Once to Die

London, the end of February 1631, and a man who has been seriously ill gets up to preach at Whitehall before the king. John Donne's subject that day was death. His first biographer records that people in that congregation said afterwards he had preached his own funeral sermon; he died about a month later.

You do not think about this steadily, and nobody does. It arrives in the ten minutes after a funeral, in the car with the heater running: a short piece of arithmetic about your own name, held for the drive and then set down. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. Appointed is a flat word for something set down, arranged, entered in a book. There is no drama in it, which is why it works.

The sentence is half of a comparison, and the half everybody quotes is the setup. As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. The word the paragraph is about is once, and the argument is against repetition: nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others. Your single appointment is the fixed point his is measured against.

And the promise is the far end of the same sentence: unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Without sin is the clause to keep. He does not come back to that subject, and nothing on the agenda of the second appearing concerns your record. Once to die, once offered, a second appearance with the sin question closed before it starts. That is the order Hebrews puts them in.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 306 is Mercy in the Heavens (Psalm 36:5).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two