We Must Live to the Lord in order to be Able to Die in the Lord

There are many that die not in Christ, it appears from Matthew 7v. 22, and from Luke 13:24. These three will confirm it abundantly. The plain words of Scripture where Christ speakeath of heaven as having, for coming to it, a narrow way, and a straight gate so that few enter into thereat, and of hell and destruction, as having a wide gate and abroad way into which many enter, and when he speaks of the day of judgment, he says many shall come to him in that day and say, Lord, Lord, open to us, to whom he will say depart from me I never knew you, and he will set the goats on this left hand and send them thence into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels; these Scriptures speak not only of such as are without the Church, but also if not mainly of the many visible professors, yea, even of such as preached in his Name, and yet say of them that die not in Chris. 2. If ye will look to the ordinary connection that is betwixt men's living and dying, ye will find that the way of the most part of men declares plainly that they die not in the Lord: for as we shew, men's being and living in Christ mst preceded their dying in him, before they can die in him they must needs be in him; we do not say that all must be and live so many years in him before they can die in him, but that they must be sometime in him before they can die in him they must needs be in him, btu that they must be sometime in him before they can die in him, and that they must live and put some forth some acts and breathings of a spiritual life, of the life of Faith in him, if it were but a few words to God's glory and for others edification, or few sighs, groans, and looks to him, as we may see in the thief on the cross though his time was very short;And if this being and living in Christ mst preceded dying in him, if ye compare it with the most part of your lives,Ah! how sad a prognostic are there of you that you live still in black nature and were never born again? if I could class the lives of the most part I was essay it 1. how many are living like atheists not calling upon God at all, casting off fear the restraining prayer before him? And as these l ive so they die for the most part either secureliy or desperately. 2. How many live in formality and never knew what it was to mortify the flesh,k or sincerely to aim a tthe power of godliness, and yet layeth the Holy Ghost Rom 8:13.If ye live after the flesh e shall die, but if we be through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body ye shall livel If grace be not in the heart and kyth not at all in the conversation, ye cannot warrant to be ablie to expect to die in Christ, except a man be born again he cannot enter in the kingdom of Heaven, this is a large and great class and takes in all that live and die as they were born, and seen not after another life, then ethat which they brought with them into the world. 3. how many are there that have some outword fairding and paint and yet have no reality of Religion written within? Whereby they mock God and dissemble with Mean: it is to such that Christ speaks John 8:21 and tells them they they shall die in theri sins and aginst this sort of men he denounce with many woes. 4. And are there not many thaht live without faith in Christ? that live without faith in jesus Christ? Without one they cannot possibly please God either living nor dying and shall be damned if they continue to, for saith the Lord John 3:18. He that believes is not condemned alread: Now ch are these that Classes are laid aside, there will be fuew behind; all which proves abundantly the truth of the thing, and that is but too good ground to think that there are many, very many who die not in the Christ. A third ground of confirmation of this sad truth maybe drawn from the ordinary way most part die in, and pass out of time into eterntity; O! ow many die stupidly and (as we said before) sensible, andareno affeced with the thoughts of theh inner life of then souls that then if they had none at all? How many die presumptiously confident. How many found in their faith of dying well of wrong grounds? how many die doubting, not knowing what will become of them? And how many die desperately? So that (alas) theare are but few among us that close their eyes like dying persons in Christ; and though we will not prempt in passing judgment upon, or in censuring of particular persons as to their final state, yet all this shews that it is not very common nor ordinary thing to die in the Lord
—James Durham from a sermon, "Blessed are Those that die in the Lord.