APPENDIX. 409

And  it  may  witli  the  greatest  reason,  be  supposed,  that  when  God
first  made  mankind,  and  made  known  to  them  the  methods  of  his
moral  government  towards  them,  in  the  revelation  he  made  of  himself
to  the  natural  head  of  the  whole  species,  and  let  him  know  that
obedience  to  him  was  expected  as  his  duty,  and  enforced  this  duty
with  the  sanction  of  a  threatened  punishment,  called  by  the  name  of
death, — I  say,  we  may  with  the  greatest  reason  suppose,  in  such  a
case,  that  by  death  was  meant  that  same  death  which  God  esteemed
to  be  the  proper  punishment  of  the  sin  of  mankind,  and  which  he
spealvs  of  under  that  name  throughout  the  Scripture  as  the  proper
wages  of  the  shi  of  man,  aiid  was  always  from  the  beginnmg  under-
stood to  be  so  in  the  Church  of  God. It  would  be  str  mge  indeed  if
it  should  be  otherwise. It  would  have  been  strange,  if  when  the  law
of  God  was  first  given  and  enforced  by  the  threatening  of  a  punish-
ment, nothing  at  all  had  been  mentioned  of  that  great  punislunent
ever  spoken  of  under  the  name  of  death  (in  the  revelations  which  he
has  given  to  mankind  from  age  to  age),  as  the  proper  punishment
of  the  sin  of  mankind. And  it  would  be  no  less  strange  if,  when  the
punishment  Avhich  was  mentioned  and  threatened  on  that  occasion,
was  called  by  the  same  name,  even  death,  yet  we  must  not  understand
it  to  mean  the  same  thing,  but  something  infinitely  diverse  and  infi-
nitely more  inconsiderable."

The  writer  then  proceeds  to  show,  by  a  large  induction  of  passages,
that  the  word  *'  death"  is  used  in  Scripture  in  the  sense  of  spiritual
deaths,  and  that  it  is  this  "  which  the  Scriptm-e  ever  speaks  of  as  the
proper  wages  of  the  sins  of  mankind."     He  continues  thus  :

*'  If  any  should  insist  upon  it  as  an  objection  against  supposing
that  death  was  intended  to  signify  eternal  death  in  the  tlireatening  to
Adam,  that  this  use  of  the  word  is  figurative,  though  it  should  be
allowed,  yet  is  by  no  means  so  figiu'ative  as  many  other  phrases  used
in  the  history  contained  in  these  three  chapters,  as  when  it  is  said*
'  God  said,  Let  there  be  light,'  God  said. 