512' RUIN AND RECOVERY, &C. were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein you walked according to the course of this world, and the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience : Among whom also we," that is, Jews, who were the peculiar people of God, or we christians who arenow sanctified, even we also " had our conversation in time past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind ; and were by nature the children of wrath even as others," that is, as heathens. Even we were dead in sin, verse 5. This is the plain description of all mankind, both Jews and Gentiles. Surely they were not born alive by nature in a state of righteousness, and afterwards made themselves dead in sin ; but they were dead-born, that is, born in sin by nature, or through a corrupted nature derived from their parents; and were children of wrath by nature, or ex- posed to the anger of God. But this belongs rather to the next proposition. 'VIII. As Adam produced his offspring like himself, des- tituteof the image of God, or defiled with sinful inclinations, so he also produced them destitute of the favour of God, or in a state of disfavour with their Maker, because under the same sentenice of condemnation, misery and death together with him- self. As I have proved this before, by sheaving that pains and agonies, and often death itself, which is the appointed punish; nient of sin, seizes upon children immediately from their birth, before they are capable of committing ,actual sin, so there are some scriptures which lead us into the same sentiment, as Job xiv. I. Man that is born of a woman is offew days and full of trouble: That is, his short life, and his troubles or miseries proceed from his very birth, or his propagation from his sin- ful and mortal parents : Otherwise God would not have ap- pointed his ,noblest creature in this world to have been born to trouble. Yet this is the case: Man is born to trouble as the sparksfly upwards ; Job v. 7. that is, naturally, for it is owing to his birth and his natural derivation from a sinful stock : We are a miserable race of beings, springing from corrupted and dying root, prone to sin and liable to sorrows and' sufferings. Yet let it be observed here concerning one man, even Jesus Christ, that though he be the son of Adam in a large sense, yet by this propagation he falls not under that guilt and " condemnation, nor that degeneracy of nature and those sinful propensities which are conveyed to the rest of Adam's posterity; And the reason is plain, viz. because he was not the son of Adam by natural generation or propagation, but by a miracul- ous operation of God and his Spirit, taking part of the body, or flesh; and blood of the Virgin Mary, and making a man_. child of it : As Luke i. 34, 35. Now this part of the body of
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