334 htjiu AÌVD RECOVERY, &C: the word death, properly and without a figure, it taken to signify any thing else plainly but the sorrows and miseries of this life, and thefinal deprivation of life itself ; though, in'thefirst threa- tening tacitly, it may include the forfeiture of every thing God hadbefore given, so far as God pleased to resume it. See note,. question IX. section VI: II. The next thing our divines have usually included in the word dying, is spiritrtal death, which has been generally ex- tended to signify the anguish of a guilty conscience,the loss of the divine image in holiness, with the loss of the divine favour,and the infliction of new sorrows on the sotìl. Let us consider each of these apart, and see how far they may be included in the first threatening. I. The anguish of conscience can never belong to any but the personal transgressor himself, because it consists in the un- easy and painful reflections of the mind of him that has sinned, charging himself with his own act of folly and disobedience. This is the natural effect or consequent of personal sin, and not so properly the threatened penalty of the law. This anguish does not come upon the offspringof Adam by imputation on the account of the first sin, for it can never be imputed to another per- son by-any representation or suretyship :' Norcan it ever be con- veyed or transmitted by any natural propagation or descent ; for, in the nature of things, anguish of conscience can only belong to the very person who is conscious of his own actual folly and rebellion, which another person can never be conscious of*. But though this cannot be communicated to the offspring of Adam, on account of his sin ; yet when they become personal sinners, they feel this anguish of conscience also arising from their own actual transgressions, as the natural consequence of a guilty mind. 2. The loss of the image of God in holiness is another thing contained in spiritual death, and in the New Testament this is termed by St. Paul,' a death in trespasses and sins; Eph. H. 1. It consists in the corruption'of human' nature, and a bias or propensity toward evil. But this cannot be so properly threatened as the penalty of the law to be inflicted for the sin of Adam ; for the holy and righteous God cannot be the author of * By the way we may take notice here, that though infants have the sin of Adam so far imputed to them, as to fall under the sentence of death ¡ and though the sins of the world were so far imputed to Christ, the second Adam, as to ex- pose him to suffer ing s of soul and body, and to the accursed death, yet neither infants nor our blessed Lord ever had, nor can have, any anguish of conscience, because this arises only from the actual and personal sin striking the mind of the actual and personal transgressor with sharp ',flexions and inward remorse, as conscious of his own fault. We may all be grieved acid sorry that Adam our father sinned, but we cannot have painful inward remorse, reproaches or self- reflections, on the account of the sin or sins which we ourselves never corn- psi tied.
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