15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.



Ver. 15. And deliver them] So that to those that are in Christ, death is but the daybreak of eternal brightness; not the punishment of sin, but the period of sin. It is but a sturdy porter, opening the door of eternity; a rougher passage to eternal pleasure. What need they fear to pass the waters of Jordan to take possession of the land, that have the ark of God’s covenant in their eye? Tollitur mors, non ne sit, sed ne obsit. As Christ took away, not sin, but the guilt of it, so neither death, but the sting of it.



Who through fear of death] The king of terrors, as Job calleth death, that terrible of all terribles, as Aristotle. Nature will have a bout with the best when they come to die. But I wonder (saith a grave divine) how the souls of wicked men go not out of their bodies, as the devils did out of the demoniacs, rending, raging, tearing, foaming. I wonder how any can die in their wits, that die not in the faith of Jesus Christ. Appius Claudius loved not the Greek zeta, because when it is pronounced, it representeth the gnashing teeth of a dying man. Sigismund the emperor, being ready to die, commanded his servants not to name death in his hearing, &c. The like is reported of Louis XI, king of France, who to put by death when it came, sent for Aaron’s rod and other holy relies (as they reputed them) from Rheims; but all would not do. Cardinal Beaufort, perceiving that death was come for him, murmured that his great riches could not reprieve him. Stat sua cuique dies. Now, death is nature’s slaughterman, God’s curse, and hell’s purveyor; and must needs therefore be terrible to those whose lives and hopes end together, and who say as one dying man did, Spes et fortuna valete.