Into Thy Hands I Commend My Spirit

It is noteworthy how many saints of old (and sometimes their enemies) have died with the words of Christ upon their lips. The words of David ("Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth," Ps. 31.5) were uttered by Christ on the cross ("And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost," Luke 23.46). Stephen, the first Christian martyr, likewise, when he was dying, said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (Acts 7.59). Others who emulated this example are listed below.

January 1, 379 -- Basil the Great's last words were "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
January 28, 814 -- Charlemagne's last words were "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
December 29, 1170 -- Thomas Becket's last words were "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit."
July 6, 1415 -- John Hus died repeating the words "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
May 30, 1416 -- Jerome of Prague died uttering the words "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
May 20, 1506 -- Christopher Columbus' last words were "Into Thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit."
May 4, 1535 -- John Houghton died after reciting Psalm 31.
June 22, 1535 -- John Fisher died reciting "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
July 28, 1540 -- Thomas Cromwell's last words were "Lord into Thy hands I commend my Soul, Lord Jesus receive my spirit, Amen."
February 18, 1546 -- Martin Luther's last words were "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of truth."
March 1, 1546 -- George Wishart's next-to-last words were "O Thou Saviour of the world, have mercy upon me! Father of Heaven, I commend my spirit into Thy holy hands."
February 12, 1554 -- Lady Jane Grey's last words were "Lorde, into Thy hands I commende my spirite!"
February 23, 1554 -- Henry Grey's (father of Lady Jane Grey) last words were "In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum" ("Into Thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit").
February 9, 1555 -- John Hooper's last words were "Into Thy handes I commend my spirite; Thou haste redeemed me, O God of truthe."
October 16, 1555 -- Nicholas Ridley's last words were "In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum; Lord, Lord, receive my spirit."
July 11, 1556 -- Julian Palmer recited Psalm 31 as he died.
September 21, 1558 -- Charles V's last words were "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit: for Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God of truth."
April 19, 1560 -- Philip Melancthon on his deathbed was attended by Veit Winsheim, who repeated the words "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit; O Lord, thou hast delivered me, thou righteous and faithful God!" He was asked if he heard those words. Melanchthon's last word on earth was "Yes!"
June 5, 1568 -- Lamoral, Count of Egmont's last words were "Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
June 5, 1568 -- Philip de Montmorency's last words were "Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
November 24, 1572 -- John Knox on his deathbed said "Come, Lord Jesus; sweet Jesus, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
February 8, 1587 -- Among the last words of Mary, Queen of Scots' was "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
February 21, 1595 -- Robert Southwell's last words were "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit."
April 25, 1595 -- Torquato Tasso's last words were "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit."
March 1, 1633 -- George Herbert's last words were "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
December 22, 1666 -- Hugh M'Kail sang from the 1650 Scottish Metrical Psalter at his execution, "Into thine hands I do commit / My spirit; for thou art he, / O thou, Jehovah, God of truth, / Who has hast redeemed me."
July 27, 1681 -- Donald Cargill's last words were "Into thy hands I commend my spirit."
February 26, 1686 -- Francois Teissier's (first martyr of the 'Church of the Desert') last words were "My God, to Thee I commend my spirit."
February 17, 1688 -- James Renwick's last words were "Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit; for Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God of truth."
July 22, 1794 -- Among the last words written by Louise de Duras (née Noailles)'s was "Accept, O Lord, the sacrifice of my life, Into Thy hands I commend my spirit. My God, haste Tee to help me. Forsake me not when my strength faileth me."
October 16, 1812 -- Among the last written words of Henry Martyn was "So closes the easy part of my life; enriched by every earthly comfort, and caressed by friends, I may scarcely be said to have experienced trouble; but now, farewell ease, if I might presume to conjecture. 'O Lord, into Thy hands I commit my spirit! Thou hast redeemed me, Thou God of truth!' may I be saved by Thy grace, and be sanctified to do Thy will, and to all eternity; through Jesus Christ."

They Know Themselves Best Who Fear Themselves Most

Patrick Walker, Six Saints of the Covenant, ed. by D. Hay Fleming, Vol. 2, p. 41 ('Donald Cargill's Life'):

He preached upon that word in the forenoon [June 1681, one month before his death], 'Be not high-minded, but fear' [Rom. 11.20]. His first note was, that these who knew themselves best would fear themselves most; and that, as it was to determine what a length a hypocrite may gang in the profession of religion, it was as hard to determine what a length a child of God may go in defection, having grace, but wanting the exercise thereof; and that a Christian might go through nineteen trials, and carry honestly in them, and fall in the twentieth. 'While in the body, be not high-minded, but fear.'

Maurice Grant, No King But Christ: The Story of Donald Cargill, p. 172:

Concluding his exposition, he went on immediately to give the first of his two sermons. It was from Romans 11:20: 'Be not high-minded, but fear,' and was a characteristic study of the Christian life, drawing richly on his own experience. 'Those who know themselves best,' he declared, 'will fear themselves most: and as it is hard to determine what length a hypocrite may go in the profession of religion, so it is hard to determine what length a child of God may go in defection, having grace, but lacking its exercise. A Christian may go through nineteen trials, and carry honestly through them, and fall in the twentieth.' Cargill made it clear to his hearers that he was speaking here of those who were true Christian,...

Pagan Calendar Names

The Quakers, Brownists and Gibbites ('Sweet Singers' who followed the teachings of John Gibb (d. 1720?)) were known, among other things, for their rejection of pagan and Roman calendar names relating to both months and days of the week. Not all Puritans shared this conviction, but there was sympathy with the expressed desire to purify the calendar of heathen and popish influences, and in particular, Puritans took a particular stand about using Biblical names for the first day of the week, i.e., the Christian Sabbath or the Lord's Day.

In Puritan New England, for example, it was common to reckon days and months with numerals; therefore, when writing to express a date such as Monday, December 23rd, it would be done in this way: 23d 10m (March being the first month of the year in the Julian calendar, therefore December was the tenth month), cf. Michael G. Hall, The Last Puritan: The Life of Increase Mather, 1639-1723, p. 14).

Ezra Hoyt Byington, The Puritan in England and New England, pp. 166-167:

Our Puritan fathers made it a matter of conscience to call the days of the week by numerals, and to call the months in the same way, as the Quakers do to this day. It was a singular scruple which they had, and it had its origin amongst the Lollards, and the Anabaptists, from whom the Quakers and some other Protestant sects came. They thought it was giving honor to the heathen gods, and to pagan worship, to call their days Sunday, or Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or to call their months January, or March, or May. But while this scruple has been so tenacious among the Friends, that even Mr. Whittier continued to follow it as long as he lived, our Puritan fathers had laid it aside before their colonies had completed their first century.

Charles Edward Jefferson, "The Puritan Sabbath and Ours," in Forefathers' Day Sermons, p. 203:

The Puritans liked to call their day of rest the "Sabbath." Sometimes they called it the "First Day." This was the expression employed in the Gospels. More frequently, they called it the "Lord's Day." They had authority for this in the first chapter of the book of the Revelation. But their favorite name was "Sabbath." This was the word which Moses had used, and David, the sweet singer of Israel, and all the Prophets, and it was, therefore, presumably the favorite of Heaven. The word "Sunday" they would not use because it was not to be found in the Bible. It was a word of pagan origin, meaning Sun's Day, just as Monday means Moon's Day, and any word coined in heathen mint could not be applied to a divine institution. Scriptural sanction was essential for all their religious names and customs, and, therefore, "Sunday" was among them a name tabooed.

George Gillespie, A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies, pp. 190-191:

Sixthly, Papists themselves teach...Yea, they condemn the very heathenish names of the days of the week imposed after the names of planets, Sunday, Monday, etc.40

40. Rhem. on Apoc. 1:10.

Maurice Grant, No King But Christ: The Story of Donald Cargill, pp. 160, 261-262:

Events soon proved the truth of Cargill's prediction. At the beginning of May [John] Gibb and his followers were all seized by the soldiers and carried to Edinburgh. The mere were imprisoned in the Canongate Tolbooth; the women were consigned to the 'correction house', the usual repository for the loose and immoral in the city. After some weeks in prison Gibb drew up a paper setting out his principles, which he presented to the Council. It was a wild, unbalanced document, aptly demonstrating the mind of its author and scarcely deserving to be treated seriously. It denounced the use of chapters and verses in Scripture, the metrical Psalms, the translation of the Bible out of the original languages, the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms, the Covenants and the Form of Church Government, the Queensferry paper, the Sanquhar Declaration and even the names of months and days of the week.1

1. The view that the common names of the days and months, being derived from pagan deities, were not worthy to be used by Christians, was not confined to Gibb and his followers. As contemporary records show, it was one of the chief points of difference between James Russel and the United Societies in the years following Cargill's death. Russel's friend and associate, Patrick Grant, maintained that his and Russel's views on the subject had been shared by William Cuthill, who died along with Cargill, and that Cuthill had asserted them in the portion of his last testimony which was supressed by the editors of the Cloud of Witnesses (1714 ed., p. 118). Grant also claimed that in his letter to Gibb's followers in the Correction House Cargill himself had expressed approval of these views, but there is nothing in Cargill's letter to lend support to this. Nevertheless it is clear that some who attended on Cargill's ministry and held him in the highest respect adopted the practice at about this time. A manuscript copy of Cargill's sermon at Dovan Common on 26 June, obviously recorded by a friendly hand, is dated 'the 26th day of the sixth month'. A letter from Patrick Forman, who with four others was put to death at the Gallowlee in Edinburgh in October 1681, is dated 'the 16th of this ninth month' and his testimony 'the 8th day of the tenth month'. The practice did not, however, become general, and was not adopted by James Renwick nor the other members of the United Societies.

Jeremiah Burroughs, An Exposition of the Prophecy of Hosea, p. 147 (on Hosea 2.16-17):

It were good therefore, seeing God hates and loathes it so much, that we should hate and loath it also, and therefore cast out even the name and memory of it; it were a happy thing if the names of popish, as well as heathenish, idols could be banished from the church; but I know not how it happens that we Christians still retain the use of them; the very days of the week among us are called by the names of planets, or heathen gods: not that I think it a sin, when it is the ordinary language of the world, to speak so as may be understood, for the apostle mentions the name of Castor and Pollux; but if there could be an alteration by general consent, (as our brethren in New England have), it were desirable; and still more so, that our children might not be educated in the use of heathen poems, whereby the names of heathen idols are kept up fresh amongst us: the papists themselves acknowledge so much in the Rhemish Testament, in their notes on Rev. i.10: "The name Sunday is heathenish, as all other of the week-days, some imposed by the Romans after the name of planets, some from certain idols which the Saxons worshipped, and to which they dedicated their days before they were Christians. These names the church rejecting, has appointed to call the first day Dominic, (the Lord's) the others by the name of Feries, successivly to the last day of the week, which she calls by the old name of sabbath, because that was of God, and not by imposition of the heathen." And in their Annotations upon Luke xxiv.1, "The first day of the sabbath; that is, the first after the Sabbath, which is our Lord's day. And from the apostle, 1 Cor. xvi.2, commanding a collection to be made on the first day of the sabbath, we learn," (say they) "both the keeping that day as the sabbath, and the church's naming the days of the week the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of the sabbath, and so on, to be apostolical, and the calling of the days of the week, the second, the third, the fourth, &c., to be likewise apostolical, which St. Sylvester afterward named the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Feriam." Thus you have the papists acknowledging the Lord's day to be apostolical, and the calling of the days of the week the second, the third, the fourth, &c., to be likewise apostolical. The heathenish Roman names of the days were taken from the seven planets: 1. Sol, thence Dies solis, Sunday dedicated to the sun. 2. Luna, Monday, dedicated to the moon. 3. Mars, Tuesday, dedicated to Mars. Our Tuesday is a Saxon name, from Tuisco, who they say was, since the Tower of Babel, chief leader and ruler of the German nation, who, in honour of him, called this day Tuesday, Tuisco's day. 4. Mercurius, to whom Wednesday is dedicated, and we call it so, is from the Saxon's Woden, who was a great prince among them, and whose image they adored after his death. 5. Jupiter, to whom Thursday is dedicated; so called by us from the Saxon Thor, the name of an idol which they anciently worshipped. 6. Venus, to whom our Friday, which name is given it from Friga, an idol of the Germans. This idol was an hermaphrodite, and reputed to be the giver of plenty, and the causer of amity; the same perhaps which the Romans called Venus. 7. Saturnus, dedicated to Saturn, whence our Saturday; or, as others think, from Seater, an idol of the Germans. Exod. xxiii.13, we have this charge, "In all things that I have said unto you, be circumspect: and make no mention of the names of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth." And Psal. xvi.4, David professes he will not take the names of idols into his lips.