The last thing denied is its " causing mortality." God threaten- ing man with death if he sinned. Gen. ii, 1 7, seems to instruct us that if he had not sinned he should not have died ; and upon his sin, aflfirming that on that account he should be dissolved and return to his dust. Gen. iii. 19, no less evidently convinces us that his
150 VINDICI^ EVANGELIC^.
sin caused mortality actually and in the event. The apostle, also, affirming that " death entered by sin, and passed upon all, inasmuch as all have sinned," seems to be of our mind. Neither can any other sufficient cause be assigned on the account whereof innocent man should have been actually mortal or eventually have died. Mr B., it seems, is of another persuasion, and, for the confirmation of his judgment, gives you the words of the curse of God to man upon his sinning, " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return;" the strength of his reason therein lying in this, that if God de- nounced the sentence of mortality on man after sinning, and for his sin, then mortality was not an effect of sin, but man was mortal before in the state of innocency. Who doubts but that at this rate he may be able to prove what he pleases ?
A brief declaration of our sense in ascribing immortality to the first man in the state of innocency, that none may be mistaken in the expressions used, may put a close to our consideration of this chap- ter. In respect of his own essence and being, as also of all outward and extrinsical causes, God alone is eminently and perfectly immor- tal; he only in that sense hath "life and immortality."'' Angels and souls of men, immaterial substances, are immortal as to their intrinsi- cal essence, free from principles of corruption and mortality ; but yet are obnoxious to it in respect of that outward cause (or the power of God), which can at any time reduce them into nothing. The immor- tality we ascribe to man in innocency is only an assured preservation by the power of God from actual dying, notwithstanding the possi- bility thereof which he was in upon the account of the constitution of his person, and the principles thereunto concurring. So that though from his own nature he had a possibility of dying, and in that sense was mortal, yet God's institution assigning him life in the way of obedience, he had a possibility of not dying, and was in that sense immortal, as hath been declared.^ If any one desire farther satisfaction herein, let him consult Johannes Junius' answer to Socinus' Pre- lections, in the first chapter whereof he pretends to answer in proof the assertion in title, " Primus homo ante lapsum natura mortalis fuit ;" wherein he partly mistakes the thing in question, which re-
* " Illud corpus ante peccatum, et mortale secundum aliam, et immortale secundum aliam causam dici poterat ; id est, mortale quia poterat mori, immortale quia poterat non mori. Aliud est enim non posse mori, sicut quasdam naturas immortales creavit Deus, aliud est autem posse non mori ; secundum quem modum primus creatus est homo immortalis, quod ei pra3stabatur de ligno vitae, non de constitutione naturre ; a quo ligno separatus est cum peccasset, ut posset mori, qui nisi peccasset posset non mori. Mortalis ergo erat conditione corporis animalis, immortalis autem beueficio con- ditoris. Si cnim corpus animale, utique et mortale, quia et mori poterat, quamvis et immortale dico, quia et mori non poterat." — Aug. torn. iii. de Genesi ad literam, lib. vi. cap. xxiv.
- " Quincunque dicit Adam primum hominem mortalem factum, ita ut sive peccaret sive non peccaret, moreretur in corpore, hoc est de coi-pore exiret non peccati merito sed necessitate naturae, anathema sit." — Cone. Milevitan, cap. i.
OF man's condition befoke and after the fall. 151
spects not the constitution of man's nature, but the event of the con- dition wherein he was created/ and himself in another place states it better.^
The sum of the whole may be reduced to what follows : — Simply and absolutely immortal is God only : " He only hath immortality," 1 Tim. vi. 1 6. Immortal in respect of its whole substance or essence is that which is separate from all matter, which is the principle of cor- ruption, as angels, or is not educed from the power of it, whither of its own accord it should again resolve, as the souls of men. The bodies also of the saints in heaven, yea, and of the wicked in hell, shall be immortal, though in their own natures corruptible, being changed and preserved by the power of God. Adam was mortal as to the consti- tution of his body, which was apt to die ; immortal in respect of his soul in its own substance ; immortal in their union by God's appoint- ment, and from his preservation upon his continuance in obedience. By the composition of his body before his fall, he had a posse mori; by the appointment of God, a posse non mori ; by his fall, a non posse non mori.
In this estate, on his disobedience, he was threatened with death; and therefore was obedience the tenure whereby he held his grant of immortality, which on his neglect he was penally to be deprived of. In that estate he had, — (1.) The immortality mentioned, or a power of not dying, from the appointment of God ; (2.) An uprightness and integrity of his person before God, with an ability to walk with him in all the obedience he required, being made in the image of God and upright ; (3.) A right, upon his abode in that condition, to an eternally blessed life ; which he should (4.) actually have enjoyed, for he had a pledge of it in the " tree of life " He lost it for himself and us ; which if he never had it he could not do. The death where- with he was threatened stood in opposition to all these, it being most ridiculous to suppose that any thing penal in the Scripture comes under the name of "death" that was not here threatened to Adam ; — death of the body, in a deprivation of his immortality spoken of; of the soid spiritually, in sin, by the loss of his righteousness and integrity; of both, in their obnoxiousness to death eternal; actually to be undergone, without deliverance by Christ, in opposition to the right to a better, a blessed condition, which he had. That all these are penal, and called in the Scriptures by the name of " death," is evident to all that take care to know what is contained in them.