From One Dying Man to Another
English Puritan Richard Baxter (1615-1691) once preached that he was “a dying man preaching to dying men.” Years later in 1879, Charles Spurgeon quoted Baxter’s expression and expounded upon it:
The Lord had told Peter how he was to die. He had told him that he would die by crucifixion: “When thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” He knew that the day of his martyrdom was approaching, and so, being divinely warned, he was the more earnest to preach as a dying man to dying men. I have sometimes heard, as a criticism of that expression of Baxter’s about a dying man preaching to dying men, the remark that it would be better, as living men, to preach to living men. It is quite true that we must throw all our life into our preaching; but, as a rule, living men are never more truly alive than when they are under a due sense that they are also dying men. When we realize that eternity is very near us, and we are consciously drawing near to the great judgement-seat of Christ, than all our faculties are fully aroused, and our whole being is bent on doing the Master’s work with the utmost vigor and earnestness.
Spurgeon, C. H. (1998). Gathering Without Planting. No. 3248. Spurgeon’s Sermons: Volume 57
Could it be possible that both Baxter and Spurgeon were members of the Momento Mori club?
