Those who die in the fear of God and in the faith of Christ do not really taste of death; to them there is no death, but only a change of place, a change of state; they pass at once into some new life, with all their powers, all their feelings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking, active beings which they were here on earth. . . . Rest they may—rest they will, if they need rest. But what is their rest? Not idleness, but peace of mind. To rest from sin, from sorrow, from fear, from doubt, from care; this is true rest. Above all, to rest from the worst weariness of all—knowing one’s duty, and not being able to do it. That is true rest—the rest of God, who works for ever, and is at rest for ever; as the stars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a day, and yet are at
perfect rest, because they move orderly, harmoniously, fulfilling the law which God has given them. Perfect rest, in perfect work; that surely is the rest of blessed spirits, till the final consummation of all things, when Christ shall have made up the number of His elect. And if it be so, what comfort for us who must die, what comfort for us who have seen others die, if death be but a new birth into some higher life; if all that it changes in us is our body—the mere husk and shell of us—such a change as comes over the snake when he casts his old skin, and comes out fresh and gay, or even the crawling caterpillar, which breaks its prison, and spreads its wings to the sun as a fair butterfly? Where is the sting of death then, if death can sting, and poison, and corrupt nothing
of us for which our friends love us; nothing of us with which we could do service to men or God? Where is the victory of the grave, if so far from the grave holding us down, it frees us from the very thing which does hold us down—the mortal body?
Water of Life—Sermons.
Consider the lilies of the field. We must take our Lord’s words exactly. He is speaking of the lilies, the bulbous plants which spring into flower in countless thousands every spring over the downs of Eastern lands. All the winter they are dead, unsightly roots, hidden in the earth. But no sooner does the sun of spring shine upon their graves, than they rise into sudden life and beauty, as it pleases God, and every seed takes its own peculiar body. Sown in corruption, they are raised in
incorruption; sown in weakness, they are raised in power; sown in dishonour, they are raised in glory; delicate, beautiful in colour, perfuming the air with fragrance; types of immortality, fit for the crowns of angels.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. For even so is the Resurrection of the dead. Yes, not without a divine providence—yea, a divine inspiration—has the blessed Eastertide been fixed, by the Church of all ages, as the season when the earth shakes off her winter’s sleep; when the birds come back, and the flowers begin to bloom, when every seed which falls into the ground and dies, and rises again with a new body, is a witness to us of the Resurrection of Christ; and a witness, too, that we shall rise again; that in us, as
in it, life shall conquer death; when every bird that comes back to sing and build among us, every flower that blows, is a witness to us of the Resurrection of the Lord and of our Resurrection. . . . They obey the call of the Lord, the Giver of Life, when they return to life, as a type and a token to us of Christ their Maker, who was dead and is alive again, who was lost in hell on Easter eve, and was found again in heaven for evermore. And so the resurrection of the earth from her winter’s sleep, commemorates to us, as each blessed Eastertide comes round, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and is a witness to us that some day life shall conquer death, light conquer darkness, righteousness conquer sin, joy conquer grief; when the whole creation, which groaneth and travaileth in
pain until now, shall have brought forth that of which it travaileth in labour—even the new heavens and the new earth, wherein shall be neither sighing nor sorrow, but God shall wipe away tears from all eyes.
Discipline and other Sermons.