greenbaggins
Puritan Board Doctor
Sibbes could have had the first question of the Heidelberg in mind when he wrote:
He that hath been our Saviour in life, will be so to death, and not exclusively, then to leave us, but to death, and in death, for ever; yea, most ready to help us in our last conflict. Indeed, to wicked men death is terrible, for he sendeth the devil to fetch them out of the world; but for those that be his, he sendeth his angels to fetch them, and he helps them in their combat. We must not therefore fear over much. There is a natural fear of death. Death wrought upon Christ himself, God-man; not only death, but such a death. He was to be left of his Father, and lie under the sense of the wrath of God; the separation of that soul from the body he took upon him was terrible; and therefore he saith, 'If it be possible, let this cup pass from me:' that was nature, and without it he had not been true man. But that I say is, that grace may be above nature (from The Marriage Feast Between Christ and His Church, in The Works of Richard Sibbes, volume 2, p. 475).
He that hath been our Saviour in life, will be so to death, and not exclusively, then to leave us, but to death, and in death, for ever; yea, most ready to help us in our last conflict. Indeed, to wicked men death is terrible, for he sendeth the devil to fetch them out of the world; but for those that be his, he sendeth his angels to fetch them, and he helps them in their combat. We must not therefore fear over much. There is a natural fear of death. Death wrought upon Christ himself, God-man; not only death, but such a death. He was to be left of his Father, and lie under the sense of the wrath of God; the separation of that soul from the body he took upon him was terrible; and therefore he saith, 'If it be possible, let this cup pass from me:' that was nature, and without it he had not been true man. But that I say is, that grace may be above nature (from The Marriage Feast Between Christ and His Church, in The Works of Richard Sibbes, volume 2, p. 475).
