1. Chapter IV
Chapter IV P art One: On Natural Theology, or the Theology of the First Man The theology of the first man, ἐνδιάθετος [internal] — Its description — In what sense it is natural — The degrees, force, and efficacy of innate light — The περιεργία [over-curiosity] of the scholastics, the error of the Socinians, and of others — The origin and necessity of natural theology — The obedience of the first man — An exposition of the promised reward, of sin, and of punishment — The corruption of original theology —
The manner of the corruption — The first covenant abolished, and with it the theology resting upon it.
I. All the theology of all men has regard either to the ἐνδιάθετον [internal] word and is called natural (for the most part, that is, since it was never alone), or to the προφορικόν [expressed] word, which was drafted in as a replacement for the obliteration of that ἐνδιαθέτου [internal word] through sin, and is called supernatural or the theology of revelation. We must treat of the first in the first place. It can and ought to be considered as pure, as corrupt, and as apostate.
II. The state of integral nature, or of men placed under the law of creation alone, presents itself to us in the first place. In that state, theology was ἐνδιάθετος [internal] and natural — yet not altogether ἔμφυτος [innate].
For from the beginning it was augmented by revelation, and was moreover to be yet further augmented. In that state, it is called pure. It was moreover a saving light, consisting in the knowledge of God as creator, legislator, governor, and rewarder. We call it light, since this appellation suits all theology by the usage of Scripture. This light was implanted in man by God in the act of creation itself; it was immediately augmented through an outward revelation of the divine will in the sacramental precept, and was to be increased from day to day through the contemplation of the works of God. And this light was able to render him wise in the duly performed obedience to God according to the covenant of works, unto his own happiness and the glory of the divine power, wisdom, goodness, grace, and justice. Such was the theology of the first man.
III. Now this light — or spiritual wisdom — God implanted in the mind of man in the very act of his creation. It was congruent with, indeed altogether necessary for, the condition in which and the end for which he was made, Eccles. 7:29. Although therefore it was by its nature, and with respect to its use and end, plainly supernatural (for that man should obey
God according to a covenant promising an eternal reward was of the most free constitution of God), yet because it was ἐνδιάθετον καὶ ἔμφυτον
[internal and innate], we call it natural to him. That is properly called natural, which necessarily accompanies the nature itself, or takes its rise from the principles of nature. In that sense, it is agreed that this light was not natural to man. For it neither necessarily follows upon human nature so that it cannot be separated from it, nor can it be drawn out from the natural
faculties of the soul by their own proper and native power. But since it belonged to the rectitude of nature with respect to its primordial state, and was implanted in man as placed under the law at his very creation, with respect to his ultimate end, it cannot be denied to have been natural. But concerning these matters, enough and more than enough has been disputed elsewhere against the papists.
IV. Concerning this light — or the knowledge of man in the state of uncorrupted nature — with respect to its degrees and efficacy, there is some contention of opinions. The scholastics extol it with sufficient magnificence, being here as everywhere full of empty speculations and audacity in curious determinations. The Socinians imagine the first man to have been a fungus and a stock, scarcely possessed of reason; they serve him up, as it were, for ridicule — as one ignorant of God, himself, his wife, and the other creatures. They maintain that the one precept given to him by God was that concerning not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Whether he had a mind or a conscience, whether he acknowledged any dependence upon God, they do not know, or at least feign not to know; for the feigning of ignorance is very often the colour of the most insolent boasting of knowledge. Thus they thought fit to patronise the most abominable errors concerning the fall of the first man which they foster, and concerning the state of sin: "Adam, like an infant or child, did not know that he was naked," Smalcius, On the Truth of the Deity of the Son, ch. 7, p. 2 — as if he were truly deprived of sight before he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and "Concerning his own wife he knew only what the senses could observe," as the leader of the flock himself speaks, On the State of the First Man, ch. 4, p. 119; "Nor," says he,
"did he have a clear understanding of the power of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil," p. 147 — as if the whole effect of the first sin arose from the power of that tree; and again, "although he was mortal, he did not know that he was mortal," ch. 4, p. 118 — namely, lie must be covered with lies, lest it rain through. In order to prove that Adam lost almost nothing through sin, they affirm that he never had anything, since he could not lose what he never had. A lid worthy of the dish! We shall, on an even balance so far as possible — leaning neither toward those men's περιεργίαν [over-curious meddlesomeness] in asserting, nor toward these men's dependent audacity in denying — briefly weigh the theology of the first man.
V. That God is by right of creation the supreme Lord of all things is acknowledged by all creatures. Hence, dependence upon God necessarily accompanies the existence of all, and is accommodated to the principles of the nature which he communicated to each. All creatures, therefore, as such, and each according to the capacity and disposition with which they are furnished, celebrate and serve the Creator: Ps. 145:10, "All your works shall praise you, Lord"; and hence the Psalmist by κατὰ προσωποποιίαν
[personification] very many times exhorts all and each of them to duly discharge that duty. The holy chorus of the church whether militant or crowned unanimously establishes this eternal and invariable reason of divine worship, Rev. 4:11: ̓́́Αξιος εἶ, Κύριε, λαβεῖν τὴν δόξαν καὶ τὴν τιμὴν, καὶ τὴν δύναμιν· ὅτι σὺ ἔκτισας τὰ πάντα, καὶ διὰ τὸ θέλημά σου εἰσὶ καὶ ἐκτίσθησαν [Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy will's sake they exist and were created]; to which the catholic assembly of all creatures responds, ch.
5:13: Καὶ πᾶν κτίσμα ὅ ἐστιν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, καὶ ἐν τῇ γῇ, καὶ ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης ἅ ἐστι, καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς πάντα, ἤκουσα
λέγοντας· Τῷ καθημένῳ ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ τῷ ἀρνίῳ ἡ εὐλογία καὶ ἡ τιμὴ καὶ ἡ δόξα καὶ τὸ κράτος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων [And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that are in them, I heard saying: Blessing and honour and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever]. For since God wrought all things for himself — that is, for his glory, Prov. 16:4 — it was fitting that all these things should render glory and honour to him. Moreover, as it belongs to that supreme right of God and dominion over all things to appoint for each its proper and ultimate end, so it belongs to that dependence that there should be present a law and rule of operations tending toward that end. All creatures have a definite end and a law of operation, for the very reason that they are creatures. That law, therefore, was cognate to all. But the rational creature, since it bears a twofold aspect — namely that of a creature, and that of a rational being capable of eternity — receives from God a twofold dependence: one common or natural, of which we have spoken, and another proper or moral.
This is the obedience owed to God according to the creature's condition. In order to exact this obedience from the creatures, nothing more is required than that God should be set before them as supremely good and best.
Accordingly, he demands fear and worship because he is ֲאדֹוָני [the Lord], that is, the Lord of all: Mal. 1:6, "If I am Lord, where is my fear?" That this should not be known from the very act of creation was impossible. That innate law ought to have sufficed for the duly rendering of this obedience.
Thus, at last, both the ultimate end and the creature's dependence upon God are established. Concerning this innate law, two things may be considered: the law itself — that is, the norm of required obedience — and the knowledge of the law. That this most beneficent, most great, supreme
governor and rewarder is to be loved, worshipped, and feared, in such a way that the moral order of this dependence — which, since God the Creator is supremely just and holy, embraces all justice and holiness — should be continued until his ultimate end is reached: this is the sum of this law. And this law is that ἐνδιάθετον [internal] word, ἀξιόπιστον [worthy of belief] and altogether infallible, which was, as it were, the doctrine in the theology of the first man. The knowledge of this law did not differ in reality from the law itself. And it is apparent that this saving light consisted in this: that by its force and guidance, man might duly render to God the obedience owed to him according to the law, so as to attain his proper end. And this was the theology of the first man. Constituted in the state of moral dependence upon God, and subject to the authority of God, and thereby capable of the eternal blessedness of enjoying the Creator, he had the innate and ἔμφυτον [implanted] law of those operations which were necessary for the attaining of that end; and was moreover furnished — in the knowledge of God and of all the means of his worship — with that wisdom by the force of which, according to the will and mind of God shining in it, he was able to render duly the obedience prescribed in the law. But since this ἔμφυτος [innate] law — which in this theology supplies the place of doctrine, or the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος [internal word] — was innate in the mind of man, it was not in reality distinct from that light, or habit of mind, by which the doctrine of God and his worship is savingly perceived, with respect to the matter itself — or speaking, as they say, materially; nor was it anything more than the fountain and origin of that order of dependence of the rational creature. But with respect to exercise, and actual obedience, and speaking formally, it was distinct from it.
VI. Since therefore God made man upright, Eccles. 7:29, in his own image, Gen. 1:26, 27 — which consists in wisdom, justice, and holiness,
Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:23, 24 — and commanded him, as he had commanded the other creatures, to have dominion over them for his glory, to which dominion he would be altogether unequal unless the natures of those creatures had been thoroughly known to him; and since he exacted from him obedience under penalty of eternal death, and with the promise of the reward of blessed life — it is established that he was furnished with that wisdom and moral light by which he was able both to know God and to understand perfectly the ἔμφυτον [innate] law and the revelation of the properties of God in all creation, and the sacramental νομοθεσίᾳ [lawgiving]. For one furnished with this theology, absolutely nothing was lacking either for rightly worshipping God, or for living well and blessedly.
VII. From this, an estimate can be made of the obedience of the first man and the proposed reward, together with the nature of the sin itself, and also the threatened punishment. For the obedience to be rendered by virtue of the covenant had to be conformable to his innate light, or the theology delineated above; and the covenant itself, as co-natural with Adam, was so known to him; for it is established that by the force of this theology, he knew both his duty and his reward. The sacramental precept added over and above did not reveal the covenant, but opened the way for its ratification.
The proposed reward consisted in nothing less than the eternal enjoyment of God. The same is still the voice of the law: "Do this, and you shall live"; for God has never appointed any other reward for obedience rendered by virtue of a covenant. At what point, finally, after the passage of what space of time, it would have fallen to Adam to enjoy God under the aspect of the reward — since God himself never foreknew this as a future event — is a
subtle and dangerous disputation. That the first man, had he stood in his primordial state, would have obtained the reward, and that the reward itself would have been God himself, is established from the nature of the covenant; the time and manner in which it would have fallen to him thus to enjoy God, neither the nature of the thing nor the sacred page indicates. The obedience of the first man, therefore, would have been a universal and express image of the image of God in all things; the reward would have been God himself. His first sin, moreover, since it was committed against the directive force of this theology, it is plain consisted in the total subversion of the order of the moral dependence of the creature upon God; hence, the punishment of that sin is eternal separation from God, with the addition moreover of that supplement of sensible punishment which vindicative justice could not but exact. After, therefore, the body and soul of the sinner had experienced the first death in their mutual separation, they were to be reunited — by divine power so far serving justice — in order to undergo the second death, consisting in eternal separation from God under the most grievous punishments; from this condition we have been freed through Christ. The reward and the punishment annexed to the first covenant, therefore, with respect to their substance, so to speak, and those annexed to the new covenant, there was nothing in between. God himself and separation from God contain the nature of both on either side. Nor can any other reward or punishment be assigned; it may perhaps be said that each has been augmented, by virtue of the new covenant, by the accession of certain degrees. Hence the reward is now described, κατ' ὑπερβολὴν εἰς ὑπερβολὴν αἰώνιον βάρος δόξης [as a surpassing and yet more surpassingly eternal weight of glory], 2 Cor. 4:17; and the punishment as θάνατος εἰς θάνατον [death upon death], ch. 2:16. Concerning the resurrection of Adam
ἐκτὸς τοῦ λόγου ἐνσαρκώσεως [apart from the word of the Incarnation], Scripture is truly silent; for it does not pursue empty hypotheticals, nor does it curiously discourse from the supposition of a state that was never to be.
But concerning the state of those who are altogether strangers to the mediation of Christ, since they never believed in him, nor sinned against his grace of which they never heard anything, it speaks plainly enough. To hold that Christ merited the resurrection from the dead to condemnation for sins committed without law and without any knowledge of Christ is impious.
Since therefore Adam's immortality in his primordial state depended by no means on internal principles of nature, but on the sole and most free good pleasure of God, once that external conserving cause was removed through sin, it was necessary that Adam should die at a certain definite time, and be brought out by the force of the covenant from the state of natural death to judgment.
VIII. Let it suffice to have discussed this much concerning natural theology considered in its primordial and native purity; it remains that we briefly survey its ἀφανισμόν [abolition] through the entrance of sin.
IX. The entrance of sin, and the abolition of the divine covenant through that entrance, are known from elsewhere and are here presupposed; and so we must treat here only of the removal of this theology through them.
X. It will be granted that all theology must be sufficient for the attaining of its proper end. This end consists in the glory of God and the eternal happiness of the theologians themselves. The image of God in man having therefore been abolished through the entrance of sin, that ἔμφυτος [innate] law of θεογνωσίας [the knowledge of God], of which we have spoken, is utterly stripped of the nature and use of theology, so that the whole human race must rightly be judged to have been through sin disinherited of all true
theology — and these things must be taught. There was so close a union between that original doctrine and the habit of mind that once torn apart, they could not maintain their station. But that saving light, which we have demonstrated constituted as it were the proper form of this primordial theology, was extinguished through sin; and so theology itself suffered ἀφανισμόν [abolition]. Furthermore, no doctrine can properly be called theology which does not rest upon some divine covenant by the force of which the theologians themselves can please God and at last enjoy him. For all theology of wayfarers directs men in the knowledge of God and urges them toward the rendering of obedience due according to the norm of the covenant which it has pleased God to enter into with them. But that covenant, which was the foundation of this primordial theology, was, as I said, abolished. For what should it now do? When, although it prescribes all things well, there is yet no one who can comply. The doctrine of that covenant is indeed still most true: "for he who does the things of the law shall live in them." But the covenant itself, after the entrance of sin, retained no force as a means of bringing men to God. Nor, because men are compelled to bear the authority of its commandments, are they to be called covenant members, since they are held by its bond only from the supreme right and dominion of God, of which he cannot divest himself. Indeed, to such a depth of misery was man brought through sin, that even the doctrine set out in the law of nature, however accompanied by the primordial light, was not sufficient for directing sinners in the way of life, nor could it, however much it might wish to, utterly save sinners. For to know God and to obey him as creator, governor, and rewarder, unless one is moreover furnished with the knowledge of his grace and mercy through Jesus Christ, suffices for no one's salvation after the entrance of sin. The ἐνδιάθετον
[internal] and innate light, therefore, through sin, lost the ends, saving use, and force of effectively directing theologians in the way of life, which belong to true theology.
XI. And this is the reason why, from the apostasy of the theologians, the theology itself was also utterly abolished, which we shall not find to have occurred subsequently. For since all theology, as we have said, is founded in a covenant, once the covenant is destroyed, it was necessary that the theology itself should fall. This covenant, however, entered into with Adam, rested upon an absolutely universal moral dependence upon God. It could not, therefore, in any way be the case that it should not be rendered void through the first sin. In the same way, the matter stands with the new covenant. The theology of the covenant members rests upon the covenant.
Whether any of the covenant members can fall away or be cast out from that covenant, we are not now disputing. The covenant itself cannot be abolished, because it was ratified in and with Christ the mediator; nor therefore can the theology resting upon it be shaken. However often, therefore, the theologians may have defected from its doctrine, as we shall see very frequently, yet the theology itself remained altogether stable and immutable, the nature of the covenant so requiring. Thus it has fared with this theology, and let it suffice to have treated of it briefly, since it lasted but a short time, and the doctrine concerning it is drawn from but very few places of Scripture.