Again: Is not the plain letter of scripture, that _Adam_ died the day that he did eat of the earthly tree? Have we not the most solemn asseveration of God for the truth of this? Was not the change which _Adam_ found in himself, a demonstration of the truth of this fact? Instead of the image and likeness of God which he was created, he was stript of all his glory, afraid of being seen, and unable to see himself uncovered; delivered up a slave to the rage of all the elements of this world, not knowing which way to look, or what to do in a world, where he was dead to all that he formerly felt, and alive only to a new and dreadful feeling of heat and cold, shame and fear, and horrible remorse of mind, at his said entrance in a world, whence God and his own glory, was departed. Death enough surely!
Death in its highest reality, a much greater change, than when an animal of flesh and blood is only changed into a cold lifeless carcase.
A death, that in all nature has none equal to it, none of the same nature with it, but that which the angels died, when, from angels of God, they became living devils, and slaves to darkness. Say that the angels lost no life, that they did not die a real death, because they are yet alive in the horrors of darkness; and then you may say, with the same truth, that _Adam_ did not die when he lost God, and the first glory of his creation, because he ♦afterwards breathed in a world which was outwardly, in all its parts, full of the same curse that was within himself. But farther, not only the plain text, and the change of state which _Adam_ found in himself, demonstrated a real death to his former state; but the whole tenor of scripture requires it; all the system of our redemption proceeds upon it. For what need of redemption, if _Adam_ had not lost his first state? What need of the Deity to enter again into the human nature, not only as acting, but being born in it? What need of all this mysterious method to bring the life from above again into man, if the life from above had not been lost? It is true indeed that _Adam_, in his death to the divine life, was left in the possession of an earthly life. But ’tis wonderful that any man should imagine _Adam_ did not die on the day of his sin, because he had as good a life left in him as the beasts of the field have.
♦ “aftewards” replaced with “afterwards”
For is this _the life_, or is _the death_ that such animals die, the life and death with which our redemption is concerned? Are not all the scriptures full of a life and death of a much higher kind? What ground or reason then can there be to think of the death of an animal of this world, when we read of the death that _Adam_ was to die the day of his sin? For does not all that befel him on the day of his sin shew _that_ he lost a much greater life, suffered a more dreadful change, than that of giving up the breath of this world? For in the day of his sin, this angel of paradise; this Lord of the new creation, fell from the throne of his glory (like _Lucifer_ from heaven) into the state of a poor, naked, distressed animal of flesh and blood; inwardly and outwardly feeling the curse in himself, and all the creation; and reduced to have only the faith of the devils, to believe and tremble. Proof enough, surely, that _Adam_ was dead to the life of God; and that, with his death, all that was _divine_ and _heavenly_ in his soul, was quite at an end. Now _this_ life to which _Adam_ then died, is that life which all his posterity are in want of. And is there any reason to say, that mankind, in their natural state, are not dead to that first life in which _Adam_ was created, because they are alive to this world? Yet this is as well as to say, that _Adam_ did not die a real death, because he had afterwards an earthly life in him. How comes our Lord to say, _that unless ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you_? Did he mean, ye have no earthly life in you? How comes the apostle to say, _he that hath the Son of God has life, but he that hath not the Son of God hath not life_? Does he mean the life of this world? No. But both Christ and his apostles assert this great truth, that all mankind are in the state of _Adam’s death_, till they are made alive again by the _Son_ and _Holy Spirit_. So plain is it, both from the letter and spirit of scripture, that _Adam_ died a _real death_ to the kingdom of God in the day of his sin. Take away this death, and all the scheme of our redemption has no ground left to stand upon.
For without the _reality_ of a new birth, founded on a _real death_ in the fall of _Adam_, the Christian scheme is but a skeleton of empty words, a detail of strange mysteries between God and man, that do nothing, and have nothing to do.
Oh _Academicus_, what a blindness there is in the world! What a stir is there among mankind about _religion_, and yet almost all seem to be afraid of _that_, in which alone is salvation!