Every Man Dies, But Not Every Man Truly Lives

Ascribed to Walt Whitman or William Wallace (Braveheart):

Every man dies, but not every man truly lives.

The story of Similis, captain of the guard for the Roman Emperor Hadrian, is illustrative of this point. I would add for clarification that it is not cloistering oneself from the world which is to be commended, but rather the life redeemed and, forsaking vanity, spent for God in this world.

Charles Buck, Anecdotes: Religious, Moral, and Entertaining, p. 93:

Similis, captain of the guards to Adrian, got leave to quit that emperor's service, and spent the last seven years of his life in rural retirement. At his death, he ordered the following inscription on his tomb: "Here lies Similis, who lived but seven years, though he died at sixty-seven." Our true age, and our real life, are to be dated from the time of our abstraction from the world, and of our conversation to God.

Onward (Vol. 2, 1869), p. 95:

Life is not always to be estimated by years. "Here he lies who was so many years, but lived only seven," was the inscription on the tomb of Similis of Xiphilim. The writer of the epitaph correctly estimated the life of Similis, for the great man lived usefully but seven years.

John Carstares (Carstairs), Preface, p. xii, to James Durham, The Blessed Death of Those Who Die in the Lord:

The story is told of one Similis, captain of the Roman emperor Hadrian's guard, who had lived long in the city and at court, and had some seven years before his death retired to a private country house, where he thought that he had enjoyed himself more, being freed from the avocations, distractions, noise, and cumbersome converse of a court life. He commanded that after his death it should be written over his grave, "Here lies Similis who was many years old, but lived only seven." How many professors of religion are there, I say, who may thus sadly and sorrowfully complain of themselves when they come to die, "Ah! we have been here many years, but have either none at all, or but very few years." For that life that is not lived to God, and to the honor and glory of Jesus Christ, is not at all worthy of the denomination of "life," since we are, all the time we live so, but dead while we live.

Thomas Adams, Sermon XXXI: "The Two Sons; or, The Dissolute Conferred With the Hypocrite," in Works, Vol. 2, p. 89:

I have read of a courtier that, wearied with that few in these days will be wearied of, -- glorious vanities, gallant miseries, -- retired himself into the country, where he lived privately seven years. Dying, he caused this epitaph to be engraven on his tomb: Hic jacet Similis, cujus aetas multorum annorum fuit: ipse duntaxat septem annos virit; --

'Here lies Similis, whose age
Saw many years on this world's stage.
His own account is far less given,
He says he only lived seven;'

esteeming the compass of his life no longer than his retiring himself from worldly vanities. So it may be said of a wicked old man: Non dia vixit, sed diu fuit, -- He hath not lived long, but been long upon the earth. After this rule many good men have reckoned their years: not from the time of their birth, but of their new birth; accounting only from that day when they were supernaturally born again, not when naturally born into the world: as if all that time were lost which an unsanctified life took up.

The Eleventh Commandment

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. (John 13.34)

Here are two accounts of a story which has legendary status in the lives of two great divines: Samuel Rutherford and James Ussher.

Andrew Thomson, Samuel Rutherford (1884), pp. 31-33:

An incident is recorded as having taken place at a somewhat earlier period in his pastorate, the truth of which has been questioned by some, but which is at least not so very improbable as they have represented it, and which is so beautiful in itself, as to make us wish that it were true.

The story, as it has been narrated by different writers, varies in some of its details, but it is substantially the same in all. We are told that the devout and learned Archbishop Usher was on his way from England to his diocese in Armagh, and that passing near Anwoth on a Saturday afternoon, anxious to listen to the preaching of one of whose piety and eloquence he had heard much, he assumed the disguise of a wayfaring man, or mendicant, and turning aside to Anwoth manse, asked lodging for the night. According to the custom and law of the good pastor's house, not to be "forgetful to entertain strangers," he was readily received. It was the practice of Mrs. Rutherford, while her husband was engaged in finishing his preparations for the coming Lord's Day, to gather together her servants and the "strangers within her gate," for the purpose of catechizing them on some religious subject; and on this occasion the stranger in lowly garb readily joined the little circle of catechumens. Probably for the purpose of testing the knowledge of the wayfarer, Mrs. Rutherford asked him how many commandments there were? To which he answered, " Eleven." Regarding this as evidence of unusual ignorance, she expressed to her husband, at a later period in the evening, her fears that the stranger was very ill-instructed in religion, and mentioned as evidence of the fact that he did not even know the number of the commandments.

Rising early on the Sabbath morning, and retiring for prolonged devotion to his sanctuary not far off among the trees, Rutherford was astonished to find that there was one there already engaged in solitary worship. It was the stranger who had been welcomed the night before to his hospitality. Listening, he was struck with the evidence which his words afforded of the religious knowledge and the depth of devotion of the suppliant; and as soon as the prayer was ended he accosted him, and told him that he was certain that he was not the mendicant that he appeared to be. Disguise was no longer necessary or possible, and Usher, not unwillingly, revealed himself.

The scene ended in Rutherford's urging him to preach for him, to which Usher assented, not averse to conform for the day to the simpler forms of Presbyterian worship. He read out as his text those words of the Master: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." This explained all. "There," whispered Rutherford to his wife, "is the eleventh commandment."

Those who have denied the reality of this beautiful incident should remember that Archbishop Usher was pre-eminently a lover of all good men, that he never sympathized with that ecclesiastical assumption and exclusiveness which did so much to produce and embitter the controversies of the age, and that he was even the author of a scheme of comprehension by which he hoped that Episcopalians and Presbyterians would one day be included in one common pale. Let the further fact be added that the military road by which Usher must have passed from England to Portpatrick, on his way to Ireland, passed by the gate of the Anwoth manse, and that, within the memory of old men, the daily post to Ireland passed by the same gate; and when facts like these are remembered, is not the unlikelihood greatly diminished? What a Sabbath evening must that have been which was spent by the two men of God! The points of ecclesiastical difference were no doubt, for the time, forgotten, in their conscious unity, produced by their common faith, and hope, and life. They ascended together in thought from the valley of conflict to the "delectable mountains," and obtained blessed glimpses and foretastes of the land of love.

Charles Buck, Anecdotes, Religious, Moral and Entertaining (1841), pp. 54-56:

The eminent Archbishop Usher, being once on a visit in Scotland, heard a great deal of the piety and devotion of the famous Mr. Samuel Rutherford, who, he understood, spent whole nights in prayer, especially before the Sabbath. The bishop wished much to witness such extraordinary down-pouring of the Spirit; but was utterly at a loss how to accomplish his design. At length it came into his mind to dress himself like a pauper; and on a Saturday evening, when it was turning dark, he called at Mr. Rutherford's house, and asked if he could get quarters for a night, since he could go to no other house at so late an hour for that purpose. Mr. Rutherford consented to give the poor man a bed for the night, and desired him to sit down in the kitchen, which he did cheerfully. Mrs. Rutherford, according to custom on Saturday evening, that her servants might be prepared for the Sabbath, called them together and examined them. In the course of examination that evening, she asked the stranger how. many commandments there were? To which he answered eleven. Upon receiving this answer, she replied, 'What a shame it is for you! a man with gray hairs, living in a Christian country, not to know how many commandments there are! There is not a child of six years old in this parish hut could answer this question properly.' She troubled the poor man no more, thinking him so very ignorant! but lamented his condition to her servants; and after giving him some supper, desired a servant to show him up stairs to a bed in a garret. This was the very situation in which he desired to he placed, that he might hear Mr. Rutherford at his secret devotion. However, he was disappointed; for that night that good man went to bed, but did not fall asleep for some hours. The stranger did not go to bed, but sat listening, always hoping to hear Mr. Rutherford at prayer; and at length concluding that all the family were asleep, the bishop thought if he had been disappointed of hearing another offering up his desire to God at the throne of grace, he would embrace the opportunity himself, and poured out his heart to God with so much liberty and enlargement, that Mr. Rutherford, immediately below, overheard; and getting up put on his clothes. Should this have awakened Mrs. Rutherford, she could have suspected nothing of his design, seeing he rose commonly every day at three o'clock in the morning; and if she could have heard one at prayer afterwards, she would naturally have concluded it was her husband. Mr. Rutherford went up stairs, and stood waiting at the garret door till the bishop concluded his devotion; upon which he knocked gently at the door, and the other opened it with surprise, thinking none were witness to his devotion. Mr. Rutherford took him by the hand, saying, 'Sir, I am persuaded you can be none other than Archbishop Usher; and you must certainly preach for me to-day, being now Sabbath morning.' The bishop confessed who he was; and after telling Mr. Rutherford what induced him to take such a step, said he would preach for him, on condition that he would not discover who he was. Happy union of souls, although of different persuasions! yet not marvellous; God makes but two distinctions among mankind, the righteous and the wicked.

Mr. Rutherford furnished the bishop with a suit of his own clothes, and early in the morning he went out to the fields; the other followed him, and brought him in as a strange minister passing by, who had promised to preach for him. Mrs. Rutherford found that the poor man had gone away before any of the family were out of bed. After domestic worship and breakfast, the family went to the kirk, and the bishop had for his text, (John xiii. 34,) 'A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another;' a suitable subject for the occasion. In the course of his sermon, he observed that this might be reckoned the eleventh commandment: upon which Mrs. Rutherford said to herself, 'That is the answer the poor man gave me last night;' and looking up to the pulpit, said, 'It cannot be possible that this is he!' After public worship, the strange minister and Mr. Rutherford spent the evening in mutual satisfaction; and early on Monday morning the former went away in the dress he came in, and was not discovered.

Quote Chain

John Brentnall wrote an eloquent publishers' foreword to the Puritan Paperback edition of Richard Sibbes' The Bruised Reed, which begins thus:

`Our books may come to be seen where ourselves shall never be heard. These may preach where the author cannot, and (which is more) when he is not.' This prediction by one of the great Puritans has had many fulfillments. An ungodly Welsh clergyman, shopping at a fair in the eighteenth century, bought an article which happened to be wrapped in a page torn from an old Puritan folio. The reading of that one page led to his sound conversion. As Luther said, `Satan hates the use of pens,' and never were pens more powerfully wielded in the cause of God than by the Puritan divines of the seventeenth century. Nor have their books outlived their usefulness. Although the original volumes are worn with age, the truths found in them are as fresh as the new formats in which they are now appearing.

To flesh out these words a bit, as a personal exercise in reading to better understand and researching as needed to fulfill that goal, I thought it would be useful to explore the allusions made. The fruits of my research turned into the following quote chain.

The author of the initial quote is Thomas Adams who, writing "[t]o the candid and ingenious reader" in Volume 1 of his Works said (pp. xix-xx):

Speech is only for presence, writings have their use in absence: quo, liceat libris, non licet ire mihi, -- our books may come to be seen where ourselves shall never be heard. These may preach when the author cannot, and (which is more) when he is not.

The Latin line quoted by Thomas Adams comes from Ovid's Amores (The Loves) 3.8 (Elegy VIII - To His Mistress, Complaining That She Has Given Preference To A Wealthier Rival):

cum pulchre dominae nostri placuere libelli,
quo licuit libris, non licet ire mihi;

Although my books have pleased my mistress well,
where my books are allowed to go, I am not.

The story of the Welsh clergyman converted after reading a paper torn from a Puritan folio bought at a fair evidented occurred in the 17th century rather than the 18th; the source is John Flavel who wrote The Mystery of Providence in 1678 (Part I, The Evidence of Providence, Chap. 3, The Work of Conversion):

A scrap of paper, accidentally coming to view, has been used as an occasion of conversion. This was the case of a minister in Wales, who had two livings, but took little care of either. Being at a fair, he bought something at a pedlar’s stall, and tore off a leaf of Mr Perkins’ Catechism to wrap it in, and reading a line or two in it, God sent it home so as it did the work.

Charles Buck, Anecdotes, Religious, Moral, and Entertaining (1831 ed.), p. 115, elaborates:

The Minister Converted By Going To The Fair

Various are the ways in which God is pleased to bring his people to the knowledge of himself. Sometimes it is by stated ordinances, and sometimes by means apparently insignificant. "A scrap of paper," says Flavel, "coming to view, has been used as an occasion of conversion." This was the case of a minister in Wales, who had two livings, and cared little for either. Being at a fair, he bought something at a pedlar's standing, who rent off a leaf of Mr. Perkin's Catechism to wrap it in, and reading a line or two in it, it proved the means of his conversion.

"Mr Perkins' Catechism" refers to The Foundation of the Christian Religion gathered into Six Principles by William Perkins, first published in 1591.

The line from Martin Luther has proven somewhat difficult for me to pin down, but the connection between Luther and his ink is well known. It is said that while in conflict with the Devil he would often thrown his inkwell against the wall, after which he was reported to have said that he had "driven the Devil away with ink." In fact, I have been shown stains on the wall of a room in the Wartburg Castle which are said to be evidence of these events, although it is highly unlikely that actual stains from Luther's inkwell remain on that wall.

Moncure Daniel Conway, Demonology and Devil-Lore (1879 ed.), Vol. 2, p. 286:

Referring to Luther's inkstand thrown at the Devil, Dr. Zerffii, in his lecture on the Devil, says, 'He (the devil) hates nothing so much as writing or printers' ink.'