CHAP. IV.] NATURAL AND SPIEITUAL, COMPARED. 283
This death that imregenerate persons are under is twofold: —
1. Legal, with reference unto the sentence of tiie law. The sanction of the law was, that upon sin man should die: " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death/' Gen. ii. 1 7. Upon this sen- tence Adam and all his posterity became dead in law, morally dead, or obnoxious unto death loenall}^, and adjudged unto it. This death is intended in some of the places before mentioned; as Rom. v. ]2, and it may be also, 2 Cor. v. 14: for as Christ died, so were all dead, lie died penally under the sentence of the law, and all were obnoxi- ous unto death, or dead on that account. But this is not the death which I intend, neither are we delivered from it by regeneration, but by justification, Rom. viii. 1.
2. There is in them a spiritual death, called so metaphorically, from the analogy and proportion that it bears unto death natural. Of great importance it is to know the true nature hereof, and how by reason thereof unregenerate men are utterly disabled from doing any thing that is spiritually good, until they are quickened by the almighty power and irresistible efficacy of the Holy Ghost. Where- fore, to declare this aright, we must consider the nature of life and death natural, in allusion whereunto the spiritual estate of unregene- rate men is thus described.
Life in general, or the life of a living creature, is " Actus vivifi- cantis in vivificatum^ per unionem utriusque ;" — " The act of a quick- ening principle on a subject to be quickened, by virtue of their union." And three things are to be considered in it: —
1. The principle of life itself; and this in man is the rational, living soul, called I2''*n T\tpf) ; Gen. il 7, " God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Having formed the body of man of the dust of the earth, he designed him a principle of life superior unto that of brute creatures, which is but the exurgency and spirit of their temperature and composition, though peculiarly educed by the formative virtue and power of the Holy Ghost, as hath been before declared. He creates for him, therefore, a separate, distinct, animating soul, and infuseth it into the matter prepared for its reception. And as he did thus in the beginning of the creation of the species or kind of the human race, in its first individuals, so he continueth to do the same in the ordinary course of the works of his providence for the continuation of it; for having ordained the preparation of the body by generation, he imme- diately infuseth into it the " living soul," the " breath of life."
2. There is the " actus primus," or the quickening act of this prin- ciple on the principle quickened, in and by virtue of union. Hereby the whole man becomes "^'0 ti'S?, — a " living soul;" -^vyj-Aog uvipoj'rog,
> Vivificandum ? according to the translation. — Ed.
284; LIFE AND DEATH, [BOOK III.
• — a person quickened by a vital princiiDle, and enabled for all naturally vital actions.
S. There are the acts of this life itself; and they are of two sorts: — (1.) 8uch as flow from life as life. (2.) Such as proceed from it as such a life, from the principle of a rational soul. Those of the first sort are natural and necessary, as are all the actings and energies of the senses, and of the locomotive faculty, as also what be- longs unto the receiving and improving of nutriment. These are acts of life, wlience the psalmist proves idols to be dead things from the want of them ; so far are they from having a divine life, as that they have no life at all, Ps. cxv. 4-7. These are acts of life as life, inse- parable from it ; and their end is, to preserve the union of the whole between the quickening and quickened principles, (2.) There are such acts of life as proceed from the especial nature of this quicken- ing principle. Such are all the elicit^ and imperate^ acts of our un- derstandings and wills; all actions that are voluntaiy, rational, and peculiarly human. These proceed from that special kind of life which is given by the es^Decial quickening principle of a rational soul.
Hence it is evident wherein death natural doth consist; and three things may be considered in it: — 1. The separation of the soul from the body. Hereby the act of infusing the living soul ceaseth unto all its ends; for as a principle of life unto the whole, it operates only by virtue of its union with the subject to be quickened by it. 2. A cessation of all vital actings in the ([uickened subject; for that union from whence they should proceed is dissolved. 3. As a con- sequent of these, there is in the body an impotency for and an inep- titude unto all vital operations. Not only do all operations of life actually cease, but the body is no more able to effect them. There remains in it, indeed, " potentia obedientialis," a " passive power" to receive life again, if communicated unto it by an external efficient cause, — so the body of Lazarus being dead had a receptive power of a living soul, — but an active power to dispose itself unto life or vital actions it hath not.