Suppose that in the moment that Adam was driven out of Paradise, he had actually died, that his soul had been immediately separated from the body; what would have been the state of that soul? The same, really, as it was while he lived—banishment from the presence of GOD, with the consequent absence of what was desirable, and presence of what was hateful. He would have _felt_ it more. Having nothing else to gaze on, the blankness of the spiritual world around him, save where evil spirits stood revealed, would have been more terrible. The desires would have been more intolerable when there was nothing to divert attention from them, and the constrained employments more distasteful. Hopelessness, too, of remedy in that fixed state, which is to have no change but that of increase throughout eternity, would have caused his death to _appear_ a greater reality, but it would not have _made_ it a greater reality. The continuance of bodily existence palliated death; a natural world spread before his eyes diverted his gaze from the spiritual “void”; natural pain even, and sorrow, and toil, beguiled his thoughts and feelings, in a measure, from spiritual miseries; but still he _was_ dead, though he knew it not fully. His state was like to that of the child who sleeps calmly in the dark; but when it wakes, cries and starts in terror. There was darkness all along; but only when the eyes were opened was it fully perceived—_felt_. Now, natural death is like this _waking_; it does not so much transfer us to another state, as show us clearly in what state we are; whether in the presence of GOD, or banished from Him. To be in outer darkness, where hope never comes, where the sun of heaven sends forth no rays; to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the LORD, and from the glory of His power, this is death _completed_. Surely, then, to be without GOD in the world; to be removed from His favouring, and comforting, and guiding presence; to live only in such unconscious dependence on Him as the beasts that perish; to have but the good things of our own finding; this is death _begun_: this is to have a name to live, and yet be dead, to be as really dead as are the spirits of the doomed-departed, except that we know not fully (which is part of death) the misery of our condition; and (blessed be GOD!) that we may as yet live again, and be restored to His presence, because Christ has opened the gates of Paradise, and bids His angels gently drive us in, if we will; yea, calls to us Himself, and entreats us to enter; to have again the condition—spiritualised, exalted, perfected—of unfallen Adam.