Second death

“ The "second death" means, to say the least, utter exclusion from the presence of God. To say that the believer shall not be hurt of the second death is equivalent to saying that he shall eternally behold the face of the Father which is in heaven. ”

“ On such a one only shall the second death have power. "For all the rest shall be brought forth by the resurrection of the dead, through the triumph and the glory of the Lamb, who was slain, who was in the bosom of the Father, before the worlds were made." ”

“ When, therefore, it is asked what death it was with which God threatened our first parents if they should transgress the commandment they had received from Him, and should fail to preserve their obedience,—whether it was the death of soul, or of body, or of the whole man, or that which is called second death,—we must answer, It is all. For the first consists of two; the second is the complete death, which consists of all. ”

“ There will probably be thousands who will be brought forth, in the resurrection, in their sins, and their conduct in life will have rendered them worthy of the second death. I have no desire to see any of the human family become subjects of the second death, and I especially desire that I may not see any of my brethren and sisters transgress the law of God to that extent that will render them subjects of the second death. ”

“ Between the last date above given and the thirtieth day of July, Brother Kline preached ten funeral discourses, each of which was delivered on the day of burial. Paul uttered a great truth when he said: "It is appointed unto men once to die." But only once. If they die a second death, it is their fault. The death of the body is the only death ever appointed unto men. ”

“ That dreadful death which is called in the Scriptures the second death is taken away from the Christian through Christ, and is swallowed up in his life. In place of it there is left a miniature death, a death in which the bitterness is covered up. ”

“ We talk about the dead by our fire-sides.
And then for our immortal part, we want
No symbols, Sir, to tell us that plain tale:
The thought of death sits easy on the man
Who has been born and dies among the mountains:
LEONARD. Your dalesmen, then, do in each other's thoughts
Possess a kind of second life: no doubt
You, Sir, could help me to the history
Of half these Graves? ”

“ Death and the Grave shall also be cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the Second Death.” Whereby it is evident, that there is to bee a Second Death of every one that shall bee condemned at the day of Judgement, after which hee shall die no more. ”

“ For how can they be after death if they be in death, especially when we do not even call them dying, as we call those in sleep, sleeping; and those in languor, languishing; and those in grief, grieving; and those in life, living? And yet the dead, until they rise again, are said to be in death, but cannot be called dying. ”

“ Wave rolling after wave was all that answered back again.
But night and morn and noon they prayed—oh blessed voice of prayer!
That God would bring their trembling souls out of this great despair.
Again the fatal die was cast; a man of powerful frame
Slowly and with reluctant step to the dread summons came.
Large drops of anguish on his brow—his lips were white with fear—
Oh 'tis a dreadful death to die! Is there no succor near? ”

“ The mad pulse beat back the baffled life with a low sob.
And so the stark and naked soul unfolded its wings to the dimness of Death!
A lonely, unknown Death.
A Death that left this dumb living body as his endless mark. ”

“ His eyes with the hollow sockets stare round with an empty chillness.
He bears a scythe in his hands. It is Death with his icy message.
Clutching the bulky book, the host is in peaceful slumber,
When Death draws near to him softly, and peacefully near him lingers. ”

“ On Easter Sunday the life-drama was as good as finished. For the Resurrection was shadowy and overcome by the shadow of death, the Ascension was scarce noticed, a mere confirmation of death.
What was the hope and the fulfilment? Nay, was it all only a useless after-death, a wan, bodiless after-death? Alas, and alas for the passion of the human heart, that must die so long before the body was dead. ”

“ And a man with death's dews on his forehead, and blood on his coat and his cheek;
"I am dying — I feel death upon me — but yet, even yet, if God wills
I may crawl on my knees to the doctor's — yes, this is the last of the hills! ”

“ Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. [240] Let this prayer therefore, O my God, be as my last gasp, my expiring, my dying in thee; that if this be the hour of my transmigration, I may die the death of a sinner, drowned in my sins, in the blood of thy Son; and if I live longer, yet I may now die the death of the righteous, die to sin; which death is a resurrection to a new life. Thou killest and thou givest life: whichsoever comes, it comes from thee; which way soever it comes, let me come to thee. ”

“ I feel as if I ought to follow these two personages of my sermonizing story until they come together or separate, to fade, to wither,—perhaps to die, at last, of something like what the doctors call heart-failure, but which might more truly be called heart-starvation. When I say die, I do not mean necessarily the death that goes into the obituary column. ”

“ Since the period of which I now write, I have often witnessed the closing scene of mortality, and various are the opinions I have heard, as to which point of time, between the moment of death and the first appearance abroad of the survivors in their mourning apparel, is the saddest, the most afflicting, or the most trying—whether the moment of dissolution, the first appearance of the undertaker, the laying out in the apparel of death, the bringing of the coffin, the last frantic kiss and look, the screwing down, the carrying out, the dull thud of the clay upon the coffin lid. ”

“ And Death stood near him on my wedding day,
And blanched his forehead with a fatal breath.
I loved to feel his weak arm lean on mine,
Yea, and to give him rest,
Bidding his pale and languid face recline
Softly upon my shoulder or my breast,—
Thinking, alas, how sweet
To hold his spirit in my arms so press’d,
That even Death’s hard omens I might cheat.{19}
I found his drooping hand the warmest place
Here where my warm heart is;
I said, “Dear love, what thoughts are in thy face?
Has Death as fair a bosom, then, as this?” ”

“ Then, as well as he could, the dying man stretched forth his arms, wherein flesh and blood alike were lacking, and with all the strength remaining in his bones embraced her who was the cause of his death. ”

“ Death was before them as well as behind—turn which way they might, death stared them in the face—soon and certain—and on every side they saw its threatening arm—before, behind, above, and around them. ”

“ They must die another death after their natural death; the agonies and terrors of the first death will consign them over to the far greater terrors and agonies of eternal death, to die and to be always dying. ”

“ Dead, and at full length he lay, enshrouded—the genius and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save that his countenance distorted with the plague, and his eyes in which Death had but half extinguished the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take such interest in our merriment as the dead may take in the merriment of those who are to die. ”

“ Death, which after the haemorrhage had appeared as the beautiful winged boy who is so easily mistaken for the god of love—Death, who had incited me to write saucy, defiant verses about him, now confronted me as a hollow-eyed, hideous skeleton. ”

“ As to them that believe, though they have passed through the experience of painful separation—slow, languishing departure, or suddenly being caught up in some chariot of fire; not only are they living now, but they never died at all! Have you understood 'death' in the full, pregnant sense of the expression, which means not only that shadow, the separation of the body from the soul ”

“ Why does Death delay and hesitate to come and seize me without respite? Truly, Death holds me in great contempt! Since Death does not deign to take my life, I must myself perforce achieve the vengeance for my sinful deed. Thus shall I die in spite of Death, who will not heed my call for aid. Yet, I cannot die through mere desire, nor would complaining avail me aught. The sword, which my lord had gilded on, ought by right to avenge his death. I will not longer consume myself in distress, in prayer, and vain desire." She draws the sword forth from its sheath and begins to consider it. ”

“ They are dying daily, and continually wasting: Destroyed from morning to evening. Death is still working in us, like a mole digging our grave at each remove, and we so continually lie exposed that we are killed all the day long. [3.] Their life is short, and in a little time they are cut off. It lasts perhaps but from morning to evening. ”

“ I am glad I see death so near me.’ A little after, seeing her friends weep, she said, ‘Be not concerned, for all is well: I have only death to encounter, and the sting of it is wholly taken away: the grave hath no victory, and my soul is ascending above all sorrow and pains. ”

“ From his Yesterdays the man came back to wonder: if Death should wait until he was wrinkled, bent, and old—until his limbs were palsied, his hearing gone, his voice cracked and shrill, and his eyes dim—if Death should let him stay until he had seen the last of his companions go home in the evening after that last birthday—would there be one to stand beside him—to watch with him as the others passed from sight? Would there be anyone to help him celebrate his last birthday, if Death should fail to come again until he was old? ”

“ Death seen at a distance, at a sure and fixed point, would fill us with dread, detach us from the world and ourselves, call us to God, and incessantly occupy our thoughts; and this same death, uncertain, which may happen every day, every instant, — this same death, which must surprise us when we least expect it, which is perhaps at the gate, engages not our attention, and leaves us tranquil, — what do I say? ”

“ It is the old funeral procession we remember so long ago; it is the old, old wail. The children of men are mourning once more their Good and their Beautiful slain, and buried, and lost. Once more they find their best and dearest in a grave. For a [Pg 86] little while we thought the death-wail was interrupted, swallowed up in the New Song of Life and Victory. But it has come back. Balder the Beautiful, the Light of heaven, is slain. ”

“ Patiently then I sat, and meekly awaited the carriage.
And I always think of the coffin whenever I see men
Running about in a state of doubtful and wild expectation."
Smilingly answered the pastor:—"Death's stirring image is neither
Unto the wise a cause of alarm,—or an end to the pious.
Back into life it urges the former, and teaches him action,
And, for the weal of the latter, it strengthens his hope in affliction.
Death is a giver of life unto both. ”

“ And so in this sense of the words, this exitus mortis, the issue of death, is liberatio in morte, A deliverance in death; Not that God will deliver us from dying, but that hee will have a care of us in the houre of death, of what kinde soever our passage be. ”

“ Truly the consideration of this posthume death, this death after burial, that after God (with whom are the issues of death) hath delivered me from the death of the womb, by bringing me into the world, and from the manifold deaths of the world, by laying me in the grave, I must die again in an incineration of this flesh, and in a dispersion of that dust. That that monarch, who spread over many nations alive, must in his dust lie in a corner of that sheet of lead, and there but so long as that lead will last ”

“ Call the death by any name your Highness will, attribute it to whom you will, or say it might have been prevented how you will, it is the same death eternally—inborn, inbred, engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that only—spontaneous combustion, and none other of all the deaths that can be died. ”

“ Death was the wished-for messenger, whom he earnestly expected. Three days before that awful event, his pulse ceased to beat, and the sight of his eyes went from him—the last struggle is over; the bitterness of death is past. ”

“ And how kind Death was, rubbing away the traces of what must have been a sordid existence, set about years back with the usual coarse pleasures and selfish hopes,—how kind Death was, letting all there was of spirit shine out so sweetly at the end. ”

“ In their case, death has taken away the soul, but leaves in the body the semblance of the individual: in thy case, fate has destroyed both, and, to me, thou hast died a double death, in soul and body, so utterly has even the shadow of thy likeness perished! ”

“ Necromancy draws forth its signs by the stars of Death, which we call Evestra, which are prophetical spirits, signing the body of the sick, and dying man with red, blue, and purple spots, which are certaine signs of death, in the third day of their rising. ”