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SERMON XXXI.

Of the State of Spiritual Death, and the Mifery thereof.

EPH. v. 14.

Wherefore he faith, Awake thou that fleepest, and arife from the dead, and Chrift fhall give thee light.

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HIS fcripture represents unto us the miferable and lamentable ftate of the unregenerate, as being under the power of spiritual death, which is the caufe and inlet of all other miferies. From hence, therefore, I fhall make the firft difcovery of the woful and wretched ftate of them that apply not Jefus Christ to their own fouls.

The scope of the apoftle in this context, is to prefs believers to a circumfpect and holy life; to "walk as children of light." This exhortation is laid down in ver. 8. and preffed by divers arguments in the following verses.

First, From the tendency of holy principles, unto holy fruits and practice, ver. 9, 10.

Secondly, From the convincing efficacy of practical godliness, upon the confciences of the wicked, ver. 11, 12, 13. It awes and convinces their confciences.

Thirdly, From the co-incidence of such a converfation with the | great design and drift of the fcriptures, which is to awaken men by regeneration, out of that fpiritual fleep, or rather death, which fin hath caft them into; and this is the argument,of the text, Wherefore he faith, Arvake thou that fleepeft, &c. There is fome difficulty in the reference of thefe words. Some think it is to Ifa. xxvi. 19. "Awake and fing ye that dwell in the duft." Others to Ifa. Ix. 1. "Arife, fhine, for thy light is come," &c. But most probably, the words neither refer to this or that particularly, but to the drift and scope of the whole fcriptures, which were inspired and written upon this great defign, to awaken and quicken fouls out of the state of fpiritul death. And in them we are to confider these three things more diftinctly and particularly.

1. The miferable ftate of the unregenerate; they are afleep and dead.

2. Their duty; which is to "awake, and stand up from the "dead.

3. The power enabling them thereunto; "Chrift fhall give "thee light."

First, The miferable state of the unregenerate, reprefented under the notions of fleep and death; both expreflions intending one

and the fame thing, though with fome variety of notion. The Chriftless and unregenerate world is in a deep fleep; a fpirit of flumber, fenfeleffnefs and fecurity is fallen upon them, though they lie expofed immediately to eternal wrath and mifery, ready to drop into hell every moment. Just as a man that is fast asleep in a house on fire, and whilft the confuining flames are round about him, his fancy is fporting itself in fome pleasant dream; this is a very lively refemblance of the unregenerate foul. But yet he that fleeps hath the principle of life entire in him, though his fenfes be bound, and the actions of life suspended by fleep. Left therefore we should think it is only fo with the unregenerate, the expreffion is defignedly varied, and thofe that were faid to be afleep, are po-. fitively affirmed to be dead; on purpose to inform us that it is not a fimple fufpenfion of the acts and exercise, but a total privation of the principle of spiritual life, which is the mifery of the unrege

nerate.

Secondly, We have here the duty of the unregenerate, which is to "awake out of sleep, and arise from the dead." This is their great concernment; no duty in the world is of greater neceffity and importance to them. "Strive (faith Chrift) to enter in at the * ftrait gate," Luke xiii. 24. And the order of thefe duties is very natural. First awake, then arife. Startling and rouzing convictions make way for spiritual life; till God awake us by convictions of our misery, we will never be perfuaded to arife and move towards Chrift for remedy and fafety.

Thirdly, But you will fay, if unregenerate men be dead men, to what purpose is it to perfuade them to arise and stand up: The very exhortation fuppofes fome powers or ability in the unregenerate; elfe in vain are they commanded to arife*. This difficulty is folved in this very text, though the duty is ours, yet the power is God's. God commands that in his word, which only his grace can perform. "Chrift fhall give thee light." Popish commentators would build the tower of free-will upon this fcripture, by a very weak argument, drawn from the order wherein these things are here expreffed; which is but a very weak foundation to build upon, for it is very usual in scripture to put the effect before, and the cause after, as it is here, fo in Ifa. xxvi. 19. "Awake and fing, "ye that dwell in the duft." But I will not here intangle my difcourfe with that controversy; that which I aim at is plain in the words, viz.

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Though the words feem to import a willingness first to awake and rife, and then to be enlightened, yet we are to understand, that it is by the efficacy of Christ's light that the sinner is made to awake and rise. Roll, on the place.

Doct. That all Chriftless fouls are under the power of fpiritual death; they are in the fate of the dead.

Multitudes of teftimonies are given in fcripture to this truth; Eph. ii. 1, 5. "You hath he quickened who were dead in tref"paffes and fins." Col. ii. 13. "And you being dead in your "fins, and the uncircumcifion of your fiefh, hath he quickened "together with him;" with many other places of the fame importance. But the method in which I fhall difcourfe this point will be this;

First, I will fhew you in what fenfe Chriftlefs and unregenerated men are faid to be dead.

Secondly, What the ftate of fpiritual death is.

Thirdly, How it appears that all unregenerate men are in this fad ftate. And then apply it.

First, In what fenfe are Chriftlefs and unregenerate men faid to be dead men.

To open this, we must know there is a three-fold death, viz. 1. Natural.

2. Spiritual.

3. Eternal.

Natural death is nothing elfe but the privation of the principle of natural life, or the feparation of the foul from the body, James ii. 26. "The body without the fpirit is dead." Spiritual death is the privation of the principle of fpiritual life, or the want and abfence of the quickening Spirit of God in the foul; the foul is the life of the body, and Chrift is the life of the foul; the abfence of the foul is death to the body, and the abfence or want of Chrift is death to the foul. Eternal death is the feparation both of body and foul from God, which is the misery of the damned. Now chriftless and unregenerate men are not dead in the first sense; they are naturally alive though they are dead while they live; nor are they yet dead in the laft fenfe, eternally feparated from God by an irrevocable fentence as the damned are; but they are dead in the fecond fenfe; they are fpiritually dead, whilft they are naturally alive; and this fpiritual death is the fore-runner of eternal death. Now fpiritual death is put in fcripture in oppofition to a two-fold fpiritual life, viz.

1. The life of juftification.

2. The life of fanctification.

Spiritual death, in oppofition to the life of juftification, is nothing else but the guilt of fin bringing us under the sentence of death. Spiritual death, in oppofition to the life of fanctification, is the pollution or dominion of fin. In both thefe fenfes, unrege

nerate men are dead men; but it is the last which I am properly concerned to speak to in this place, and therefore,

Secondly, Let us briefly confider what this fpiritual death is, which, as before was hinted, is the abfence of the quickening Spirit of Christ from the foul of any man. That foul is a dead foul, into which the Spirit of Chrift is not infufed in the work of regeneration; and all its works are dead works, as they are called, Heb. ix. 14. For, look how it is with the damned, they live, they have fenfe and motion, and an immortality in all thefe; yet because they are eternally feparated from God, the life which they live, deferves not the name of life, but it is every where in fcripture ftiled death: fo the unregenerate, they are naturally alive; they eat and drink, they buy and fell, they talk and laugh, they rejoice in the creatures; and many of them fpend their days in pleasures, and then go down to the grave. This is the life they live, but yet the fcripture rather calls it death than life; because though they live, yet it is without God in the world, Eph. ii. 12. though they live, yet it is a life alienated from the life of God, Eph. iv. 18. And therefore while they remain naturally alive, they are in fcripture faid " to remain in death," 1 John iii. 14. and to be "dead while they live, 1 Tim. v. 6. And there is great reafon why a christless, an unregenerate state, should be reprefented in fcripture, under the notion of death; for there is nothing in nature which more aptly reprefents that miferable state of the foul, than natural death doth. The dead fee and difcern nothing, and the natural man perceiveth not the things that are of God. The dead have no beauty or defirableness in them; "Bury my dead (faith Abraham) out of my fight;" neither is there any spiritual loveliness in the unregenerate. True it is, fome of them have fweet natural qualities and moral excellencies, which are engaging things, but these are so many flowers, decking and adorning a dead corpfe. The dead are objects of pity and great lamentation: men used to mourn for the dead, Eccl. xii. 5. "Man goeth to his "long home, and the mourners go about the streets." But unregenerate, and chriftlefs fouls, are much more the objects of pity and lamentation. How are all the people of God (especially thofe that are naturally related to them) concerned to mourn over them and for them, as Abraham did for Ishmael, Gen. xvii. 18. “O that "Ifhmael might live before thee." Upon thefe, and many other accounts, the state of unregeneracy is reprefented to us in the notion of death.

Thirdly, And that this is the state of all Chriftless and unfanc tified perfons, will, undeniably, appear two ways.

1. The caufes of fpiritual life have not wrought upon them. 2. The effects and figns of fpiritual life do not appear in them;

and therefore they are in the state, and under the power of fpiritual death.

Firft, The caufes of fpiritual life have not wrought upon them. There are two causes of spiritual life,

1. Principal, and internal.

2. Subordinate and external.

The principal internal cause of spiritual life is the regenerating Spirit of Chrift, Rom. viii. 2. "The law of the Spirit of life in "Chrift Jefus hath made me free from the law of fin and death." It is the Spirit, as a regenerating Spirit, that unites us with Christ, in whom all spiritual life originally is, John v. 25, 26. «Verily I "fay unto you, that the hour is coming, and now is, when the "dead fhall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear

fhall live: For as the Father hath life in himself, fo hath he "given to the Son to have life in himself." As all the members of the natural body receive animation, fenfe, and motion, by their union with their natural head; fo all believers, the members of Chrift, receive fpiritual life and animation by their union with their natural head; fo all believers, the members of Chrift, receive spiritual life and animation by their union with Christ their mystical head, Eph. iv. 15, 16. Except we come to him, and be united with him in the way of faith, we can have no life in us, John v. 40, "Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life." Now the Spirit of God hath yet exerted no regenerating, quickening influences, nor begotten any fpecial faving faith in natural, unfanctified men; whatever he hath done for them in the way of natural, or fpiritual common gifts, yet he hath not quickened them with the life of Chrift. And as for the fubordinate external means of life, viz. the preaching of the gofpel, which is the inftrument of the Spirit in this glorious work, and is therefore called, The word of life, Phil. ii. 16. This word hath not yet been made a regenerating, quickening word to their fouls. Poffibly it hath enlightened them, and convinced them: it hath wrought upon their minds in the way of common illumination, and upon their confciences in the way of conviction, but not upon their hearts and wills, by way of effectual converfion. To this day the Lord hath not given them an heart opening itself, in the way of faith, to receive Jefus Christ.

Secondly, The effects and figns of fpiritual life do not appear in them: For,

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Firft, They have no feeling, or fenfe of mifery and danger. mean no fuch fenfe as thoroughly awakens thein to apply Chrift their remedy. That fpiritual judgment lies upon them, Ifa. vi. 9, 10. " And he faid, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but "understand not; and fee ye indeed, but perceive not; make the

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