Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing ChristiansRyle, J. C. (John Charles)
Religion
Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians
Ryle, J. C. (John Charles)
Christian life -- Anglican authors
I might easily confirm all I have just said, by examples and
illustrations. I might show you the death-beds of men who have affected
to despise the Bible. I might tell you how Voltaire and Paine, the
famous infidels, died in misery, bitterness, rage, fear, and despair. I
might show you the happy death-beds of those who have loved the Bible
and believed it, and the blessed effect the sight of their death-beds
had on others. Cecil,--a minister whose praise ought to be in all
churches,--says, "I shall never forget standing by the bed-side of my
dying mother. 'Are you afraid to die?' I asked.--'No!' she
replied.--'But why does the uncertainty of another state give you no
concern?'--'Because God has said, Fear not; when thou passest through
the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not
overflow thee.'" (Isa. xliii. 2.) I might easily multiply illustrations
of this kind. But I think it better to conclude this part of my subject
by giving the result of my own observations as a minister.
I have seen not a few dying persons in my time. I have seen great
varieties of manner and deportment among them. I have seen some die
sullen, silent, and comfortless. I have seen others die ignorant,
unconcerned, and apparently without much fear. I have seen some die so
wearied out with long illness that they were quite willing to depart,
and yet they did not seem to me at all in a fit state to go before God.
I have seen others die with professions of hope and trust in God,
without leaving satisfactory evidences that they were on the rock. I
have seen others die who, I believe, were "in Christ," and safe, and yet
they never seemed to enjoy much sensible comfort. I have seen some few
dying in the full assurance of hope, and like Bunyan's "Standfast,"
giving glorious testimony to Christ's faithfulness, even in the river.
But one thing I have never seen. I never saw any one enjoy what I should
call real, solid, calm, reasonable peace on his death-bed, who did not
draw his peace from the Bible. And this I am bold to say, that the man
who thinks to go to his death-bed without having the Bible for his
comforter, his companion, and his friend, is one of the greatest madmen
in the world. There are no comforts for the soul but Bible comforts, and
he who has not got hold of these, has got hold of nothing at all, unless
it be a broken reed.
The only comforter for a death-bed is the book about which I address the
readers of this paper this day. Surely it is no light matter whether you
read that book or not. Surely a dying man, in a dying world, should
seriously consider whether he has got anything to comfort him when his
turn comes to die. I charge you, I entreat you, for the last time, to
give an honest answer to my question. What art thou doing with the
Bible?--Dost thou read it?--HOW READEST THOU?
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