There are certain quotations from English literature that are familiar to many people, even if they have never read the works in which they occur. Examples include 'To be or not to be, that is the question' from Shakespeare's Hamlet, 'Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink' from Samuel Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times' from Charles Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities.

Although many people are familiar with these quotations, if they are asked what they mean in their original context they generally do not know the answer. Thus, they will be unaware that in the quotation from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner what the words describe is the dreadful fate of the sailors on a becalmed ship who are surrounded by an ocean of salt water, all of which is undrinkable.

A similar instance of people knowing the quotation, but not what it means, is provided by two well-known quotations from the English poet and theologian John Donne. The first quotation is 'No man is an island' and the second is 'never send to know for whom the bless tolls' (normally quoted as 'do not ask for whom the bell tolls'). What most people do not realise is that these two quotations are part of an extended meditation by Donne on human mortality.

The paragraph from which they come runs as follows:

'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were; as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'

The point Donne is making is that as human beings we cannot escape from death. We are part of a dying race. When we hear a bell tolling to mark the death of another what it tells us is 'You too must die. Death is coming for you as well.'

The fact that death is coming for all of us, raises the inevitable question of how we should view it. Is it something we should be afraid of, or not?

In the Anglican Christian tradition to which I belong, a classic answer to this question is provided by the homily, or sermon, 'Against the fear of death' which was authorised for use in parish churches by the Church of England in the sixteenth century.

This homily explains why there are three reasons why 'worldly' (i.e. ungodly) people commonly fear death:

'.... one, because they shall lose thereby, their worldly honours, riches, possessions, and all their heart's desires; another, because of the painful diseases, and bitter pangs, which commonly men suffer, either before or at the time of death; but the chief cause, above all other, is the dread, of the miserable state of eternal damnation, both of body and soul, which they fear shall follow after their departing, after the worldly pleasure of this present life. '

However, none of these causes should make a Christian afraid of death. This is because:

'For death shall be to him no death at all, but the very deliverance from death, from all pains, cares, and sorrows, miseries, and wretchedness of this world, and the very entry into rest, and the beginning of everlasting joy, a tasting of heavenly pleasures, so great that neither tongue is able to express, neither eye to see, no ear to hear them, no, nor for any earthly man's heart to conceive them. So exceedingly great benefits they be which God our heavenly father, by his mere mercy and for the love of his son, Jesus Christ, hath laid up in store and be prepared for them that humbly submit themselves to God's will, and evermore unfeignedly love him, from the bottom of their hearts.'

As Christians, says the homily, we ought to believe:

'....that death, being slain by Christ, cannot keep any man that steadfastly trusteth in Christ, under his perpetual tyranny and subjection, but that he shall rise again, unto glory at the last day, appointed by Almighty God, like as Christ our Head did rise again, according to God's appointment, the third day. For St. Augustine saith, the Head going before, the members trust to follow, and come after. And St. Paul saith, if Christ be risen from the dead, we shall also rise the same. And to comfort all Christian persons herein, holy Scripture calleth this bodily death a sleep; wherein man's senses be, as it were taken from him for a season, and yet, when he awaketh, he is more fresh than he was when he went to bed. So although we have our souls separated from our bodies, for a season, yet at the general resurrection, we shall be more fresh, beautiful and perfect, than we be now. For now we be mortal, then we shall be immortal; now infected with divers infirmities, then clearly void of all mortal infirmities; now we be subject to all carnal desires, then we shall be all spiritual, desiring nothing but God's glory, and things eternal.'

What these words from the homily make clear is that for a Christian the answer to the question 'Should we fear death?' is 'No.' Although we may reasonably fear the physical pain which often accompanies death and seek its mitigation in ourselves and others, there is no reason to fear death itself, for it is God's appointed gateway to an unending life with him, the enjoyment of which will far surpass any pleasures we may experience in the life we now live.

This positive Christian view of death is underlined in two further pieces of writing on the subject from the Anglican tradition.

The first piece is John Donne's poem 'Death, be not proud' in which Donne personifies death as a conceited would-be tyrant who, contrary to popular rumour, is in fact neither mighty, nor dreadful, because all he is able to do is to put people into a state of sleep from which they will awaken to life eternal.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

The second piece is the closing words of CS Lewis' book The Last Batlle, which is the final volume of his Chronicles of Narnia. In these words, as in the Narnia stories as whole, Aslan is the personification of Christ in the form of a lion:

'Then Aslan turned to them and said:

'You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.'

Lucy said, 'We're so afraid of being sent away as Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often.'

'No Fear of that,' said Aslan, 'Have you not guessed?'

Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them. '

There was a real railway accident,' said Aslan softly.

'Your father and mother and all of you are -as you used to call it in the shadow lands -dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.'

And as he spoke he no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story which no one on earth on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.'

What all this means is that Christians have a positive message about death which they are called upon to share those who do not yet know or believe it. This message is that for all those who are rightly related to God through Jesus Christ death is not the end. It is instead merely a period of transition from which they will awaken to live a life of total and everlasting fulfilment and blessing in the presence of God in the new world that is coming.

What it is vital to note, however, is that Christians are not only called to declare that those who are rightly related to God though Jesus Christ will enjoy total and everlasting fulfilment on the other side of death. They are also called to declare that for those who are not related to God in this way death will not result in the enjoyment of life in God's presence. Instead, it will result in what the Bible calls the 'second death' (Revelation 2:11, 2O:6, 20:14, 21:8), what the homily quoted above calls 'the miserable state of eternal damnation.' To quote the words of Paul in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 'they shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might.' To put it more simply, the damned will be cut off from God (and therefore all good) forever.

Many people, including many Christians, find the idea of eternal damnation difficult to accept, but as CS Lewis writes, they have to answer the question:

''What are you asking God to do?' To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But he has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does.'

To quote JI Packer, another Anglican writer, 'The unbeliever has preferred to be by himself, without God, defying God, having God against him, and he shall have his choice.'

To summarise, the Christian message is that death is not something of which anyone needs to be afraid. This is because death is not the end. As God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day, so all the dead will be raised to life on the last day and for all those who have repented and believed the life they will then experience will be one of joy without end.

However, the Christian message is also that there are those who should be very, very afraid of death. This is because if they have not repented and believed what awaits them beyond death is not joy without end, but misery without end as a consequence of their self-chosen alienation from God. What the Christian faith says is that who come into this latter category need to realise this truth and, with God's assistance, amend their lives while there is still time.

Martin Davie is a lay Anglican theologian and Associate Tutor in Doctrine at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.