The original and present state of man, briefly considered

Front matter

Chap. IM,:ij3:^

Shelf.. xS:k m^

$ UIMSTED STATES OF ^MERiCA. ^

Chapter I

1. Man was originally created in purity, and in a state of due order and rectitudje. 2. He was inspired with a sense of his duty; and 3 and 4, empowered to perform it. 5. Being tempted, he lapsed from his proper guard, the preserving power of God, into sin. 6. He fell from the image of the heavenly, into the image of the earthly. How unlawful self rose in him. 7. That he really suffered death in spirit, in the day of his transgression. What the life and death of the soul are.

1. In the beginning God created all things good. Inherently and immutably good himself, every production of his must necessarily be so, according to the several kinds wherein he created them. As man was wholly made by him, he must have been made wholly good ; his nature clear of all impurity, and free from all defect and disorder. His faculties were not imperfect, but limited to their proper sphere, and every part of his composition constituted in its due rectitude : the body placed in subservience to his rational spirit or soul, as to the more noble and excellent, and therefore the supe- 1* (5)

rior part, made for immortality, and in subjection only to the guidance of its Creator.

2. The human faculties or powers of capacity, must then be clear, unprejudiced, and fit to receive impressions, yet void of any but those of immediate seuse. Man, merely as man, could not originally bring any real knowledge into the world with him. That must either be immediately communicated to him by his Maker, or afterwards acquired by himself, through observation and experience. The latter required time to eflFect ; and as it was requisite to his situation, that he should be immediately endued with such an understanding of himself and his Creator, as related to his present duty and affected his felicity, he certainly was, by divine wisdom and goodness, timely furnished with it.

3. Man must not only then be supplied with a due degree of light and understanding, but he must also be empowered to act up to it, else his knowledge would have been afforded him in vain. Yet, though he certainly was thus empowered, the sequel manifested he was placed in a state of probation, otherw^ise, he could never have been guilty of the least failure ; for his Maker being essentially and unchangeably good, must have fixed him in a state of immutable virtue and goodness, had he determined to fix him at all.

4. As the omniscient Creator most certainly foresaw what a subtle adversary man would have to encounter, he as surely furnished him with means sufficient to discover his snares, and resist his assaults. If Satan was suffered to use his subtlety and influence to deceive him, doubtless he was not only warned, but also endued with a sufficiency of divine light and influence to withstand his attempts, as he kept duly upon his watch.

Nothing but the divine nature can enable any intelligent creature to resist temptation, and act up to the divine will. If therefore any created being is required to keep up thereunto, it must be assisted by divine power so to do. God created man for a purpose of his own glory. To glorify God, and to partake of his glory, man must walk in obedience to his will. Man could neither infallibly know his will, nor constantly perform it, merely by the strength of his own faculties ; he must therefore, necessarily, have been assisted by the spirit of God, to enable him to perform his will, and so to obey him as to glorify him, and enjoy a blessed inheritance in him ; otherwise, the end of man's creation could not be answered. Hence it is concluded, the first man Adam was made a living soul by the inspiration of the second Adam, Christ, who is a quickening spirit ; for " That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is spiritual.'* * That is, Adam was first created a natural man, and then rendered a spirit* ual one by the quickening power of the spirit of

Christ, which is the true life, and proper element for immortal spirits to live and move in.

Thus the parents of mankind, in their original uncorrupted state, being fit temples for the Holy Ghost to dwell in, were, as well as the sanctified in Christ afterwards, partakers of the divine nature,* by the " internal quickening of divine life. The author of the book of Wisdom observes, that wisdom in all ages, and certainly in the first and purest, entereth holy souls ; which wisdom he describes to be the breath of the power of God, a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty, the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness. f This clearly denotes the spirit of the eternal Son of God himself, and evidently concurs with those parts of the New Testament which declare him to be the power of God, and the wisdom of God, the true light, and life of men, the brightness of the Father's glory, and the image of the invisible God. J

It was undoubtedly in the light of this pure influence that Adam had such an intuitive discerning of the creation, as enabled him to give names to them according to their several natures. For we read, '' The Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam, to see what he would call them ; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was i the name thereof. "§

* 1 Pet. i. 4. t Wis. vii. t 1 Cor. i. 24. Col. i. 15,

Under this celestial enduement, the sacred impression of the divine image conspicuously appeared in the first of mankind. "In the image of God created he them."*

5. Had man kept in faithful obedience to his heavenly guide, and rejected the efforts of the tempter, he might undoubtedly, in due time, have been advanced to a degree of establishment beyond all possibility of falling ; but not continuing strictly upon his watch, and contrary to the warning before given him, turning his attention towards the temptation, when alluringly presented, he slipped from his proper guard ; leaving hold of that spirit wherein his life and strength lay, he fell from it, and all its advantages, out of the liberty of the sons of God, into the bondage of corruption : a sure introduction to misery. For as holiness and happiness are inseparably united, so sin and misery are indivisibly connected.

To suppose that the Almighty author of all good, originally subjected man under a moral necessity to transgress upon the appearance of temptation, is an imagination too injurious to the divine character to be admitted. Our first parents were unquestionably enabled by their Maker to abide in due watchfulness, which would have entitled them to preservation ; their defection from which, was certainly not of him, but of themselves. Had their lapse been through his will, or intentional disposition of cir-

10 THE ORIGINAL A])JD

cumstances, so that it must inevitably follow, he coald not consistently have sentenced them to punishment for it ; because, in so doing, they performed his will, which could not be a sin against him.

A dangerous fondness to become knowing in things hurtful and no way necessary, seems to have had an early entrance into the human mind. '' In the day ye eat, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.''* By the suggestion of this flattering falsehood, Eve was deceived. Knowing nothing but good, she might have remained happy; but experiencing evil, she became otherwise. This knowledge is as opposite to that of the divine wisdom, as darkness is to light. It is certain the Omniscient knows both good and evil, but he knows the first by immutable possession and perfect enjoyment, and the last he beholds with abhorrence, in eternal opposition to, and infinite distance from, the purity of his nature. With sinful man the case is reverse ; evil having immediate possession of him, and good being out of his reach, without divine mercy, he must be completely wretched. This is the necessary consequence of that boasted knowledge of the world, which men acquire by tasting the pernicious and poisonous sweets of temptation.

6. The consequences of this primary lapse were immediately afi*ecting to the actual transgressors, and remotely to all their posterity. 1. They lost

* Gen. iii. 5.

the briglit impression of the divine image, and the felicity attending it. Forfeiting the immediate indwelling and pure influence of God's holy spirit, they lost that divine similitude, wherein they had enjoyed internal light, life, love, goodness, righteousness, holiness, and happiness. That omnipresent spirit of power, truth, and virtue, which in their original state had been their comforter, disunited from them through transgression, now became their accuser and con victor. 2. Lapsing from under due and constant subjection to the mind and spirit of his Creator, the will of man separated from the will of God, and became self-will. Self-love in man was originally and properly placed in subservience to the love of his Maker, who being in all respects justly supreme, had, whilst man stood in cheerful obedience, the supremacy in his affection ; but by his un dutiful self-gratification, and letting in the suggestion of the tempter, his chief love turned from his Maker to himself. Thus, probably ,^ inordinate self-love and self-will originated in man^ and they always stand in a will separate from the will of God, and a spirit contrary to his holy spirit. This mental separation opened an easy road of access for the evil spirit to influence the human mind towards exterior objects, and rendered them the subjects of temptation. By giving way to carnal inclinations, man became carnally minded; and ^'to be carnally minded is death."*

*Rom. viii. 6.

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7. When the Sovereign Legislator first added a positive law to Adam, he predenounced immediate death upon him in case of his transgression; '4n the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."* This seems to imply a much deeper and more important meaning than what relates to the body ; a meaning more immediately affecting to the rational soul ; the privation of a life which before transgression it happily enjoyed, and which, by disobedience, it must certainly lose. What then is the proper life of the soul, and what is the death of that which must for ever exist ? Merely to be, cannot be the life intended. It must be, to live in that life which immutably exists only in the divine nature, and which is not to be enjoyed but by partaking of the divine nature, the spirit of him who is the life, and our life ; that life the Evangelist declares to be the true light of men.f

This supernatural, spiritual, heavenly power and virtue of the great illuminator and quickener, is the true life of the immortal spirit of man ; and the total want and deprivation thereof, is its death. Turning from this to embrace temptation, our first parents did surely, in the day of transgression, deviate from, and die in spirit to that divine life by which they had been quickened. For, it is the spirit that quickeneth or giveth life ; J and when life departs, death ensues of course. As the body dies when deprived

^ Gen. ii. 17. f 2 Pet. i. 4. John xiv. 6. Col. iii. 4. John i. 4 t John vi. 63. 2 Oor. iii. 6.

PRESENT STATE OE MAN. 13

1 1 its animal life, so the soul is left in a state of smritual death, when that which is its proper life departs from it ; saving this difference, that the deceased body remains wholly insensible ; but the soul, in the full state of its death, still exists under the unavoidable sense of its gailt and misery. Thus according to Wisdom, man found death in the error of his life.* — ''For God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living" — but, " through envy of the devil came death into the world. "t

Chapter II

1. The Fall of Adam and Eve affected all their progeny, not with guilt, but with infirmity. 2. How this accrues. 3. The state of infants. 4. The common ascendence of the sensitive powers over the rational. 5. How the creature is said, Rom. viii. to be subjected to vanity by its Creator. 6. When arrived to years of understanding, we add sin to infirmity.

1. It appears from holy writ, that previous to our own actual offences, we are all naturally affected by the transgression of our primogenitors. ''By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."! This is not to be understood of the death of the body only ; for all come into the world in the image of the earthly, or, void of the quickening and sensible influence of divine life. But this disadvantage, througli the supreme Goodness, is amply provided for, and there appears no necessity to conclude, that we all come into the world justly obnoxious to divine vengeance, for an offence committed by our primogenitors, before we came into the world. With what propriety can an infant, in. capable of committing any crime, be treated as an offender ? The Scripture positively assures us, God*s v/ays are equal* — that the soul that sinneth it shall die, and not the son for the fault of the father — that whatever Adam's posterity lost through him, that and more they gain in Christ ;f and undoubtedly, his mercy and goodness, and the extent of his propitiation, are as applicable to infants, who have not personally offended, as to adults who have.

2. The immortal reasonable soul of man, in every individual, appears to be the immediate production of its Creator ; for the prophet Zechariah, speaking of the great acts of God in creation, asserts, that "he formeth the spirit of man within him. 'J And in Eccles. xii. 7, we read upon the death of the body, '' Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." The soul therefore, receiving its existence immediately from the perfection of unchangeable purity, can have no original impurity or intemperature in its nature ; but being immediately and imtimately connected with a sensitive body, and of itself, unable constantly to withstand the eagerness of the

* Ezek. xviii. f Rom. v. 15 to 20. % Zech. xii. 1.

animal passions after gratifications of a carnal nature, is liable to be so influenced by them, as to partake with them in their sensual indulgences. In this state the descendants of Adam came into the world, unendued with that divine life which Adam fell from. And who can say, this might not be admitted in mercy to all the future generations of mankind? 1st. That each succeeding individual micrht be prevented from intjurring the guilt of repeating the sin of our prime ancestors, and falling from the same degree of innocence, purity and divine enjoyment. 2d. That, by feeling the infirmity of our own nature, and the want of divine assistance, we might become the more sensible of our danger and necessary dependence on our Creator, and thence be continually incited to seek after and cleave to him, in watchfulness, circumspection and prayer, in order to obtain a state of restoration. 3d. That having in part attained such a state, our prudence might be useful towards our preservation and growth therein ; since we should certainly be more assiduously concerned, to secure to ourselves a good condition obtained through pains and diflSculty, than one we might have been originally placed in without any care or trouble to ourselves.

3. Whatever were the peculiarities attending the fall of the first man and woman, or those consequent upon it, this is certain, that their progeny do not come into the world in that same state of brio:htness themselves were constituted in after their crea-

16 THEOEIGINALANB

tion. It cannot escape the notice of those who have had the care of infants, that the earliest exertions observable in them, evidently arise from the powers of animal desire, and animal passion ; how prone these are to increase in them, and to predominate as they grow up, and the solicitude it requires to keep children out of unruliness and intemperature, as they advance to youth's estate ; how much too potent their inordinate propensities are for the government of the rational faculty ; what pains are necessary to regulate, and often but to palliate them, by a virtuous education, and improving converse; and the impossibility they should ever be radically subdued and ruled, without the application of a superior principle.

4. In the present state of our nature, the sensitive powers take the lead of the rational in the first stage of life, as the soul brings only a capacity, without any real knowledge, or potency, into the world with it. It acquires its knowledge by degrees, enlarging also in capacity to receive it gradually. Every one knows, it is not capable at five or ten years of age, to comprehend the same ideas in the same extent, as in riper and more advanced years. It first becomes impressed with the images of external things, presented through the corporeal organs, and afterwards with those mental ideas inculcated by its primary instructors, whether true or false. Hence the bias of education becomes strong, either to right or wrong, according as the instructions received are o&greeable to either ; and the passions being enlisted in their service, occasionally exercise their warmth in favour of the prevalent idea or impression, however wrong it may be ; unless the mind, through divine illumination, discover its error, and submit to its rectification.

5. Previous to the reception of knowledge, the soul is joined to the body, by the power of its Creator ; who, in consequence of the fall, saw fit it should be so. '^ For," saith the Apostle, ''the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope; because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of Grod."*

The rational soul is here intended by the creature, and properly denominates the man. Herein the true distinction lies, betwixt the human species and creatures of inferior kinds. This descends not with the body from parents to children ; the soul being an indivisible immaterial substance, cannot be generated. The soul of the child never was in the parent, and therefore could never sin in him, nor derive guilt from his transgression. Neither can guilt accrue to it, merely from its being joined to a body descended from him, because that junction is the act of the Creator.

To account a child guilty, or obnoxious to punishment, merely for an oS*ence committed by its parents, before it could have any consciousness of ^jeing, is inconsistent both with justice and mercy; therefore no infant can be born with guilt upon it^ head.

6. Besides our natural alienation from, and ignorance of the internal life of God, * in our fallen state, it must be acknowledged, that all who have arrived to such a degree of maturity as to be capable of receiving a right understanding, and of distinguishing the inward monitions of Truth in their conscience, have also increased and strengthened the bonds of corruption upon themselves, in different degrees, by a repeated, and too frequently an habitual, indulgence of the carnal part, against the sense of duty received ; and are more deeply entered into the dark region of the shadow of death, through their own trespasses and sins.f Thus, "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God/'t

* Eph. iv. li? t Eph. ii. 1. X I^ODi- iii- 23.

PEESENT STATE OF MAN. 19

Chapter III

1. The state of man in the fallen nature, and the necessity of his renovation. 2. His inability to accomplish it for himself, and the necessity of Divine assistance thereunto. 3. What moral evil is — that it both may, and must be removed from man, in order to his felicity. 4. Without this, man is not fully acquitted by the one offering of our Saviour at Jerusalem. 5. The spirit of God is absolutely necessary to effect this great work. 6. What perfect redemption from sin consists in — the term world, John iii. 16, is not to be confined to the elect — Christ tasted death for all men without exception.

1. Whatever we may have derived from our parents, we certainly accumulate to ourselves additional corruption. ''AH flesh hath corrupted his way upon the earth.''* Every adult person, in his common natural state, must, upon serious introversion, find in himself a proneness to the gratification of self, and the sensual part; an eager inclination at times to forbidden pleasure, an aversion to piety and holy walking, a consciousness of guilt, and a fearful apprehension of the approach of death. Men generally confess they have erred and strayed, like lost sheep, from the salutary paths of virtue and duty; and that, such is their frailty, it is an easy thing for them to fall in with temptation ; but hard, if not impossible, effectually to resist it. Nay, even the high rewards promised to virtue and a good life, and the sore punishments annexed to vice and folly, are altogether insuflGicient to retain them in the practice of the former, or to enable them to conquer the force of their inclination to the latter. This demonstrates the corruption of their nature; and as ''out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;"* so from what lodges or presides within, the exterior practice arises. The corruption in the heart corrupts the actions, manners and language. Hence all the irregularities in conduct, all the profane and untrue speeches, all the common complimental falsehoods, to gratify the pride and folly of vain minds.

As the origin of evil in man came by transferring his attention and desire from his Creator to the creature, dividing his will from the will of God, and his spirit from the spirit of God ; so the continuation of evil in man is by the continuance of this separation, and must abide so long as that remains. In this situation, commonly called the state of nature, we are both unfit for, and unable to enter the heavenly kingdom, which admits of nothing sinful or unclean. f It is therefore absolutely requisite that man should be made holy, in order to be happy. Holiness cannot unite with unholiness ; nor can ability arise from infirmity. If pollution can cleanse itself, if evil can produce good, if death can bring forth life ; man thus corrupted, debilitated, and deadened, may disengage, reform, quicken, and restore himself. But it is not in the power

* Mat. xii. 34. t Eph. v. 5.

of man, as such, to extricate himself from the bonds of sin and death. Yet, as impurity is the bar, it must be removed. As sin separates man from his Maker,* man must be separated from sin, or he cannot be reconciled and united to him. Without restoration to a state of holiness, he cannot enjoy the felicity pertaining to that state ; for, ^' without holiness no man shall see the Lord."t

2. How then shall corrupt man become holy ? how shall he, in a state of utter incapacity, enter into and maintain a warfare against his many and mighty adversaries, which beset him within and without ? what ability has he to fight his enemy who is already enchained by him ? a power too strong for man has got possession ; it must be a superior power to dispossess him, to rescue and restore man ; and who is sufficient for these things ? None but his omnipotent Creator was able to unbind and extricate him. But his will Adam had separated from, his law he had transgressed, his command he had disobeyed, and against him alone he had committed this high offence. Yet, behold the astonishing compassion and kindness of infinite Goodness ! an all-sufficient means was straightway provided, for the redemption both of the actual offenders and all their progeny. The eternal Word, the Son, the Lamb of God Almighty, gave instant demonstration of the greatness of divine love and mercy, in then concurring with the Father, to yield

* Isa. lix. 2. t Heb. xii. 14.

himself up in due time to take the nature of man upon him,'^ and, by resigning it to suffering and death, to make it a propitiation for the whole species ; and also, in immediately, and all along, affording a manifestation of his holy spirit to every man to profit withal,t in order to their present deliverance from the power of sin, and their everlasting salvation from the certain effect of abiding therein to the last, namely, the second death.

That man should, of himself, empower himself to live in the constant practice of crossing his natural inclinations and propensities, is a wild presumption ; but that a spirit infinitely good, and more powerful than all his enemies, should so influence, incline, and enable him, is highly reasonable to believe, because absolutely necessary. By the help of God's spirit, man may, like the Apostle, be assisted to keep his body under, and bring it into subjection,! before the strength of its passions and affections lessens by decay of nature; which the rational faculty can never effectually accomplish, even under that decay, without superior assistance.

3. Neither the possibility, nor probability, of man's purification and sanctification by the holy spirit, can reasonably be doubted; for^ first, as physical evil, or bodily pain, has no substantial existence of its own, but is puj'ely incidental to corporeal nature ; so moral evil is to the soul, a disorder which it has improperly lapsed into. It is no part

* Heb. ii. 16. f 1 Cor. xii. 6. J 1 Cor. ix. 27, of God's creation, nor has any real existence by itself; but is the fallen, defective, distempered condition of beings, once created without intemperature or defect. Evil, therefore, though it be in man, is no constituent part of man, but an imperfection adventitious to his nature, which by an all-powerful principle, he may be recovered from, and his nature restored to a state of fitness for union with his Maker. Secondly^ uncreated Omnipotence is certainly more able to cleanse, than the creaturely, corrupt, and fallen powers of darkness are to defile ; and infinite Goodness must be as willing and ready to eS'ect the first, as limited envy the last. Did not the sovereign Lord intend man should be made holy, he would not require it; nor would he require it without afibrding him the assistance requisite to accomplish it, for he enjoins no impossibilities. That he doth require it, the sacred writings sufiiciently witness. "God," saith an Apostlic writer, " hath not called us to uncleanness, but unto holiness."* And, " Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word,"f or the purifying efficacy of the holy word, or spirit, which cleanseth the soul as water doth the body, " that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish." In another place, he gives this exhortation,

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'^Abstain from all appearance of evil/** — then proceeds — ''And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God, that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." And to encourage them to seek and hope for it, he immediately assures them, " faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it."

4. Vain is that imaginary pretence, that Christ has paid the whole price for us, by which we stand fully acquitted in the sight of God; that we have complete redemption in him without sanctification in ourselves; and that by the external offering up of his body, he hath perfected the work for us, and we are already reconciled thereby. For, was this the real truth, Christ only paid the price of man's redemption, that he might continue in a state of pollution, and practice evil with security ; or be justified in breaking the known commands of God, and serving Satan during the whole term of this life. Contrary to this, the Apostolic doctrine is, " His own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness. "t — " He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them. "J — "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein ?"§ — ''Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.

that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." — ''What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed ? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life."