“8. But the first man, thus created to be a prince of a new, angelical kingdom, stood not out his trial.
“9. He came into this world in that same glorious body in which after the resurrection, he shall be like the angels in heaven. For no other body, but that which was at first created shall rise in Jesus Christ. He only restores that which was lost. The resurrection will only take away what sin and death, and earth, had added to the first created body.
“10. In this glorious body, did the first man stand in this world, incapable of receiving any hurt, or knowing evil from outward nature. The Holy Ghost was the light that illuminated all both within and without him.
“11. Had he fixed his will to be eternally what he was, had he desired only to eat of the tree of life, to live by the word of God, he had been established and confirmed an eternal angel, or divine man.
“12. But his imagination wandered after the secrets of this outward world, after the knowledge of such good and evil, as wrought an entire change in his nature.
“He turned from the tree of life to the forbidden fruit. And so he fell as deep into an earthly life, and the miseries of the earth, as the devil fell into a hellish life, and the miseries of hell.
“13. And here we may see as in a glass, what it is that earthly desires now do to every son of Adam. They do all that which they did to the first man. They carry on, keep up, and continue that same death in us which he died in paradise.
“14. Thus it was, that Adam lost the light of the Son of God, and the breath of the Holy Spirit. And this was the immediate death that he died in paradise, a death much more grievous than that which is to bring us all to our graves. It was a death that extinguished all that was divine and holy in human nature, just as the sin of angels turned them into devils. Now in looking at this death, we have the clearest view, of what our regeneration by the second Adam means. For what can it be, but the restoration of that divine life which was lost in Adam the first? For will any one say, that Christ is not in as high a degree, the restorer of our nature, as Adam was the destroyer of it? Now tho’ this great truth, seated in the very heart of the Christian religion, speaks at once the whole nature of regeneration; yet many learned men either not seeing or not loving, or being afraid to own it, have been forced, not only to mistake, but wholly to sink the most glorious article of the Christian faith? And instead of telling us the height and depth of the blessing of having the nature and life of Christ derived into us, they can only teach us, what kind of word regeneration is—that it is a figurative expression—and that our Saviour may be justified, for having made use of it. What learned pains do people take, to root up the belief of our having a new life in Christ? They run from book to book, from language to language; they consult all [♦]critics, search all lexicons, to shew us, that according to the rules of true criticism, regeneration need signify no more than the federal rite of baptism. Nay, what is still worse, they appeal to the poor notions of the blind, infatuated Jews! They produce the opinions which they had of a regeneration talked of, and a baptism used amongst them, when they rejected and crucified our Saviour, to teach us, what we are to understand by our divine birth in Christ Jesus! But if this be the use of learning among ourselves, we need not look at Rome, or the ancient Rabbies of the Jewish Sanhedrim, to see what miserable work learning can make with the holy scriptures. For it is sure the true Messiah is not rightly owned, nor the Christian religion truly known, till the soul is all love, and faith, and hunger, and thirst after this new life, and real formation of Jesus Christ in it: till without fear of enthusiasm it seeks, and expects all its redemption from it. But to return.
[♦] “criticks” replaced with “critics” for consistency
“15. Man, thus dead to the divine life, thus destitute of the Son, and Holy Spirit, thus fallen into an earthly nature, under the dominion of an earthly world, which would afford him for a while a miserable life, and then leave him to a more miserable death; could do no more to replace himself in paradise, or to regain his first nature, than the devil could do to restore himself to his lost glory.