First, In what sense are Christless and unregenerate men said to be dead men.
To open this, we must know there is a three-fold death, viz.
Natural death is nothing else but the privation of the principle of natural life, or the separation of the soul from the body, James ii. 26. " The body without the spirit is dead." Spiritual death is the privation of the principle of spiritual life, or the want and ab- sence of the quickening Spirit of God in the soul ; the soul is the life of the body, and Christ is the life of the soul ; the absence of the soul is death to the body, and the absence or want of Christ is death to the soul. Eternal death is the separation both of body and soul from God, which is the misery of the damned. Now christless and unregenerate men are not dead in the first sense ; they are naturally alive though they are dead while they live ; nor are they yet dead in the last sense, eternally separated* from God by an irrevocable sentence as the damned are ; but they are dead in the second sense ; they are spiritually dead, whilst they are na- turally alive ; and this spiritual death is the fore-runner of eternal death. Now spiritual death is put in scripture in opposition to a two-fold spiritual life, viz.
1. The life of justification,
2. The life of sanctification.
Spiritual death in opposition to the life of justification, is no- thing else but the guilt of sin bringing us under the sentence of death. Spiritual death, in opposition to the life of sanctification, is the pollution or dominion of sin. In both these senses, unrege-
SERM. XXXI. THE METHOD OF GEACE. 425
nerate men are dead men ; but it is the last which I am properly concerned to speak to in this place, and therefore,
Secondly, Let us briefly consider what this spiritual death is, which, as before was hinted, is the absence of the quickening Spirit of Christ from the soul of any man. That soul is a dead soul, into which the Spirit of Christ is not infused in the work of regeneration ; and all its works are dead works, as they are called, Heb. ix. 14 For, look how it is with the damned, they live, they have sense and motion, and an immortality in all these ; yet be- cause they are eternally separated from God, the life which they live, deserves not the name of life, but it is every where in scrip- ture stiled death : so the unregenerate, they are naturally alive ; they eat and drink, they buy and sell, they talk and laugh, they rejoice in the creatures ; and many of them spend their days in pleasures, and then go down to the grave. This is the life they live, but yet the scripture rather calls it death than life ; because though they live, yet it is without God in the world, Eph. ii. 12. though they live, yet it is a life alienated from the life of God, Eph. iv. 18. And therefore while they remain naturally alive, they are in scripture said " to remain in death," 1 John iii. 14. and to be " dead while they live," 1 Tim. v. 6. And there is great reason why a christless, an unregenerate state, should be represented in scripture, under the notion of death ; for there is nothing in na- ture which more aptly represents that miserable state of the soul, than natural death doth. The dead see and discern nothing, and the natural man perceiveth not the things that are of God. The dead have no beauty or desirableness in them ; " Bury my dead (saith Abraham) out of my sight ;" neither is there any spiritual loveliness in the unregenerate. True it is, some of them have sweet natural qualities and moral excellencies, which are engaging things, but these are so many flowers, decking and adorning a dead corpse. The dead are objects of pity and great lamentation : men used to mourn for the dead, Eccl. xii. 5. " Man goeth to his " long home, and the mourners go about the streets." But unre- generate, and christless souls, are much more the objects of pity and lamentation. How are all the people of God (especially those that are naturally related to them) concerned to mourn over them and for them, as Abraham did for Ishmael, Gen. xvii. 18. " O that " Ishmael might live before thee." Upon these, and many other accounts, the state of unregeneracy is represented to us in the notion of death.
Thirdly, And that this is the state of all Christless and unsanc- tified persons, will, undeniably, appear two ways.
1. The causes of spiritual life have not wrought upon them.
2. The effects and signs of spiritual life do not appear in them,
426 THE METHOD OF GRACE: SEBM. XXXI.
and therefore they arc in the state, and under the power of spiri- tual death.
First, The causes of spiritual life have not wrought upon them. There are two causes of spiritual life,
1. Principal, and internal.
2. Subordinate and external.
The principal internal cause of spiritual life is the regenerating Spirit of Christ, Rom. viii. 2. "The law of the Spirit of life in " Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." It is the Spirit, as a regenerating Spirit, that unites us with Christ, in whom all spiritual life originally is, John v. 25, 26. " Verily I " say unto you, that the hour is coming, and now is, when the " dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God ; and they that hear " shall live : For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he " given to the Son to have life in himself." As all the members of the natural body receive animation, sense, and motion, by their union with their natural head ; so all believers, the members of Christ, receive spiritual life and animation by their union with their natural head ; so all believers, the members of Christ, receive spiritual life and animation by their union with Christ their mystical head, Eph. iv. 15, 1 6. Except we come to him, and be united with him in the way of faith, we can have no life in us, John v. 40. " Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life." Now the Spirit of God hath yet exerted no regenerating, quickening influ- ences, nor begotten any special saving faith in natural, unsanctified men ; whatever he hath done for them in the way of natural, or spiritual common gifts, yet he hath not quickened them with the life of Christ. And as for the subordinate external means of life, viz. the preaching of the gospel, which is the instrument of the Spirit in this glorious work, and is therefore called, The word of life, Phil. ii. 16. This word hath not yet been made a regenerating, quickening word to their souls. Possibly it hath enlightened them, and convinced them : it hath wrought upon their minds in the way of common illumination, and upon their consciences in the way of conviction, but not upon their hearts and wills, by way of effectual conversion. To this day the Lord hath not given them an heart opening itself, in the way of faith, to receive Jesus Christ.
Secondly, The effects and signs of spiritual life do not appear in them: For,