Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Resurrection
Almighty God, who, through thine only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life.
Collect for Easter Day.
It is sure and certain hope, and not belief. The passage does not mean the resurrection of the person interred, but the general resurrection; it is in sure and certain hope of the resurrection, not his resurrection. Where the deceased is really spoken of, the expression is very different—“as our hope in this our brother doth” [rest in Christ]; a mode of speech consistent with every thing but absolute certainty that the person departed doth not rest in Christ, which no one can be assured of without immediate revelation from heaven.
Boswell’s Johnson, April 1783.
Mors mortis, morti mortem nisi morte dedisses;
Æternæ vitæ janua clausa foret.
O death of death! unless thou hadst given up death to death by death, the gate of eternal life would have been closed.
[The Latin passage quoted above may be seen inscribed on the tomb of the Twemlow family, in Witton churchyard, Northwich. I have been told that it is the composition of the late incumbent, the Rev. — Littler, A.M.]
Alas! alas!
Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy.
Shakespeare.—Measure for Measure, Act II. Scene 2. (Isabella to Angelo.)
And burst the marble slumbers of the tomb.
Heber.—Palestine.