by Rev. Thos. Watson
It is indeed no wonder that a true Saint desires a dismiss, and is so earnest to have his pass to be gone from hence, if we consider how beneficial death is to a child of God. It puts an end to all his evils. In particular, there are ten evils that death will put an end to.
1. Death will put an end to a believer’s sins.
Sin is the sinner’s bond, Acts 8:23, and the saint’s burden, Psalm 83:3. How is a believer tired out with his corruptions? I am weary ‘of my life’ says Rebecca, ‘because of the daughters of Heth’, Gen. 27:46. That which makes a child of God weary of his life, is his proud, unbelieving heart. Paul could better carry his iron chain than his sins; ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ Rom. 7:24. When grace spurs the soul forward, the curbing bit of sin checks it, and pulls it back again. There is much of the old man in the new man; there is a party in every regenerate heart that is true to the devil; a party that will not pray, that will not believe. A Christian is like a bowl with a double bias; he has an earthly bias upon his will, and a spiritual bias, and these draw him several ways; ‘The evil I would not, that I do,’ Rom. 7:19. Sin mingles itself with our holy things; we cannot act either our duties or our graces without sin; we are like children who cannot write without blotting! The sweet rose of grace does not grow without its prickles. No wonder then a believer desires to depart; death will free him from his spiritual distempers; when he has done breathing, he shall have done sinning.
2. Death will put an end to a believer’s temptations.
Our whole life, says Augustine, is nothing but a temptation; we tread upon snares. Satan is ever casting in the angle of a temptation, to see whether we will bite. He knows how to suit his temptations. He tempted Achan with a wedge of gold: he tempted David with beauty. We cannot lock the door of our heart so fast by prayer, but a temptation will enter. Sometimes Satan comes more furiously, as a red dragon: sometimes more slyly, as a serpent. Sometimes he baits the hook with Scripture, and tempts to sin under a mask of religion, as when he tempts to evil that ‘good may come of it.’ Thus can he ‘transform himself into an angel of light,’ 2 Cor. 11:14. Is it not a grievous thing for a virgin to have her chastity assaulted? Is it not sad to have the devil’s bullets continually flying about our ears? No wonder then a believer is willing to depart; death will set him out of gunshot, he shall never be troubled with Satan’s fiery darts any more. Though grace puts a child of God out of the devil’s possession, it is death only that frees him from the devil’s temptation.
3. Death will put an end to a believer’s fears.
Fear is the soul’s palsy: ‘there is torment in fear,’ 1 John 4:18. Cicero calls fear one of the three plagues of mankind; and the best of the saints are haunted with this evil spirit; they cannot rejoice without trembling. The believer fears lest his heart should put a cheat upon him, he fears God does not love him, he fears lest he should tire in his march to heaven. The best faith may sometimes have its fears, as the best stars have their twinkling. These fears, as Socrates says, arm a man against himself: they are very afflictive, leaving sad impressions of melancholy behind. No wonder, then that a believer longs to depart out of this life. Why should he fear that which frees him from fear? The king of terrors makes all fear vanish.
4. Death will dry up a believer’s tears. ‘And God will wipe away all tears from their eyes,’ Rev. 7:17
Weeping is nothing but a cloud of sorrow gathered in the heart, dropping into water. A Christian often has none to keep him company, but his own griefs and sorrows. He sits as ‘Israel by the rivers weeping.’ As soon as the child is born, it weeps. When Moses was born, he was laid in an ark of bulrushes, where he did as it were baptise himself with his own tears, Exod. 2:6 ‘And behold the babe wept.’ Ever since we looked upon the tree of knowledge, our eyes have watered. There are many things to occasion weeping. (1) Our sins; who can look into his own heart with dry eyes? (2) Loss of relations which is like pulling a limb from the body. Joseph wept over his dead father, Gen. 50:1. Well then, is it not to be admitted that a believer desires to depart from hence. He shall leave the valley of tears; the bottle of tears shall be stopped; his water shall be turned into wine, his mourning into music, his lamentations into hallelujahs. Death is the handkerchief to wipe off all tears.
5. Death will put an end to a believer’s molestations.
‘Man is born to trouble,’ Job 5:7. He is the natural heir to it. This life is subject to injury. We do not, as Seneca says, finish our troubles while we live here, but change them. Every one has his cross to carry. Sometimes poverty pinches, sometimes sickness tortures, sometimes law-suit vex: man is like a tennis-ball, bandied up and down by providence. While wicked men are in the world, never look for rest. The troubled seas, as the prophet calls them, will be casting forth their foam and mire upon the godly. Well then may a believer say, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart.’ Death gives a child of God his quietus est, Isa. 57:1-2. It sends him a writ of ease, Job 3:17. ‘There (that is in the grave) the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.’
6. Death puts an end to a believer’s cares.
Care is vexatious and anxious, it eats out the comfort of life. The Greek word for care comes from a primitive that signifies to cut the heart in pieces. Care frets as a canker, it excruciates the mind, it breaks the sleep, it wastes the spirits. This is the rack which the soul is stretched upon. It is hard, I had almost said impossible, to shake off this viper of care while we live. All our comforts are careful comforts. Care is to the mind as a burden to the back. It loads the spirits, and with overloading sinks them. Care is a fruit of the curse. Adam’s want of care has brought us to care. Have you not sometimes seen the briar growing by the honeysuckle, so that you cannot well gather the honeysuckle but you are scratched with the briar? Thus in gathering riches, how is the head and the heart pricked with care? And is there not good reason why a child of God should desire to depart? Is it good being among the briars? Death is the cure of care. We are thoughtful and solicitous how to get such an estate, how to provide for such a child. Now death comes to a believer as a friend, and says, never perplex and distract thy mind thus, I will free thee from all these heart-killing cares; I will strike but once, and that stroke shall relieve thee.
7. Death will put an end to the night of desertion.
Thou ‘didst hide thy face, and I was troubled,’ Psalm 30:7. The soul in desertion is within an inch of despair. In affliction the world is against a man, in temptation Satan is against a man, in desertion God is against a man. Alstead calls desertion an agony of conscience. This made the prophet Jonah call the whale’s belly, the belly of hell, because he was deserted there. ‘Out of the belly of hell cried I, then I said I am cast out of thy sight,’ Jonah 2:2, 4. Heman grew distracted upon the suspension of God’s favour. ‘While I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted.’ Psalm 88:16. But death will free from desertion. A believer after death shall never see any more eclipses. God will draw aside the curtain, and pull off his veil, and the soul shall be for ever sunning itself in the light of God’s countenance.
8. Death will put an end to the imperfections of nature.
Our natural knowledge is very imperfect. The most perceptive, intelligent person may say as Agur, ‘I have not the understanding of a man.’ Prov 30:2. Since the fall, the lamp of reason burns dim. There are knots in nature that we cannot untie. Why the Nile should overflow in summer, when, by the course of nature, waters are lowest; why the sea should be higher than the earth, yet not drown it; ‘How the bones grow in the womb,’ Eccles 11:5. Many of these things are riddles and paradoxes. By eating the tree of knowledge, we have lost the key of knowledge. Now we are maimed in our intellect. By the fall we have lost our head-piece. There are some diseases which would make Galen’s head ache to find out. The River Euripus was too deep for Aristotle. Socrates said on his deathbed, there were many things which he had yet to learn. Our knowledge is like the twilight, dim and duskish. The greater part of our knowledge is not so much as the least part of our ignorance. All which considered, no wonder to hear this language from a saint. ‘I have a desire to depart.’ Death crowns a Christian with fulness of knowledge. When he is snuffing by death, the candle of his understanding will burn brighter. At death a child of God perfectly recovers the use of his reason.
9. Death will put an end to the imperfections of grace.
Our graces are our best jewels, but here they are in their infancy and minority. Therefore the saints are said to receive but ‘the first-fruits of the Spirit’. Rom. 8:23. The best Christian is like a child put out to nurse. He is very weak in grace; faith is feeble, love lukewarm. Grace though it be not dead is sickly. ‘Strengthen the things which are ready to die.’ Rev. 3:2. Grace is like gold in the ore, drossy and impure. The most refined soul has some dregs. This motto may be written upon a Christian’s graces — Plurima desunt — he that shoots farthest in holiness, comes short of the mark of perfection, Eccles. 7:20. Well then may a believer desire to be dissolved. Death will free him from the imperfections of his holiness. It will make him pure as the angels, not having spot or wrinkle. Eph. 5:27.
10. Death will put an end to a weary pilgrimage.
We are here in a pilgrim condition, 1 Peter 2:11. A Christian walks with his pilgrim’s staff in his hand, the staff of the promise in the hand of faith. Now death will put an end to this pilgrimage. It takes away the pilgrim’s staff, and sets a crown upon his head. No wonder that the gracious soul cries out with Paul, ‘having a desire to depart.’