Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.
Ver. 21. Ye shall die in your sins] A heavy doom, the very door to damnation. It is a sad thing to die in prison, to die in a ditch, but far worse to die in your sins. This is to be slain with death, according to that, Revelation 2:21; "I will kill her children with death." All men die, but wicked men only are killed with death. As a godly man said, that he did aegrotare vitaliter, so do all the righteous, mori vitaliter, because they have hope in their death; which to them is as the valley of Achor, a door of hope to give entrance into Paradise. Whereas to the wicked it is as a trap door to let them into hell; so that it is a just wonder, that foreseeing their danger they go not roaring and raving out of the world. Nothing should be done (we say) to trouble a dying person, no shrieking or crying out. Oh, take heed and prevent the shriekings of conscience at that hour, &c. Take heed ye die not in your sin, in that your sin of unbelief, εν τη αμαρτια, in hoc peccato in this sin, (as Beza here rendereth it), for unbelief shuts a man up close, prisoner in the law's dark dungeon, till death come with a writ of Habeas corpus, let you have the body, and hell with a writ of Habeas animam, &c. let you have the soul.