LAST MOMENTS OF PHILIP MELANCTHON.[34]
The nineteenth of April, 1560, was the last day of the mortal existence of this great reformer and pious christian. After the usual medical inquiries of the morning, he adverted to the calamitous state of the church of Christ, but intimated his hope that the genuine doctrine of the gospel would ultimately prevail, exclaiming, “IfGodbe for us who can be against us.” After this he presented fervent supplications to heaven for thewelfare of the church, and in the intervals of sleep conversed principally upon this subject with several of his visiting friends.
Soon after eight in the morning awaking from a tranquil sleep, he distinctly, though with a feeble voice, repeated a form of prayer which he had written for his own daily use. An interval of repose having elapsed after repeating this prayer, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and turning to his son-in-law, he said, “I have been in the power of death, but theLordhas graciously delivered me.” This was supposed to refer to some deep conflicts of mind, as he repeated the expression to others. When one of the persons who visited him said, “There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,” he soon added, “Christ is made to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.” “Let him that glorieth glory in theLord.”
The coldness of death was now creeping over him, but his mental faculties continued unimpaired to the very last breath of mortal existence. Having expressed a wish to hear some passages from the Old and New Testaments, his ministerial attendants read the24th,25thand26thPsalms: the53dchapter of Isaiah; the7thchapter of John, the5thof the Romans, and many other passages. The saying of John respecting the son of God, he said was perpetually in his mind, “the world knew him not ... but as many asreceived him, to them gave he power to become the sons ofGod, even to them that believe on his name.”
Upon being asked by his son-in-law if he would have any thing else, he replied in these emphatic Words, “NOTHING ELSE—BUT HEAVEN!” and requested that he might not be any further interrupted. Soon afterwards he made a similar request, begging those around him, who were endeavouring with officious kindness to adjust his clothes, “not to disturb his delightful repose.” After some time his friends united with the Minister present in solemn prayer, and several passages of scripture, in which he was known always to have expressed peculiar pleasure were read, such as “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe inGod, believe also in me.”—“In my Father’s house are many mansions.”—“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me;” particularly the fifth chapter of Romans, and the triumphant close of the eighth chapter, commencing “IfGodbe for us, who can be against us?” Many other parts of scripture were recited, and the last word he uttered was the German particle of affirmation,Ia, in reply to one of his friends, who had inquired if he understood him while reading. The last motion which his friends who surrounded him to the number of at least twenty, could discern, was a slight motion of the countenance which waspeculiar to him when deeply affected with religious joy!—“Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace!”
At length, “in the midst of solemn vows and supplications,” at a quarter before seven, in the evening, at the age of sixty-three, he gently breathed his last. No distractions of mind, no foreboding terrors of conscience agitated this attractive scene. His chamber was “privileged beyond the common walks of virtuous life—quite in the verge of heaven”—and he expired, like a wave scarcely undulating to the evening zephyr of an unclouded summer sky. It was a “DEPARTURE”—a “SLEEP”—“the earthly house of this tabernacle was dissolved.”