Chapter V
The image of God in Adam, how it was natural, how explained, and how
faith is supernatural. That knowledge of God natural which is due and
fit for a reasonable creature to have, and which he acquires by the exercise
of his rational faculties. That knowledge supernatural which goes beyond what man by the right of his creation ivas to have. Adam s knowledge of God was in a natural way, though it sanctified him, and was joined with
holiness.
Now, to state the true difference and give the true disproportion between these two estates, I must explain that known distinction (so much used of
all sides, both schoolmen and our own divines) of natural righteousness and
supernatural grace ; or the knowing and enjoying God in a way natural to man, and tending to a natural happiness in God, and the knowledge of and
fellowship with God in a way supernatural or above nature, which tends to a supernatural happiness to be had in him.
Now when it is said that there is a natural way of knowing God, the meaning is not of that natural knowledge in corrupt nature which heathens have of God ; but it hath reference to the pure nature of man in Adam
uncorrupted, whereof that natural light left even in corrupt nature is but the shadow. Which shews that there was such a kind of knowledge of God in Adam, in an holy and perfect way, which knowledge of his the schoolmen call Adam s theologia naturalis, his natural divinity and
knowledge.
And, oppositely, a supernatural knowing God, is not so called in respect of corrupt nature, as being supernatural to it, but in respect to pure nature, as being above even the natural way thereof.
Now the most radical and exact difference between these two, that I can search out, lies in these two things
1. That way of knowing God in pure nature, is so far called natural, as
it may be supposed a natural due, meet and requisite to be in man by the law of nature, if God would at all make such a creature endued with reason and understanding ; for if God meant to make two such faculties, as are our wills and understandings, in their nature and capacities so unlimited, the law of nature required that God himself should become the object of them, and so to give man a power to know and delight in him ; for other wise it had been to make those faculties in that vastness in vain, and without their due end, seeing they could not rest or be satisfied with all the particular truth and goodness in the creatures (as the senses can), they being vaster and more general faculties ; and therefore in a way that was due to the nature of man, if God would make him reasonable, God was to be both known and enjoyed by man, so as to satisfy both his understanding and will, and thereby to make him happy. And a happiness in God, so far proportioned thus to the nature of man, is called natural happiness. And so, oppositely, that which was vouchsafed to man over and above this natural due, and supra exigentiam creatures, more than it was simply meet for God to give him upon and with his creating him reasonable, that, I say, is supernatural, and is therefore called grace, as being a free gift over and above that which was necessarily due to such a creature.
Now for the present, to clear this in general by an instance ; for God to have for ever confirmed man whom he thus made in that goodness, and to
CHAP. V.] OF THEIR STATE BY CREATION. 45
have held him so to himself that he should not sin or fall, this had been a
supernatural grace, because it is more than is due to any creature as reasonable ; for as it is a creature, it is defectible and may fail, and it is natural to the creature of itself so to be, God alone being without shadow of turning. And therefore, though it was man s due (if God would make him reasonable) for God himself to become his happiness, yet to keep him from failing was above the due that the creature, as a creature, could
challenge ; yea rather, it might become God to leave the creature, to shew
itself to be but a creature that would fall.
The second difference is, that that knowledge and enjoyment of God was
natural, which was suited, fitted, and proportioned to the natural way of man in his knowledge of things. So as that light that enabled him to know God was suited and made apt to close with the natural way and his under
standing, only it did withal sanctify it.
> But that knowledge, oppositely, is supernatural, which is by a light above the way of nature, and the way of man s understanding things, as the light of our faith is.
Now then, to bring down this distinction nnto the thing in hand, I con ceive that the ordinary way of Adam s knowing and enjoying God lay, if not
wholly, yet for the most part, within the sphere and compass of a natural way ; that is, so far as was simply due to a creature reasonable, and was such as was also suited to the natural way of man s understanding and
knowledge, though withal sanctifying of him. And accordingly, the happi ness thence arising was, comparatively, but a natural kind of happiness ; so much as was due to the satisfying of man s understanding and will in God in their natural desires and appetites, so far as might become their
object in such a natural way.
For the clearing of which,
1. You know that the image of God, which consisted in knowledge and
holiness, wherein man was at first created, is by our divines (in opposition to the Eomanists) argued to have been natural to him, then in that state considered : natural, not that it simply flowed from the principles of
nature, it being from God, who adorned man s nature with it, but natural
in this respect, that it was a requisite and due, even in the order of nature, that man should be created with it; and so as you could not suppose him created by God reasonable, but he must withal know God as his
chiefest good, and love God above all, and in that knowledge and love of him be happy. And this was the law of nature in his creation, unto which,
if he had not been framed, he had not had that natural goodness in his kind which other creatures had in their kind. And such was the image of God wherein he was created.
This point I will not now dispute, but may well take for granted, it being fundamental to all the protestant opinions about original sin, &c., wherein we differ from the papists.
And 2. If thus the image of God was natural to Adam, then was it also such as was suited to that way of man s knowledge and desires, running along therewith in the same channel and way that man s nature was to take in knowing of other things. For otherwise, so far as it had been
carried above its own way, it had been supernatural. Now then, let us consider what is the natural way of man s knowing
things, and so of his knowing God. The way and progress of man s
knowledge naturally lieth thus : In having at first a glimmering light, and common, yet obscure principles
46 OF THE CREATURES, AND THE CONDITION [BOOK II.
and glimpses of the notions of things sown in the mind by nature, which then by observation and laying things together, and so gathering one thing from another, the mind improveth and enlargeth, till it arise to a parti
cular, clear, distinct, and perfect knowledge of those things which it seeks
to know. This is the natural way of man s understanding in both estates, both of innocent and corrupt nature ; and that in all things that are known
by him in either of these estates wherein common principles (as that the whole is greater than its parts, &c.), xo/ va/ zvvoiai, as the Grecians call them,
hints, glimpses, as I call them, many of which are even in the minds of
children, and as it were connate with them ; these, I say, are as the seed
sown, and reason and observation are as the tillage and watering of them ; and a full knowledge arising from both is as the crop or harvest that springs from both, and is reaped by us.
Now when God stamped his image upon the understanding of man, that
thereby he might know God himself, and so enjoy him, he so framed it, as
that it might suit with this natural way of man s proceeding in his know
ledge in other things ; so as the mind of man might proceed its own way in the knowledge of God himself, and walk therein after the rule of nature. And unto that end God, in the instant of his creation, did sow in his mind
holy and sanctifying notions and principles, both concerning his own nature, what a God he was, and also concerning his will, even as he did the like common notions of the knowledge of other things ; which principles were
by rectified reason to be improved, enlarged, and confirmed, made clear and illustrious, out of his observations from the creatures and the works of
providence, as also from the covenant of works, till it arise to a full, clear, and distinct knowledge of God, whom, as thus known, he should have
enjoyed and delighted in, even as now we see man s mind hath the prin
ciples of other knowledge in it, which observation and reason do improve. And thus, as he was to till the garden of Eden, so was he to till and manure his own mind.
Two things it then concerned man to know of God :
1 . The nature and attributes of God ; what a God he was : how wise,
powerful, eternal, &c.
2. The will and mind of God towards man ; both what God would have him do, and what God was, and would be to him, even his God, if he did
his will.
And of both these he had the knowledge through natural infused principles, which sanctified his whole man then, as the knowledge of Christ, by faith, doth our whole man now.
1. He had inbred, obscure notions of the attributes of God, which yet were not so full and distinct, but that from the creatures and works of God, he was to enlarge and confirm his knowledge of them ; and out of all laid
together, to make up a perfect knowledge of God and of all his attributes :
* For the invisible things of him are clearly seen from the creation of the
world, Bom. i. 20. And if thus to be seen by heathens, as the apostle there argues, then much more by Adam, for whom they were ordained. Those holy principles, or glimpses of the knowledge of God in him, were
like letters written with the juice of lemon or the like, which, when they are held to the fire, do become legible and apparent ; so these, when he came once to view the creatures, presented God clearly to him : The heavens declare the glory of God, &c., says the psalmist, Psa. xix. 1.
Prsesentemque refert quselibet herba Deum,
says the poet. Adam s reason was able, through the light of those prn>
CHAP. V.] OP THEIR STATE BY CREATION. 47
ciples sown, to take God up as the cause from these effects, and so to attain a perfect knowledge of him, perfect, that is, in its kind, and in that sense, complete.
2. He had, in like manner, the principles of God s whole mind and will sown in his heart ; even the seeds of all that moral law which we find in the Scriptures, Adam had then sown in him in the utmost spirituality thereof : the notions of it grew up naturally in his heart. So as, upon all occasions when he was to practise any part of it, he might come fully to know what he was to do ; and it needed not to be revealed, or he to receive
it by faith. But the whole law was to him even a law of nature written in
his heart, naturally known to him by common dictates inbred in him. And thus in like manner was that promise known to him, that by doing he should
live, together with that threatening, that by transgression of the law, or any part of it, he should die the death. These were known to him by principles written in his heart, though further confirmed to him by two sacraments, the tree of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, even as his other notions of God were helped and enlarged by the works of God ; yet so as the knowledge of this covenant, and of the promise and threatening annexed
to it, was natural, though it were strengthened and enlarged by those two sacraments.
And as an evidence to us that this was the natural primitive way of man s knowing God in the estate of innocency, God hath put into corrupt nature a shadow hereof, and an imperfect counterfeit of it in all mankind, to remain as a witness what an one his image in man at first was, and how
stamped on him. He hath, I say, left some instances, prints, and footsteps of either kind of knowledge above-mentioned still in us ; both concerning the nature of God, and concerning his will, as we find them, the one in the
first to the Romans, and the other in the second.
1. There are still in us some rude notions of a God, which the apostle shews the heathens to have had, Rom. i., which he calls TO yvuffrov rov
0soD, ver. 19, that which might be known of God; that is, whereby they might have seen, as some of them did, the invisible things (or attri
butes) of God, ver. 20.
And, 2dly, there are still like notions and engrafted principles, concern
ing some parts of the will and law of God, written in our hearts. So Rom.
ii. 15, they have the work of the law writtten in their hearts, and so
1 are a law to themselves, as is in the foregoing verse ; and have also some
glimmering of the threatening, and so, by consequence, of the promise, if
they walk according to it. For, ver. 32 of chap, i., they are said to know the judgment of God (thus by instinct),
* that they who commit such things are worthy of death, and by the rule of contraries, that they who obey the law are worthy of life ; and therefore, their thoughts do as well excuse
in hope of life, as accuse in respect of condemnation, as you have it, ver. 15.
Now these common principles engrafted, some divines call the relics of
that former image, thinking them to be the same for substance with those more perfect ones which were in Adam ; as the sparks of a bigger fire, or
as the ruins of an house razed and disordered, which, for the matter, are the same that at first.
But I shall shew elsewhere, that these are rather wholly renewed, and
* lighteneth (with this light, more or less) every man that comes into the world, as it is in John i. 9 ; and so, that
again put into us by Christ, who
they do in reality differ from those in Adam, of which we have spoken.
48 OF THE CREATURES, AND THE CONDITION [BOOK II
For those principles of the knowledge of God and of his law, written in Adam s heart, and likewise the improvement of them by reason, &e., were
all holy in themselves and spiritual, and made his heart holy and sanctified him. For the most spiritual part of the law was no otherwise known to
him, than by being thus written in his heart by natural principles, as the
rest also was, and not by faith, as in us it is ; and so were as natural then
to him, as moral principles are now in heathens. And thus, to love God above all, to believe on him, &c., was to Adam but the dictate of pure nature, by a way of common principles, which met with answerable holy
dispositions, which accompanied these dictates in his will and affections ;
all which together made up true holiness and righteousness in a natural
way. And in like manner, those notions which he had of God and of his
attributes by nature, and that acquired knowledge which was to rise out of them by observation of God s works, were all holy and sanctifying. Why else are the Gentiles blamed for that, knowing God in a natural way, even from his works, they glorified not God as God, Rom. i. ; and for that
they, knowing the law, walked not according to it, but because the know
ledge of both these which Adam once had, and they in him, and which he
should have acquired, enabled him thus to love God above all, and to
glorify God as God ! And on purpose did God put this imperfect natural
knowledge into corrupt nature, to shew us what was the way of knowing and glorifying God, one* in nature pure and innocent. And this is the
first demonstration of it.
A second demonstration that the way of Adam s knowledge was thus
natural, and by the light of common infused principles, and by observation
of God s works to be improved, may be taken from the use and end of the
Sabbath, which God himself sanctified, and upon it rested, to contemplate his works of creation ; and this to be taken as an example unto Adam, how
his mind upon this day was to be up, even in the contemplation of the works of God. And that that was the principal duty of the Sabbath, under
the covenant of works, appears by Psa. xcii.
And therefore, thirdly, the best of Adam s condition (for of his condition when first created the apostle, 1 Cor. xv. 45, quotes that speech in Genesis,
The first man, Adam, was made a living soul ) is called animal and
natural in the 46th verse of the aforesaid 15th to the Corinthians ; but
that state unto which Christ brings us, is there called spiritual or super natural. Both the condition of our souls here, and of our bodies and souls
hereafter, is spiritual and supernatural. And such is Christ s whole image, whereas Adam s was but natural.