Reprieve

“ The hope of a reprieve is all that is left. Throughout all this time the condemned prisoner constantly broods over his fate. The horrifying spectre of being hanged by the neck and the apprehension of being made to suffer a painful ... death is ... ”

“ Now in our day the respite is very rare: a criminal is hanged or reprieved. But at the period of our story men were often respited for short or long periods, yet suffered at last. One poor wretch was respited for two years, yet executed. ”

“ For want of timely repentance of our sins, Thou givest us cause to Repent of those Remedies we too late apply.
Yet I doe not repent of my calling the last Parliament, because O Lord, I did it with an upright intention to thy glory, and My Peoples good.
The miseries which have ensued upon me and my Kingdoms, are the just effects of thy displeasure upon us; and may be yet, through thy mercy, preparatives of us to future blessings and better hearts to enjoy them. ”

“ We deny, therefore, that the labours and sorrows of the present life, the loss of such joys as are left to us at its close, and the dreadful agonies and terrors with which death is often attended, have the nature of a penalty. ”

“ And should a small respite be allowed to our prayers, who of us would not use every effort, by tears, supplication, and sincere repentance, to avert the misfortune? Are we in our senses, my dear hearers? ”

“ To what part of the world shall they retire when they withdraw from you? Where can there be so miserable a dwelling? To be banished the presence of God ! to be accursed of God ! O what a shocking destiny!
[Imagine yourself now before the tribunal of Christ. What are you most ashamed of at this very moment? Reflect seriously on it, and remember that all your secret sins shall be exposed at theday of judgment, if you do not here efface them by a sincere repentance.] ”

“ With punishment barred Sin’s broad, tempting way.
And so our Father in Heaven doth wait,
Lovingly, patiently; once and again
Calling us back from the broad, gilded gate
Which leads down to death, through sorrow and shame.
His love, strong and tender to help and to bless,
Though stern and unyielding, is love no less
When it bars the way with punishment sore,
Than when it waits at the Open Door. PART THIRD. I.
FARMER VANCE.
“Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.” ”

“ What a singular feature does the whole system expose, and how fond of the world must they be who practise it! Who can tell whether this House of Recovery does not creep in among the fading hopes of the death-bed, and if, among the last farewells of parting life, some thoughts of that last chance are not present to the sick man’s mind? ”

“ At the word of command he must march into the very jaws of death, as is right. He must die or madden for the want of rest, rather than fall asleep on his post, for if he does, his punishment is certain and shameful death. ”

“ If it is repentance, then repentance will suffice to drive me to the one expiation possible to me—to perish where I caused an innocent man to perish, and so relieve you of a wife who was never worthy of you and whom it would be your duty to denounce if she let another sun rise upon her guilt. ”

“ The Household lost their hope and soul's delight.
—But Providence, that gives and takes away
By his own law, is merciful and just;
Time wants not power to soften all regrets,
And prayer and thought can bring to worst distress
Due resignation. ”

“ On the second occasion, though a cause on which I had staked life and fortune was defeated, time had brought tranquillity. I had the sense of having done my duty, and the long, peaceful evenings spent in thought and lighted up with the hope of reviving the cause if I escaped conviction, have left a memory gentle and pensive, but by no means unpleasant. ”

“ Life, he says, if you understand by it the season of preparation for eternity, is more than half gone;—life so far as it presents opportunities and facilities for penitence and pardon,—so far as it bears on the formation of character, and is to be considered as a period of probation,—is unquestionably more than half gone, to those who are between fifteen and twenty. ”

“ If this be our doom, there is no remedy. We die, we perish, we all perish." Note, It is very common for those that have been hardened with presumption when they were warned against sin to sink into despair when they are called to repent, and to conclude there is no hope of life for them. 2. They quarrelled with his threatenings and judgments, as having no justice or equity in them. ”

“ Our Lord, most compassionate, pitiful, noble, and precious, let a time be given the people to repent; let the past chastisement suffice; let it end here, to begin again if the reform endure not. Pardon and overlook the sins of the people; cause thine anger and thy resentment to cease ”

“ Soon the stewardship will be taken from us. “When ye fail,”—that is, when we can no longer retain our hold of time and life; when flesh and heart are failing; when a mist comes over the eye, so that it can no longer see the circle of weeping friends that stand round the bed of death,—have we an everlasting habitation ready to receive the departing spirit? ”

“ My forebodings might possibly be groundless. All within might be safety and serenity. A respite might be gained from the execution of an irrevocable sentence. What could I do? Was not any thing easy to endure in comparison with the agonies of suspense? If I could not obviate the evil I must bear it, but the torments of suspense were susceptible of remedy.
I drew back the bolt, and entered with the reluctance of fear, rather than the cautiousness of guilt. ”

“ Into the place of the all-pervading providence and all-transforming grace that makes eternally for righteousness, are set hypothetical schemes of expiation by sacrifice, of appeasal by the suffering of the innocent, of ransom by blood, of federal covenant and imputation, of salvation by faith alone. ”

“ Verse 35
Watch ye therefore - The more the master is expected, the more diligent ought the servants to be in working, watching, and keeping themselves in readiness. Can one who has received the sentence of his death, and has no right to live a moment, need any admonition to prepare to die? Does not a prisoner who expects his deliverance, hold himself in continual readiness to leave his dungeon? ”

“ That we receive all the punishment we deserve before the change named death is quite as impossible as that we have all our rewards here. Is toil and sacrifice bearing the cross, only to see our motives mocked and trials multiply, sufficient from the hand of Love? ”

“ And that prayer I would have offered to the gods had they not ceased to listen to prayers of mine. However, I do pray that they may be content with these endless miseries of ours; among which, after all, there is no discredit for any wrong thing done—sorrow is the beginning and end, sorrow that punishment is most severe when our conduct has been most unexceptionable. ”

“ Every subordinate shortcoming, every incidental defect, will be pardoned. 'Save us' is the cry of the moment; and, in the confident hope of safety, any deficiency will be overlooked, and any frailty pardoned. ”

“ But when concession is made, when tears of penitence are wept, and when, in moments of returning confidence, that luckless tendency of temper is candidly confessed, and sincerely bewailed; when all the different acts committed under its influence, are acknowledged to have been wrong, how complete ought to be the reconciliation thus begun, and how zealous our endeavours for the future to avert the consequences of this sad calamity! ”

“ Arise, therefore, for as there is time to avoid a death so frightful, hasten to make amends for the past, and wait not until there will be no fit time for reparation. Wait not for another month, another week. ”

“ Let us, therefore, labour whilst we can to secure our being admitted into this happy rest. What do we behold in this perishable life, if not grief and mourning, and what ought above all to afflict the faithful,—a too great abandonment and contempt of the law of God. ”

“ As to the final rewards and punishments, these shall be distributed according to the deserts of each, in perfect justice: "the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." ”

“ Though our power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance may ebb. We may begin to cry, in our impatience, "Lord, how long?"; to repine against the fate which condemns us to this protracted agony; Page 214 to question within ourselves whether the cause which we profess to serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails. ”

“ Strange seem this existence of sacrifice, this voluntary abandonment of life's aims and more extended duties, this repelling, crushing routine of penance and ceremony, with which, in the very midst of activity, and in the bloom of energy, vain mortals strive to put off the inevitable fetters of mortality. ”

“ From this natural and reasonable diffidence arose, in humble and timorous piety, a disposition to confound penance with repentance, to repose on human determinations, and to receive from some judicial sentence the stated and regular assignment of reconciliatory pain. We are never willing to be without resource: we seek in the knowledge of others a succour for our own ignorance, and are ready to trust any that will undertake to direct us when we have no confidence in ourselves. ”

“ While the expiation rendered in His death clears off the entail of human guilt, His incarnate life and spiritual union with believing men sustain that action, making the redemption complete and permanent. ”

“ Death and Devastation are the certain Consequences of Delay; every Moment is infinitely precious; an Hour lost may deluge your Country in Blood, and entail perpetual Slavery upon the few of your Posterity who may survive the Carnage. ”

“ A gentleman of the court of Charles XI., when leaving court, being asked by the emperor for what reason he was leaving, answered, that in order to be saved it is necessary that some interval should elapse between the time of repentance from a sinful life and the hour of death, so that a period of repentance may be passed through. ”

“ I have one year the less to travel through the world, and to fulfil the various services of a travelling state: may my diligence in duty be doubled, since the number of my appointed years is diminished! [238] Do I find a new birth-day in my survey of the calendar, the day wherein I entered upon the stage of mortality, and was born into this world of sins, frailties, and sorrows, in order to my probation for a better state? Blessed Lord, how much have I spent already of this mortal life, this season of my probation, and how little am I prepared for that happier world! ”

“ For only through religion, or the hope of something better, and the recognition of the innermost meaning of life as that of an ordeal, a school, or perhaps a penitentiary, will it be possible to bear the burden of life with sufficient resignation. ”

“ They who wait till their own death-bed to make reparation, or till their adversary’s death-bed to grant absolution, seem to me much upon a par in regard to the moral, as well as the religious, failure. ”

“ On retiring from power I wish you to take into consideration my effort and my sacrifices for the country’s cause, which has been, and still is, the cause of the people, of reason, justice, and right, so that you will agree with me that he who has thus labored has a right to even a slight rest, and this cannot be taken except in retirement and solitude. ”

“ A plan for concerted action will have to be arranged, and every precaution taken. The slightest slip would mean failure, and merciless punishment. Even if I succeed in gathering together all these better elements on board, we shall yet be outnumbered two to one, perhaps more, and our only hope rests in surprise. ”

“ If life had not to finish, in fulfilment of a solemn, universal, and inevitable decree, the constraint that I have put upon myself might at length become oppressive, and my yoke prove somewhat heavy. But all that will finish soon, for all undertakings come to an end. ”

“ When we reflect on the departure of one, whose face and figure still dwell in the minds of many of us, it would be wise to remember, that we ourselves are making for the same point of our journey, the concluding scene of this short existence, the end of our probation. ”

“ After days and nights of restless agitation, he has obtained one long, last night of sweet repose, reserved for those, who die prepared, and who have endeavored to do their duty. He has gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest. ”

“ I have come to tell you that if you resign you will do a dishonourable thing, and that it behooves you on this occasion to answer the great expectation the world is now in on your account, even to the hazarding of your life, and of your liberty, which I am persuaded you value more than life itself. Now is the time for you to put forward more than ever those maxims for which we have so much combated you: 'I dread no poison nor sword! ”

“ Negligence, and indisposition to reflection, and attachment to the world, and the lust of sensual pleasure, by continuance, grow stronger, and death closes the scene, before any resolutions of the future amendment are carried into effect. ”

“ The pardon of sins, expiation, propitiation, and redemption, are nothing else than purification from evils and falsities, the implantation of good and truth, and their conjunction, thus regeneration. The whole process of regeneration is also described by the particular rituals of each sacrifice and burnt-offering, and is explained when the representatives are unfolded by the internal sense. ”

“ Such lapses on the part of men professing to lead others demand heavy penalties. I feared to lose my life, therefore my life must go. Nothing short of this would reinstate me in my own eyes, or give to my repentance that stern and absolute quality which the nature of my sin imperatively demands. ”