Six Sermons on the Inquiry Is There Immortality in Sin and Suffering?

CONCLUDING REMARKS

If the view I take of this subject be correct, then many portions of Scripture, which have been obscure on the common theory, become clear, beautiful and full of meaning and force. If men are really dying, according to the strict and literal meaning of that term, that is, the whole man, then the language in which they are addressed is strictly calculated to awaken attention, and move their hearts. For example: “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” Men are represented as sitting “in darkness, and in the shadow of death;” i.e. death is so near them that his dark shadow is over them; but Christ is “the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world;” thus showing them how to escape death. “The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world - I am the bread of life. This is the bread that cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and NOT DIE.” SSII 44.1

How natural and forcible these and similar texts are, on the supposition that man is actually dying. It takes not a doctor of divinity to see how appropriate the remedy to the disease. Men by sin have been cut off from the tree of life - they were starving, dying. Christ cometh: the bread of life - the feast is spread; hungry, dying souls are invited, without money and without price. Come, eat and LIVE. If you stay away, you DIE. O come to Christ and live - yea, live forever, and not die. Amen. SSII 44.2