Fragment: Deliverance and Union

BEFORE there can be union with Christ for me, there must be complete deliverance from what I was, and from everything that belonged to me as a child of Adam. And it is death alone that can deliver me. Why? Because I belonged to the man that was guilty, and death alone can put an end to that man, and deliver me from the condition that attached to him. And this death not only delivered me from the bad things that belonged to it, but from the good things-from everything that belonged to that man that had to die; from good things that became bad things by being misapplied-things that were in their right place for the first man, but which have no place for the man in Christ. (J. B.)