A89732:569
A discussion of that great point in divinity, the sufferings of Christ; and the…
A discussion of that great point in divinity, the sufferings of Christ; and the question about his righteousness active, passive : and the imputation thereof. Being an answer to a dialogue entitled The meritorious price of redemption, justification, &c. / By John Norton teacher of the church at Ipswich in New-England. Who was appointed to draw up this answer by the general court.A discussion of that great point in divinity, the sufferings of Christ; and the question about his righteousnesse active, passive : and the imputation thereof. Being an answer to a dialogue intituled The meritorious price of redemption, justification, &c. / By John Norton teacher of the church at Ipswich in New-England. Who was appointed to draw up this answer by the generall court.
London: printed by A.M. for Geo. Calvert, 1653
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Answ. The term [Second] being a word of order, teacheth that eternal death, in that it is called the second death is in Gods ordinary dispensation inflicted after the first death, but it shows not the nature of eternal death. The reason why eternal death is inflicted after the separation of the soul from the body, is partly because of the inability of the nature of man in this present state of mortality to endure the wrath of God without separation of the soul from the body, but chiefly because this bodily death puts a period to our capacity of having any part in the first resurrection, i.e. of regeneration, whereby the second death is only prevented.
Answ. The term [Second] being a word of order, teacheth that eternal death, in that it is called the second death is in Gods ordinary dispensation inflicted after the first death, but it shews not the nature of eternal death. The reason why eternal death is inflicted after the separation of the soul from the body, is partly because of the inability of the nature of man in this present state of mortality to endure the wrath of God without separation of the soul from the body, but chiefly because this bodily death puts a period to our capacity of having any part in the first resurrection, i.e. of regeneration, whereby the second death is only prevented.
Though for these and other reasons the penal wrath of God, viz. eternal death be inflicted after bodily death, yet it thence followeth not that the penal wrath of God cannot be inflicted but according to this order (which is the scope of the Dialogue in this discourse) for order of succession is not of the essence of punishment. Again, the reasons ⟨p. 116⟩that require this order in the Reprobates in inflicting penal wrath upon the damned, have no place concerning Christ. Add hereunto, that according to extraordinary dispensation, some of the Reprobates, namely, those that shall be found alive immediately before the Judgement, 1 Cor. 15.51. shall suffer eternal death without any separation of the soul from the body, so as eternal death which is a final separation of the soul and body from God, being opposed to natural death which is a separation of the soul from the body, is not necessarily a second death, no, not in the Reprobates.