i ( 164 ) IJFE AND DEATH, NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL, COMPARED. CHAP. IV. ,(-1.) Ofdeath in sin. All unregenerate men spiritually dead. (2.) Spiritual death twofold. Moral.- ,--(3.) Me- taphorical.(4.) Life natural, what it is, andwherein it consists. (5.) Death natural, with its necessary .consequents. (6, 7, 8.) The supernatural life of Adam in innocency, in its principle, acts and power. (9, 10.) Differences between it and our spiritual life in Christ.(11, 12.) Death spiritual a privationof the life wehad in Adam; -a negation of the life of Christ. (13.) Privation of a principle of all life to God. Spiritual impotency therein.(14.) Differences between death natural and spiritual.(15, 16, 17.) The use ofprecepts, promises, and threatenings. (18, 19, 20, 21.) No man perisheth merely for want 'ofpower. (22, 23, 24.) No vital acts in an estate ofdeath, the wayof the communication ofspiritual life.(25, 26, 27, 28.) Ofwhat nature are the best works of unregenerate. (29.) No disposition unto spiritual life under the power of spiritual death. ANOTHER description that the scripture gives of unregeneratemen as to their state and condition is, that they are spiritually dead. And hence in like manner, it follows, that there is a necessity of an internal, pow- erful, effectual work of the Holy Ghost on the souls of men, to deliver them out of this state and conditionby regeneration. And this principally respects their wills and affections, as the darkness and blindness before des- cribed doth their minds and understandings. There is a spiritual life, whereby men live unto God: this they being strangers unto, and alienate from, are spiritually dead. And this the scripture declares concerning all unregenerate persons, partly in direct words, and part- ly in other assertions of the same import. Of the first sort the testimonies are many and express; Ephes. ii. 1. " You were dead in trespasses and sins;" ver. 5. Fr When you were dead in sins;" Col. ii. 13. " And you being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision a of your flesh;" 2 Cor. v. 14. a If one died for all, < then were all dead;" Rom. v. 15. Through the offence of one many are dead; ver. 12. Death passed on all men, for that all have sinned." And the same is asserted in the second way, where the recovery and . restoration of men by the grace of Christ is called their quickening, or the bestowing of a new life upon them; for this supposeth that they were dead pr destitute of that life which in this revivification is communicated un- to them. For that alone can be said to be quickened, which was dead before. See Ephes. ii. 5. John v. 21. John vi. 63. Sect. 2. This death that unregenerate persons are under is twofold: (f.) Legal with reference unto the sentence of the law. The sanction of the law was, that upon sin man should die. In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death, Gen. ii. 17. Upon this sentence Adam and all his posterity became dead in law, morally dead, or obnoxious untodeath penally, and ad- judged unto it. This death is intended in someof the places before mentioned; as Rom. v. 12. and it may be also, 2 Cor. v. 14. For as Christ died, so were all dead. He died penally under the sentence of the law, and all were obnoxious unto death, or dead on that ac- count. But this is not the death which 1 intend, nei- ther are we delivered from it by regeneration, but by justification, Rom. viii. 1. Sect. 3.(2.) There is in them a spiritual death, cal- led so metaphorically, from the analogy and proportion that it bears unto death natural. Of great importance it is to know the true nature hereof, and how by reason thereof unregeneratemen are utterly disabled from-do- ing any thing that is spiritually good, until they are quickened by the almighty power and irresistible efficacy of the Holy Ghost. Wherefore, to declare this aright, we must consider the nature of life and death natural,
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