The next evil property, taken from trees and applied to men, is SI? airodavovTa, tivice dead. If you apply this to the trees, they may be twice dead, either in regard of fruit, as a barren thing is said to be dead, as ' the deadness of Sarah's womb,' Eom. iv. 19 ; or, in regard of sub- stance, rotten and like doaty trees, growing worse and worse ; or ' twice dead,' by a Hebraism, 'very dead,' as (ioM6/e is put for much. But now, if you look to the reddition of this similitude, these seducers are ' twice dead/ both in regard of their natural estate, ' dead in trespasses and sins,' and their apostasy, or decay of that life which they seemed to have by the grace of the gospel, wilful defection making their case incurable, Heb. vi. 5, 6, 2 Peter ii. 20.
Obs. 1. Now, in this description you may observe a gradation: — (1.) ' Whose fruit withereth ; ' (2.) ' Without fruit ; ' (3.) ' Twice dead.' First had fruit, and then leaves, and then rotte7iness. Note, that deceivers and hypocrites ' grow worse and worse.' You have it from the apostle Paul also, 2 Tim. iii. 13, ' But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.' They deceive others, and the devil deceiveth them. The two states are not at a stay ; wicked men grow worse and worse, and godly men grow better and better. Observe, then, which way is jonv progress and growth. The glory of the Lord, in Ezekiel, departed by degrees : first from the holy place, then from the altar of burnt-offering, then the threshold of the house, then the city, then the mountain which is on the east side of the city ; it stood hovering there, as loath to be gone. So the Spirit of God doth not all at once depart from men, but by degrees. First men suspect duties, then dispute against them, then shake them off, and then come to beastliness and profaneness. Or, if you will, take the gradation thus: — First, God is cast out of the closet, private intercourses are neglected ; then out of the family; then out of the congregation, and public ordinances seem useless things ; and then blasphemies and a profane vertiginous spirit ensueth. First, men begin to wrangle, and sceptically to debate matters of religion, and within a while to oppose the truth : ' The beginning is foolishness, and the latter end is mischievous madness,' Eccles. x. 13.
Ohs. 2. Again, I observe, men that fall off from the profession of the truth are twice dead. To natural they bring on judicial hardness; when they seemed to make some escape from the misery of nature they relapse into it again, and then their chains are doubled ; as a prisoner that hath once broken prison, if taken again, is laden with irons. Two ways do natural men come to be twice dead — by custom
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in sinning, and by a revolt from God after they bad given tbeir names to bim. By custom in sinning, for by tbat means they are hardened in their way, and ' given up to a reprobate mind,' so as to lose all sense of sin, Eom. i. 26-28 ; and by revolt from God ; those that will, after trial, forsake him, no wonder if God leave them to their own clioice, to be held under the power of the devil, by a dark and foolish heart.
There is one clause yet remaining, eKpL^codevra, plucked up hy the roots, and then trees are past all hope of springing and sprouting again ; and so it fitly noteth their incurable apostasy. In this latter clause is set forth: — (1.) Their being deprived of all spiritual communion with Christ and his mystical body. (2.) Their incapacity to bring forth fruit. (3.) Their readiness for burning and destruction. Note : —
Ohs. That barren and corrupt trees shall utterly be rooted out of God's vineyard ; they shall not have a visible abode and standing there. Now this is brought to pass partly by their own act : 1 John ii. 19, ' They went out from us because they were not of us ; for if they were of us, they would have continued with us ;' they separated themselves from the communion of the faithful, to which they did never truly belong, both from the doctrine professed in the church, and fellowship with them in the use of ordinances. Partly by God's act, an act of judgment on his part : Eom. xi. 20, ' For unbelief were they broken off.' Partly by the act of the church, by which scandalous sinners are taken from among them: 1 Cor. v. 13, 'Put away from among yourselves that wicked person.' Well, then, let us walk so that this heavy judgment may never be laid upon us ; let us get a real union with Christ, for then we can never be broken off: you can no more sever the leaven and the dough than Christ and a believer,^ &c. "Walk with the more caution : ' Be not high-minded, but fear ;' it is dreadful to be cast out of the true church ; the finger that is cut off from the hand is also cut off from the head. That censure, if rightly administered against us, should be matter of great sorrow and humi- liation to us, kc.