprive it of all the senses, feelings, and motion thereof, whereby the soul is forced to leave it. Now death is first, as it respects its seizure of the body, which in its progress stops the circulation of the blood throughout the whole frame; then seals up every sense, and thus the breath of man goeth forth, and he returns to the earth: in that very day his thoughts, formed in the mind by the mean of the bodily nerves, blood, and senses, perish.

Now, the act of dying, I conceive, consists in all the senses, faculties, and members of the animal frame entirely ceasing, so as for the breath wholly to depart out of the body.

I conceive that it is very easy, when it comes to this. The soul is now unclothed of all mortality; it is out of its sheath: it is just what an angel is, as it respects its essence and faculties. It has no materiality belonging to it; the essence and faculties of it are such as can by no means be destroyed by death. Its medium of knowledge and communication is wholly different from what it was before: it is now wholly intellectual. Its faculties are will and understanding; its affections of memory and suitableness to the objects and subjects before it, are essential to its existence. I think these two things make death so terrible to our view: we see the body is wholly laid a side it is put off. In its putting off, we perceive it is greatly agitated; when it came to its last gasp all was over. The mind was then wholly disengaged from it. Now this we feel ourselves concerned in: to know where it is; how it acts; what we are to conceive thereof; what those objects and subjects are which engage it. Indeed, here we must stop, unless we submit to the word and light of inspiration; for what our souls, minds, thoughts are; what our thinking faculty is, we know not now, nor shall we, it may be, in a future state. We shall exist for ever, but our existence being in him who gave it, and continues it. I should conceive it will never fall under our knowledge, even in eternity. All we shall know of it, may be, will be only this: we know we live, and are in such a state, and are so and so exercised, but what our souls or existences are, will, I conceive, be beyond our knowledge, even in the invisible state.

We are to be disembodied by death. What light do the scriptures of truth give us concerning this? For it will not do for us to give way to conjecture. Indeed, it will not. The apostle tells us, We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every of e may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. This appearance must be in our souls. He says, We being absent from the body, are present with the Lord. He tells us, he knew a man in Christ, whether in the body or out of it, he could not say. Yet such an one was caught up to the third heaven, 2 Corinthians 12:2. It fully appears from hence, that we shall have no need of our bodies in heaven for a season. Our Lord said to the thief, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. Luke 23:43. He is without his body to the present moment, yet he is in the immediate presence of Christ. The prophet John says, he saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and the testimony which they held. And white robes were given unto every one of them. Revelation 6:9, Revelation 6:11. This was expressive of the garment of immortality; from whence we may clearly perceive, that the disembodied soul of the saint is, immediately at its leaving the body, with the spirits of just men made perfect. It is this which may well afford relief to the minds of saints, when they are in the very act of dying: that as soon as the body expires, they will be freed that very instant from all sin; the whole body of it will drop off for ever; not a stain will be found in them to eternity. They will instantaneously be clothed with the garments of immortality; in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, mortality will be swallowed up of life; they will be all life and light; they will be clothed with eternal glory. In these garments of immortality and eternal glory they will be fitted for their disembodied state; to converse with God, the Father of spirits-to converse with angels and disembodied spirits; so that they will hereby be as fit for the world of glory and of spirits, as they .were fitted for the world which they left when their bodies expired, all the time they were permitted to live in it in their bodies. This is a very comfortable consideration, and I think it must be allowed to be a very just one. The soul will be the subject on whom this change of immortality and glory will pass, the very moment death hath disunited it from the body; so that death will not be death to the saint, but only its passage way to eternal glory.

It deserves our most attentive consideration, that in all the acts of God within us, and upon us, we are altogether passive. We were when born again, and brought into the kingdom of God’s dear son; we shall be so in the article of death, and in our translation into the world of glory; we shall be as completely fitted for the unseen state, as ever any of the saints before us were. It requires faith in the word of God, and much light from the Holy Spirit, to apprehend this; yet all the saints are equally wrought upon in regeneration, to fit them to enter into, and live in the kingdom of grace. And they are, at their dismission from their bodies, all and each of them, wrought upon to enter the invisible state, to fit them to converse with such as they are to live with for evermore. I conceive the garments of immortality and eternal glory will be fit mediums for disembodied saints, to conceive, apprehend, and converse with those objects and subjects which will then be before them.

Mortality being swallowed up of life, and the garments of immortality and glory being wrought in the mind of the saint by the Holy Ghost, which will be the perfection of his work on the soul, an entrance shall be ministered abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. When these divine, most glorious, and supernatural truths are attended unto, all consideration of death, its progress, and what change will pass on the body in the article of dissolution, is not worth a thought; nor all which may be felt in the body, worth a one single sigh; nor the change of place, state, and circumstance either. We are then going from earth to heaven; from the church on earth, to the church in heaven. We are going to depart from our bodies to be with Christ; we are going from the state of grace to the state of glory; we are going to have our circumstances so changed, that we shall never have sin in us to eternity. We are going to our friends, and our Lord’s friends, whose minds are perfectly pure; whose souls are in perfect harmony, who will be happy in our company, and love us next to Christ himself. We are going to enjoy our Lord, even as they do. These are the views the gospel gives us concerning the glory which is to be revealed in us, and will be revealed to us as soon as we are dismissed from these bodies of ours, believers in Jesus. And it may afford us matter of support to consider this which follows: it is this, that when the cold clammy sweat of death is upon us, when you and I are actually departing, we shall need Christ, so as we never needed him yet. He knows this well; he will therefore be unto us very near and present. I do not mean by the manifestations of his gracious presence I have no warrant from the word for so saying; not but that many a time it is so; but be this as it may, he, most assuredly, is very near us, because he is about to receive us. What he will do for us, as it respects our minds, we shall know nothing of; we shall perceive it when it hath taken place, but not whilst it is taking place. Let us learn, then, to leave ourselves wholly with him, and say for ourselves, as Stephen did, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. The apostle had blessed views of these subjects, when he said, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day, 2 Timothy 1:12. And again: I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at, that day; and not to me only, but unto all them which love his appearing, 2 Timothy 4:6-8. And again And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me to his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. ver. 18. Our best preparations for dying and apprehensions of future glory, must consist in having these most glorious and divine realities realized in our souls by the Holy Ghost. Not one of the Lord’s beloved ones is more interested in them than another. No; many a saint has no views of these important things, yet there is not a single individual child of God but shall enjoy, in the invisible state, all the blessedness contained in them. The apostle Peter includes all believers in Christ Jesus with himself in the word us, and says, The God of all grace hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. 1 Peter 5:10. The holy apostle Jude tells us, Our Lord Jesus is able to keep us from falling, and to present as faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Surely, in what hath been delivered, we have had such gospel relief’s suited to us, when we shall come into dying circumstances, as are all sufficient to sustain us when heart and flesh shall fail. Any saint entering into the subject which hath been proposed, or rather, every saint into whose mind these divine truths enter, and is engaged in the real apprehension and belief of them, may in death sing and say, My fesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. Psalms 73:26. May the Lord look down from heaven, his holy dwelling place, on all his dying saints, and shine away from them all their fears of death, and fill them with prospects of a blessed immortality. There is not a moment but one saint or other is dying; and others, who are just entered into heaven. It is a very necessary act, and is a part of the communion of saints to pray on the behalf of sick and dying saints. It is also all the communion we can at present have with our friends in Christ just departed, to bless the Lord for taking them to himself; for his love to them now in glory with hint. He loved them whilst they were here, as truly as he doth now but he could not express it to them whilst they were here, as lie doth now. He loved them to the end of their lives, to the very moment when they drew their last breath; he will love them in heaven for ever, and will express it in the following way: The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, Revelation 7:17. Our Lord Jesus Christ is in the possession of the key of all the treasures of his Father’s; grace and glory; and he can unlock them, and shew us all contained therein, so that we need not be unwilling to leave this world and body at any given moment when the Lord shall call for us: but when he shall say, Come up hither; we may well reply, Amen. Come Lord Jesus, come and receive us to thy heavenly glory. Let me, O my soul! take all this subject into close and deep meditation, and may the Lord bless the same unto thee! Amen.

I must for once be in dying circumstances; I must for once feel the real death of the body; my heart strings must break my eyes must fail; my pulse cease; I must, in my body, undergo a dissolution of it; my breath must cease, and go out of it, so as for me to be forced thereby into a world I have never seen yet. I shall be wholly passive in death; so I shall be in my entrance into the unseen state. All thou needest is, to apprehend how safe thou art in the hands of Jesus Christ, and to be perfectly persuaded that he is all sufficient for thee, and all thy concerns then as truly as he is now, and to give thyself no concern about what shall then take place in thee, and the change of state into which thou wilt be removed. It wi 50:50:0 my soul! be real blessedness to have thine understanding well informed into the apprehension of those divine realities which the scriptures set before thee, as suitable supports for thy mind now; for if thou shouldest be supported ever so blessedly in the article of death and dying, yet thou canst not be kept up by the change which will pass on thy mind of glory and immortality; whereby, as I may say, thou wilt be immortalized, because this will not, it cannot take place, but either as thou art just in the moment of departing, or art actually departed out of thy body. Thou mayest rejoice in the views of it, but thou canst not rejoice that so it is with thee before it hath taken place. I want, O my soul! that thou shouldest clearly apprehend that thou wilt not know when this change passes on thee; when it has passed thou wilt perceive it; but though thou art the subject on whom this will take place, yet thou wilt not feel any thing when it does. Thou wilt by it be swallowed up of life, and be changed from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. If it be given thee to receive right conceptions of this subject, it will save thee from false expectations in thy dying moments, and much enthusiasm. Thou wilt not look for any more from the Lord than he is pleased to promise. O my soul! Jesus says, I the Lord will hold thy right-hand, saying, Fear not, I will help thee. Fear not, thou worm, Isaiah 61:13, 14. Is not this enough? Mayest thou not find enough in this, to keep up thy faith and hope in him, when thou art actually dying? most assuredly. Then, O my soul! rest here. Seek nothing beyond this. Trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. I will, the Lord being my helper; I will express my mind before the Lord, in the following manner

0 Lord Jesus Christ, I must shortly leave my soul, when it is disengaged from its body by death, to thee. I cannot express myself then, if permitted so to do, but by saying, Lord Jesus receive my spirit. It may be 1 may not be in a capacity of saying, or even thinking so in my dying moments. I would not be concerned about the fore views of this. No. I shall be then wholly passive, for thy Majesty to do in me, and for me, as seemeth good in thy sight. I would rejoice in the views thou hast given me of this. I would pray thee to improve my mind in the true knowledge of the same; that I may now live, and then die, in a right understanding of this most important verity; that those whom the Father did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he night be the first-born among many brethren. I am to be conformed in soul and body to thee, who art my grace and glory head. I have received a life from thee which death cannot touch. I am to die in thee; I am in my dying moment to be thy special care and charge. My death, and passage by it out of this world, is to be a part of my conformity to thee. I can do nothing, I can act nothing in my death. Thou hast saved me in thyself with an everlasting salvation, without any act of mine. Thou wilt be with me in my dying moments, whether I perceive it or not, and wilt take me to thy presence chamber in glory, and fill my soul with eternal glory, without any act of mine. O that it might please thee, to give me such clear apprehensions of the same as may give me perfect satisfaction; so that living, and if it please thee, when dying, the knowledge of this may be my great consolation, and the praise thereof shall be thine for ever! Amen.