I was about to speak of death. The grand evidence of those truths, on which our hopes for eternity are built, arises from the authority of God speaking them in His Word, and revealing them by His Spirit to the awakened heart – for, till the heart is awakened, it is incapable of receiving this evidence. Yet some of these truths are very mysterious and utterly repugnant to the judgement of depraved nature. As a result, through the remaining influence of unbelief and vain reasoning, the temptations of Satan, and the subtle arguments with which some men, reputed wise, attack the foundations of our faith, the minds even of believers are sometimes capable of being shaken. I know no better corroborating evidence for the relief of the mind under such assaults than the testimony of dying persons, especially of such as have lived out of the noise of controversy, and who perhaps never heard a syllable of what has been argued in these evil days against the Deity of Christ, His atonement, and other important doctrines.
Permit me to relate, on this occasion, some things which very much struck me in the conversation I had with a young woman whom I visited in her last illness, about two years ago. She was a sober, prudent person, of plain sense; she could read her Bible but had read little besides. Her knowledge of the world was nearly confined to her parish, for I suppose she was seldom, if ever, 12 miles from home in her life. She had known the gospel about seven years before the Lord visited her with a lingering consumption, which at length removed her to a better world. A few days before her death, I had been praying by her bedside, and in my prayer I thanked the Lord that He gave her now to see that she had not followed cunningly devised fables.
When I had finished, she repeated that word. “No,” she said, “not cunningly devised fables; these are realities indeed; I feel their truth; I feel their comfort. O tell my friends, tell my acquaintance, tell inquiring souls, tell poor sinners, tell all the daughters of Jerusalem” (alluding to Solomon’s Song 5:16) “what Jesus has done for my soul. Tell them that now, in the time of need, I find Him my Beloved and my Friend, and as such I commend Him to them.” She then fixed her eyes steadfastly on me and proceeded, as well as I can recollect, as follows: “Sir, you are highly favoured in being called to preach the gospel. I have often heard you with pleasure, but give me leave to tell you that I now see all you have said, or can say, is comparatively but little. Nor, till you come into my situation and have death and eternity full in your view, will it be possible for you to conceive the vast weight and importance of the truths you declare. O Sir, it is a serious thing to die! No words can express what is needful to support the soul in the solemnity of a dying hour.”
I believe it was the next day when I visited her again. After some conversation, as usual, she said, with a remarkable vehemence of speech, Are you sure I cannot be mistaken?” I answered without hesitation: “Yes, I am sure; I am not afraid to say, My soul for yours, that you are right”. She paused a little and then replied, “You say true; I know I am right. I feel that my hope is fixed upon the Rock of ages; I know in whom I have believed. Yet, if you could see with my eyes, you would not wonder at my question. But the approach of death presents a prospect which is till then hidden from us and which cannot be described.” She said much more to the same purpose, and in all she said there was a dignity, weight and evidence which I suppose few professors of divinity, when lecturing from the chair, have at any time equalled. We may well say, with Elihu, “Who teacheth like Him?”
Many instances of the like kind I have met with here. I have a poor girl near me, whose natural capacity is indeed very small, but the Lord has been pleased to make her acquainted alternately with great temptations, and proportionably great discoveries of His love and truth. Sometimes, when her heart is enlarged, I listen to her with astonishment. I think no books or ministers I ever met with have given me such an impression and understanding as I have received on some occasions from her conversation.
But I am rambling again. My attendance on the sick is not always equally pleasant; but if I could learn aright, it might be equally instructive. Some confirm the preciousness of a Saviour to me, by the cheerfulness with which, through faith in His name, they meet the king of terrors. Others no less confirm it, by the terror and reluctance they show when they find they must die, for though there are too many who, sadly, slight the blessed gospel while they are in health, yet in this place most are too far enlightened to be quite thoughtless about their souls, if they retain their senses in their last illness. Then, like the foolish virgins, they say, Give us of your oil. Then they are willing that ministers and other professing Christians should pray with them, and speak to them. Through the Lord’s goodness, several whom I have visited in these circumstances have afforded me good hope: they have been savingly changed by His blessing on what has happened at the eleventh hour.
I have seen a marvellous, blessed change take place in their language, views and tempers, in a few days. I now visit a young person who is cut short in her nineteenth year by consumption, and I think she cannot live for many days. I found her very ignorant and she remained so for a good while, but of late I hope her heart is touched. She feels her lost state; she seems to have some right desires; she begins to pray, and in such a manner as I cannot but hope the Lord is teaching her, and will reveal Himself to her before she departs.
But it is sometimes otherwise. I saw a young woman die last week; I had been often with her, but the night she passed away, she could only say, “O, I cannot live! I cannot live!” She repeated this mournful complaint as long as she could speak, but her voice changed into groans, and her groans grew fainter and fainter. In about a quarter of an hour after she had stopped speaking she expired. Poor thing, I thought, as I stood by her bedside, even if you were a duchess, in this situation, what could the world do for you now? I thought likewise how many things there are that now give us pleasure or pain, and assume a mighty importance in our view, which in a dying hour will be no more to us than the clouds which fly unnoticed over our heads. Then the truth of Christ’s saying will be seen, felt and acknowledged, “One thing is needful”.
An edited extract from one of Newton’s “Letters to a Nobleman”, taken from Works*, vol. 1.