Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification,…

But what is this second death?

2. Sure it hath reference to some first death or other going before. A man would (as it is commonly thought) think that this second death, ⟨p. 141⟩is opposed to that first death, which is the harbinger to the second, and separates the soul from the body; but it's far otherwise. That, alas, is but a petty thing, and deserves not to be put in the number of deaths. The second death in the Text hath relation to the first Resurrection, Rev. 20:6. Blessed and holy is he that hath his portion in the first resurrection, on such the second death shall have no power. The first death is that from whence we are acquitted by the first resurrection, and that is the death; for that is a kind of death (as S. Paul speaking of a wicked and voluptuous widow, saith, she is dead while she liveth) and the time shall come and now is, when they that are dead shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and they that hear shall live. And again, Let the dead bury their dead. So that the first resurrection is, when a man hearing the voice of the Minister, is roused up from the sleep of sin and carnal security, and the first death is the opposite thereunto. So that the death of the body is no death at all; for if it were, then this were the third death. For there would be a death of sin, a death of the body, and a death of body and soul: This death of the body is but a flea-biting in comparison of the other two. This second death is the separation of the body and soul from God, and this death is the wages of sin, and God must not, will not lie in arrear to sin, but will pay its wages to the full. All the afflictions a wicked man meeteth withal here, are but as Gods press money, and part of payment of that greater sum: But when he dies, the ⟨p. 140⟩whole sum comes then to be paid: Before he did but sip of the cup of Gods wrath, but he must then drink up the dregs of it down to the bottom, and this is the second death: It's called death. Now death is a destruction of the parts compounded: a man being compounded of body and soul, both are by this death eternally destroyed. That death (like Sampson pulling down the pillars whereby it was sustained, pulled down the house) draws down the tabernacles of our bodies, pulls body and soul in sunder. A thing which hath little hurt in it self, were it not for the sting of it, which makes it fearful: