An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

Therefore in the third place, The Lord Christ came into the world to destroy and remove this sting of death. To change the nature of death that it ⟨p. 286⟩should not be matter of terror, but of joy and comfort; being like Joseph's Chariot to carry us to the place of our hope and desire. Thus we have the Apostle insulting over death, 1 Cor. 15. 54, 55. Death is swallowed up in victory. Death doth not swallow the godly man, but he doth swallow that up: O death, where is thy sting? Thanks be to God which giveth us victory by our Lord Jesus Christ. Were it not then for Christ, what would become of a poor humbled sinner? What terror would compass him about? This powerful effect of Christs death (for death overcometh death) is notably spoken of, Heb. 2. 14. That through death he might deliver them, who through fear of death, were all their life time subject to bondage. A learned man Cocceius understands this of the Jews especially, who because of those many Ceremonial Laws, they were in bondage to, were in continual fear of death, because the transgressing of many of those Laws God made capital, they were to die for it: hence they could not be, but in constant fear of death. But it seemeth more genuine to interpret more largely, as an effect of Christs death to believing Gentiles, as well as to the Jews. It is from Christ only that the terrible thoughts of death can be mitigated, otherwise to a man not in Christ it is the beginning of hell.

Therefore in the third place, The Lord Christ came into the world to destroy and remove this sting of death. To change the nature of death that it ⟨p. 286⟩should not be matter of terror, but of joy and comfort; being like Joseph's Chariot to carry us to the place of our hope and desire. Thus we have the Apostle insulting over death, 1 Cor. 15. 54, 55. Death is swallowed up in victory. Death doth not swallow the godly man, but he doth swallow that up: O death, where is thy sting? Thanks be to God which giveth us victory by our Lord Jesus Christ. Were it not then for Christ, what would become of a poor humbled sinner? What terrour would compasse him about? This powerfull effect of Christs death (for death overcometh death) is notably spoken of,