I Ntroduction
INTRODUCTION
The connection with the preceding commonplaces.
§ 1. Thus far we have been contemplating the primeval happiness of mankind in Paradise and their most blessed condition, and with admiration we have seen with what great gifts and goodness they were amply filled by God the Creator. But Holy Scripture testifies that this happiness was not permanent and that those gifts did not reach their descendants by right of inheritance; experience also agrees, experience which proves that we have been subject to death and to the various ills and diseases which accompany death.
The original happiness of man.
§ 2. The conclusion to the six days [of creation] is most beautiful: “God saw all the things which He had made, and, behold, they were all very good” (Gen. 1:31). Job 38:7: “All the sons of God shouted for joy, and the morning stars praised Him.” All creatures were standing in their own order and were declaring the goodness, wisdom, and power of their Maker as if with mouths wide open. From an inspection of these things and of himself, man knew God the Creator. The clear light of divine knowledge shone in his mind. Equipped by the love of God, his will was perfect. There was no inclination to vice, no aberration from the Law in the powers of his soul or in the members of his body. Man would speak with God in familiar fashion. He rejoiced in Him. He lived in the utmost peace of mind and in a most abundant affluence of all things.
How it turned out miserably.
§ 3. Therefore someone looking upon the cursed earth and man sold under sin and subject to miseries of every type might with good reason cry out with the servants of the householder, Matt. 13:27: “Lord, did you not sow good seed in your field? How, then, does it have weeds?” But the father of the household responds to the servants in the same chapter, v. 28: “An enemy has done this.” The same response is given by Moses, the one who wrote about the primeval condition, in Genesis 3, the sum of which is that the seducing devil and man, falling away from God, introduced sin and every evil into the world.