Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

discovery of the bieffedness he stood poffeffed of. Therefore, agreeable to our former reasoning on the preceding head, Adam would neceffarily conceive, when it was faid unto him, in the day, thou eateft thereof, thou shalt furely die, that his difobedience would be attended with the forfeiture and a deprivation of the life, or lives, he then poffeffed, and which his obedience would eternally fecure unto him. Nor could any thing lefs be intended in the threatening against disobedience, thou shalt furely die; than a death opposed to the lives poffeft, or poffible to be poffeft, in confequence of obedience. That bodily death was included in the penalty has been proved already; and that spiritual death was equally included, will more fully appear from the following confiderations.

It is faid, that, man became a living foul, this life man had from God, the great and gracious author of it; his fpiritual life, was an immortal fpark communicated by the father of spirits, the fountain of uncreated light and life; and which nothing could extinguish. Sin itself could not annihilate the foul; but being effentially contrary to the purity of it's nature, would neceffarily darken and obfcure the luftre of it's native brightnefs, and render it's being less desirable than not to be at at all. On the condition of obedience, man would neceffarily have enjoyed the bleffings he poffeft; juftice itself was engaged to fecure them; and on the contrary, the condition not fulfilled, juftice itself must stand full against him.

Upon man's difobedience, it was not poffible the union betwixt God and his foul could fubfift; God's holiness would neceffarily forbid it; he is

of

of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, much more to hold, converfe, and continue in covenant and fellowship with a notorious offender. Continue

in covenant he could not, the conditions and fanctions thereof being already diffolved, and broken, juftice would neceffarily forbid it; nor could communion and fellowship any longer fubfift, fince there now wanted a fimilarity in the nature of the parties to be united; which in this cafe was neceffary; and an emnity in confequence of fin, had faftened upon the mind of man, and rendered it utterly impoffible. Holiness, is effential to the divine nature, and the most exprefs image of God, that can appear in any created being. The Lord exhorts his people to holiness, faying, be ye boly, for I am holy; and without boliness, no man fball fee the Lord. The highly favoured fervants of God, when admitted in pleafing vifion, to view the heavenly worshippers and hear their afcriptions of glory and honor to the eternal King; they fung in fweet refponfes, boly, holy, holy, is the Lord of hofts; holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty. If. vi. 3. Rev. iv. 8. Now fin and difobedience, being the very reverse of this, can no more be mixed together with it, or stand before it approved and accepted, than darkness can be mixed in the body of the fun, or find a place of existence in his meridian beams. And as spiritual life, or the life of the foul, confifts in an union with, and the enjoyment of God; fo the diffolution of this union, and the deprivation of that enjoyment, is what we mean by spiritual death; and which muft neceffarily be inflicted on Adam, in confequence of his fin.

Again, the righteous law of God, muft needs pafs

pass a sentence of condemnation against the of fender, fuitable to the nature of the offence; but the offence was principally of a fpiritual kind, viz. pride, prefumption, ingratitude, &c. of which the eating the interdicted fruit was but the vifible expreffion; or to use the words of the apostle James, Luft when it hath conceived, bringeth forth fin, Ch. i. 15. Therefore the sentence of the law principally refpected the foul. Befides, the law of God is founded upon the effential attributes of holiness and juftice, and is a tranfcript of them; fo that these are seen in the perfect law, as objects appear and are seen in a glafs; and, as the cherubim, and flaming fword, guard and keep the way, of the tree of life; fo the divine holiness and juftice, preferve and keep the law; from all inflexibility, mutability, or fhadow of turning and the former must change their nature, before the latter can acquit an offender, or mitigate it's rigor.

Again, that fpiritual death is inflicted as the punishment of fin, the many declarations in the word of God, against finners, will evince. It has been affirmed by fome, that the promises, and threatenings, contained in the old teftament, have no respect unto fpiritual things; and that the people of the Jews had no certain knowledge of a future ftate; and would fupport their opinion by Paul's words to Timothy, who bath brought life and immortality to light, inferring from hence, that the foul's immortality, refted upon uncertain conjectures, till it was revealed in the gospel of Jefus Chrift. But this notion feems to have gained acceptance, through inattention to the word of God; in which, the belief of the immorta

lity of the foul, appears to have been received, not as a thing barely poffible, or which had fome figns of probability; but as a matter of the greateft certainty, in the earlieft ages of the world. If this be not granted, the account Mofes has given of Enoch's translation, will be hard to reconcile ; for if Mofes did not firmly believe an after state; to fay, that Enoch walked with God, and that God took him; would be, in effect to fay, Enoch was a better man than most or all in his day, he feared God, and did the things that pleafed him ; and therefore the Lord inflicted upon him the heaviest judgment, that his nature was capable of fuffering, even death; for he took him out of the land of the living, and deprived him of all the bleffings and benefits peculiar to his only period of exiftence. And Enoch himself who lived long before Mofes, looked by faith beyond the utmost bounds of time, when he prophefying, faid, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thoufand of his faints, &c. Jude xiv. Nor could Paul have placed Enoch with any propriety amongst his lift of worthies who atchieved the nobleft deeds by faith; had he fuppofed Enoch an infidel in this particular; neither would it have comported with the apoftle's defign in the chapter, which was to encourage the Hebrews to firmnefs of faith in the Lord Jefus Chrift, by the example of the faints of God in all ages. Of whom, fays he, having feen the promises afar off, they were perfuaded of them. But to return from this digreffion, (which here feemed neceffary to be made;) as the doctrine of the foul's immortality, appears to have been received in the firft ages of the world; it can hardly be fuppofed that the mani

festations

[ocr errors]

feftations of the divine difpleasure against fin, could be deemed by them, to terminate in temporal judgments; and efpecially as the Lord did from time to time declare his deteftation of fin, and his fettled purpose to punish it with death.

This meffage the Lord fent unto his people by the prophet Ezekiel, chap. xviii. ver. 26. When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; dieth impenitent, for his iniquity that he hath done fhall he die, die fpiritually, die eternally. When Nathan the prophet commiffioned by the Lord, had extorted from the king of Ifrael a fentence of condemnation against himself; the man that hath done this thing fhall furely die; and the prophet applied the fentence, to the guilty monarch's heart; thou art the man, he trembling and confounded faid, I have finned against the Lord, to whom with healing, heart-reviving words, the prophet faid, the Lord hath put away thy fin; for which, thou didft deferve to be difinherited of thy portion in heaven, and to be deprived of the comforts of his prefence, and the light of his countenance upon earth; but, thou shalt not die. The Lord will not withdraw his spirit from thee, nor fuffer thee in thy fall, to be utterly caft down, but will yet uphold thee with his hand. It is not to be doubted, but that David conceived of himself at this time as obnoxious to fpiritual death; even that, which confifts in a deprivation of the light of God's countenance, and the comforts of his fpirit; hence in his penetential pfalm, compofed under an afflicting fenfe of his fin; he earnestly deprecates the punishment his fin had deferved, caft me not

B

away

« ZurückWeiter »