The next place is that ; Col. iii. 3-5, ' Ye are dead, therefore mortify.' It is spoken as a thing done already ; ye are dead ; yet there is a thing to be further done, therefore mortify. But how are we dead ? partly in regard of the certainty, to assure us it shall be done, and partly to oblige us the more strongly to endeavour it, and partly, because we have con- sented to this obligation in baptism. All the members of the church have engaged themselves to employ the death and strength of Christ for the subduing of sin ; they are dead, as they have upon this encourage- ment undertaken its death, and in part already begun it.
Secondly, How all can be said to be dead when Christ died, since most of the elect were not then born, or yet in being.
A ns. 1. When Christ was upon the cross he sustained the relation of our head or common person. It was not in his own name that he
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appeared before God's tribunal, but in ours, not as a private, but as a public person ; so that when he was crucified all believers were crucified in him ; for the act of a common person is the act of every particular person represented by him, as a knight or burgess in parliament serveth for his whole borough and county. Now that Christ was such a common person appeareth plainly by this, that Christ was that to us in grace what Adam was to us in nature or sin. The first Adam was said to be tvtto? tov fieWovro^, Eom. v. 14, 'The figure of him that was to come ; ' and Chri.st is called the second Adam, 1 Cor. xv. 45, the second common person ; so that as we had a death in sin from the first Adam, so a death to sin from the second ; as we stood in Adam in paradise, so we stood in Christ upon the cross. Adam's act in paradise was in effect ours : in Adam, we all died, 1 Cor. xv. 21 ; so Christ's act was in effect ours ; in Christ we all died spiritually, and mystically. Adam did, as it were, lend his body in paradise : we saw the forbidden fruit with his eyes, gathered it with his hands, ate it with his mouth — that is, we were ruined by these things, as if we had been by and actually consented to his sin. So in Christ's repre- sentation on the cross, all believers are concerned as if they had been by and actually present, and had been crucified in their own persons, and borne the punishment of their own sins ; for all this was done in their name and stead, that they might have the benefit.
2. Christ was on the cross, not only as a common person, but as a surety and undertaker. I say, in his death there was not only a satis- faction for sin, but an obligation to destroy it ; there was an undergoing and an undertaking. As he is set out in the scripture under the notion of a second Adam ; so also of a surety : Heb. vii. 22, Christ is called ' the surety of a better testament.' Now he was a surety mutually, on God's part and ours. First, He was to engage for us to God, and in the name of God engaged himself to us. The tenor of both engagements is in Eom. vi. 6, "That the body of death should be destroyed, that we should from thenceforth no longer serve sin.' As soon as we con- sent to this stipulation, this taketh effect. On God's part, Christ undertook to destroy the body of sin by the power of his Spirit, which should be given to us, to become a principle of life in us, and of death to our old man, Titus iii. 5. More particularly, we mortify the deeds of the body by the help of the Spirit, Eom. viii. 13. The Holy Ghost, when he reneweth the heart, puts into it a principle and seed of enmity against sin : 1 John iii. 9, 'He cannot sin, because the seed abideth in him ; ' and as that is cherished and obeyed, sin is resisted and morti- fied ; and he actuateth and quickeneth it yet more and more, that it may prevail against the sin which dwelleth in us. Secondly, As our surety he undertook that we should no longer serve sin, that we should not willingly indulge any presumptuous acts, nor slavishly lie down in any habit or course of sin, or under the power of any carnal dis- temper, but also should use all godly endeavours for the preventing, weakening, or subduing it. Christ's act being the act of a surety, he did oblige all the parties interested ; he purchased grace at God's hands, and bound us to use all holy means of watching, striving, humiliation, cut- ting oft' the provisions of the flesh, avoiding occasions, weaning the heart from earthly things, which are the bait and fuel of sin that keep it alive.
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3. Our consent to this engagement is actually given wheri we are converted, and solemnly ratified in baptism.