Of The State Of Adam Before The Fall, Or Of Original Righteousness
Chapter 8
OF THE STATE OF ADAM
BEFORE THE FALL, OR OF
ORIGINAL RIGHTEOUSNESS
In the last chapter we discovered the Arminian attempt to re-advance the corrupted nature of man into that state of innocence and holiness in which it was created at first by God. In this design, they can only discern that their success does not correspond to their desires. They are not able to deny that, for as much good as we want (having thrown it away), and for as much evil of sin that we are subject to (more than we were at our first creation), we must be responsible to the justice of God. And so they labor to draw our first parents, from the instant of their forming, down into the same condition in which we are engaged by reason of our corrupted nature. But, truly, I fear they will hardly obtain so prosperous an issue of their endeavor as Mohammed had when he promised the people he would call a mountain to him; when they assembled to behold this miracle, the mountain would not stir for all his calling. He replied, "If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain," and away he went towards it. We will find that our Arminians can neither climb the high mountain of innocence themselves, nor can they call it down into the valley of sin and corruption in which they are lodged. We have already seen how vain and frustrated their former attempt was. Let us now take a view of their aspiring insolence, to invest the pure creatures of
Chapter 8: OF THE STATE OF ADAM BEFORE THE FALL God,231 who were holy and undefiled by any sin, with the same wretchedness and perverseness of nature as ourselves.
It is not my intention to enter into any curious discourse concerning the state and grace of Adam before his fall, but only to give a faithful assent to what God himself affirmed about all the works of his hands – they were exceedingly good. No evil, no deformity, nor anything tending to that, issued directly from that Fountain of goodness and wisdom. And therefore it is without doubt that man, the most excellent work of his hands, and the great glory of his Creator, was without spot or blemish then. He was endued with all those perfections his nature and his state of obedience were capable of. And we must be careful not to cast any aspersions of defect on Adam that we would not ascribe with equal boldness to the image of God.
Nothing more manifests the deviation of our nature from its first institution, and declares the corruption with which we are polluted, than our propensity toward everything that is evil; that inclination of the flesh which always lusts against the Spirit; that lust and concupiscence which foments, conceives, hatches, brings forth, and nourishes sin; that perpetual proneness that is in our unregenerate nature toward everything that is contrary to the pure and holy law of God. Now, because neither Scripture nor experience will quite allow
Christians to deny this depravity of our nature, the Arminians extenuate as much as they are able, this averseness from all good and this propensity to sin; they assert that it is no great matter, no more than Adam was subject to in the state of innocence. But, what! Did
God create a proneness to evil in Adam? Was that part of his own glorious image in whose likeness Adam was framed? Yes, says
Corvinus, "By reason of his creation, man had an affection toward what was forbidden by the law."232 Yet this seems unjust, that "God should give a man a law to keep, and put upon his nature a repugnancy to that law;"233 as one of them affirmed at the synod of Dort. "No," says Corvinus, "man would not have been fit to have a law given to him, if he had not been endued with a propensity and natural
Chapter 8: OF THE STATE OF ADAM BEFORE THE FALL inclination toward what is forbidden by the law."234 But why is this so necessary in men rather than in angels? No doubt there was a law, a rule for their obedience, given to them at their first creation, which some transgressed while others kept it inviolate. Did they also have a propensity to sin created within their nature? Did they have a natural affection put on them by God toward what was forbidden by the law?
Let only those who would be wise beyond the word of God, affix such injustice on the righteous Judge of all the earth. But so it seems it must be: "There was an inclination in man to sin before the fall, though not altogether so vehement and inordinate as it is now," says Arminius.235
Up to now we thought the original righteousness in which Adam was created, included the integrity and perfection of the whole man; not only that by which the body was obedient to the soul, and by which all the affections were subservient to the rule of reason to perform all natural actions – but also a light, uprightness, and holiness of grace in the mind and will, whereby he was enabled to yield obedience to God to attain that supernatural end for which he was created. No, say our new doctors; "original righteousness was nothing but a bridle to help keep man's inordinate concupiscence within bounds;"236 the faculties of our souls were never endued with any proper innate holiness of their own. "In the spiritual death of sin there are no spiritual gifts properly lacking in the will, because they were never there," say the six collocutors 237 at the Hague.238
The sum of their view is that man was created with a nature not only weak and imperfect, unable by its native strength and endowments to attain that supernatural end for which he was made, and which he was commanded to seek, but with a nature that was depraved with a love and desire for things that are repugnant to the will of God – an inbred inclination to sinning. It does not properly belong here to show how they extenuate those gifts which they cannot deny that Adam was endued with, and yet also deny those gifts which he had, such as a power to believe in Christ, or to assent to any truth that God revealed to him. And yet they grant this privilege to every one of
Chapter 8: OF THE STATE OF ADAM BEFORE THE FALL his posterity, who are in that depraved condition of nature into which by sin Adam cast himself and us. We all now have a power to believe in Christ, they say; that is, Adam, by his fall, obtained a supernatural endowment that was far more excellent than any he had before. And let them not claim here the universality of the new covenant, until they can prove it; and I am certain it will be long enough. But this, I say, does not belong here; only let us see how, from the word of God, we may overthrow the former odious heresy:
God in the beginning "created man in his own image," Gen 1:27 – that is, "upright," Ecc 7:29, endued with a nature that was composed toward obedience and holiness. That habitual grace and original righteousness with which man was invested was in a way due to him for obtaining that supernatural end for which he was created. A universal rectitude of all the faculties of his soul, advanced by supernatural graces, enabled him to perform those duties for which they were required. This is what we call the innocence of our first parents. Our nature was then inclined only to good; and it was adorned with all those qualifications that were necessary to make it acceptable to God; and it was able to do what was required of us by the law, under the condition of everlasting happiness. Nature and grace (or original righteousness) before the fall, ought not to be distinguished from one another as though nature was a thing that was prone to evil, and it was resisted and quelled by grace – for both complied in a sweet union and harmony to carry us along in the way of obedience to eternal blessedness. [There was] no contention between the flesh and the Spirit; but just as all other things are theirs, so the whole man jointly aimed at his own highest good, having in his power all the means to attain it. There was then, in the pure nature of man, no inclination to sin, no concupiscence of what is evil, no repugnancy to the law of God. This is proved, because –
First. The Scripture, in describing the condition of our nature at its first creation, intimates no such propensity to evil, but rather a holy perfection that quite excluded it. We were created "in the image of
Chapter 8: OF THE STATE OF ADAM BEFORE THE FALL God," Gen 1:27 – in such a perfect uprightness that it was opposite to all evil inventions, Ecc 7:29. We are in some measure "renewed" to this image by the grace of Christ, Col 3:10; we see by its first-fruits, that this image consisted in "righteousness and true holiness," – in truth and perfect holiness, Eph 4:24.
Secondly. An inclination to evil, and a lusting after what is forbidden, is that inordinate concupiscence with which our nature is now infected. This is everywhere in the Scripture condemned as a sin.
St. Paul, in the seventh chapter to the Romans, expressly affirms that it is a sin, and forbidden by the law, verse 7, producing all manner of evil, and hindering all that is good – a "body of death," verse 24. And St.
James makes it the very womb of all iniquity, James 1:14-15. Surely our nature was not at first yoked with such a troublesome inmate. Where is the uprightness and innocence which, up to now, we conceived our first parents enjoyed before the fall? A repugnancy to the law must be a sinful thing. An inclination to evil, to anything forbidden, is an anomy
– a deviation and discrepancy from the pure and holy law of God. If this is true, then we must speak no more about the state of innocence, but only about a short space in which no actual outward sins were committed. Their proper root, if this is true, was created within our nature. Is this that obedient harmony to all the commandments of God which is necessary for a pure and innocent creature which has a law prescribed to him? By which of the ten precepts is this inclination to evil required? Is it by the last, "You shall not covet?" or is it by that sum of them all, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart," etc.? Is this all the happiness of paradise – to be turmoiled by a nature swelling with an abundance of vain desires, and with a main stream carried headlong toward all iniquity if its violent appetite is not powerfully restrained by the bit and bridle of original righteousness?
As we see with children now; 239 so it would have been with them in paradise, if they were subject to this rebellious inclination to sin.
Thirdly, and principally. From where did our primitive nature get this affection toward those things that were forbidden to it – this
Chapter 8: OF THE STATE OF ADAM BEFORE THE FALL rebellion and repugnancy to the law, which must be an anomy, and thus a sinful thing? There was as yet no demerit to deserve it as a punishment. What fault is it to be created? 240 The operation of any thing which has its original being with its own being, must proceed from the same cause as the essence or being itself: just as a fire tends upwards relates to the original nature of fire itself. And therefore, this inclination or affection can have no other author but God; by this means, God is named not only as the efficient cause of the first sin, but of all the sins in the world which arise from it. Plainly, and without any strained consequences, God is made the author of sin. For even those positive properties which can have no other fountain but the author of nature, being set on evil, are directly sinful. And here the idol of freewill may triumph in this victory over the God of heaven. Up to now, all the blame for sin lay upon man's shoulders. But now he begins to complain, Oujk eJgw< ai]tio>v eijmi ajlla< Zeu<v kai< moi~ra. "It is
God and the fate of our creation that has placed us in this condition of having a natural affection toward what is evil. So get back with all your charges against the ill government of this new deity [of ours] within his imaginary dominion; what hurt does he do except to incline men to evil – did God himself do any less at the first?" Let those who will, rejoice in these blasphemies. It suffices for us to know that "God created man upright," though man "has sought out many inventions;"
(Ecc 7:9) so that in the following dissonance, we may cleave to the better part:
S. S.
Lib. Arbit.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them," Gen 1:27. "Put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him," Col 3:10. "– which is created after God in righteousness and true holiness," Eph 4:24.
"There was in man before the fall an inclination to sinning, though not so vehement and inordinate as it now is,"
Armin. "God put upon man a repugnancy to his law," Gesteranus in the Synod. "Man, by reason of his creation, had an affection toward those things that are forbidden by the law,"
Corv.
Chapter 8: OF THE STATE OF ADAM BEFORE THE FALL "Lo, this only have I found, that God has made man upright; but he has sought out many inventions," Ecc 7:29.
"By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin," Rom 5:12.
"The will of man never had any spiritual endowments," Rem. Apol.
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God: for God tempts no man: but every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust," James 1:13,14.
"It was not fitting that man should have a law given to him, unless he had a natural inclination to do what was forbidden by the law," Corv.