1. That our entire nature was originally created in the image of God I have proved before, and it is by all acknowledged. Our whole souls, in the rectitude of all their faculties and powers, in order unto the life of God and his enjoyment, did bear his image. Nor was it confined unto the sonl only; the body also, not as to its shape, figure, or natural use, but as an essential 2Mrt of our nature, was interested in the image of God by a participation of original righteousness. Hence the whole person was a meet principle for the communication of this image of God unto othei's, by the means of natural propagation, which is an act of the entire person ; for a per-
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418 EELIEVERS THE OBJECT OF SANCTIFICATION, [BOOK IV.
son created and abiding in the image of God, begetting another in liis own image and likeness, had, by virtue of the covenant of crea- tion, begotten him in the image of God also, — that is, had communi- cated unto him a nature upright and pure.
2, By the entrance of sin, this image of God, so far as it was our righteousness and holiness before him, was utterly defaced and lost. This also I have sufficiently evidenced before. It dicj not depart from any one power, part, or faculty of our souls, but from our whole nature. Accordingly, the Scripture describes, — (1.) The deprava- tion of our nature distinctly, in all the powers of it. In particular, the corrujotion that ensued on our minds, wills, and affections, upon the loss of the image of God, I have before declared and vindicated. And, — (2.) In reference unto the first actings of all these faculties, in things moral and spiritual, the Scripture adds, that "all the thoughts and imaginations of our hearts are evil, and that continu- ally," Gen. vi. 5. All the original first actings of the powers of our souls, in or about things rational and moral, are always evil; for "an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit." That which is lame and distorted can act nothing that is straight and regular. Hence, — (3.) All the outward actions of persons in this state and condition are evil, unfruitful works of darkness. And not only so, but, (4.) The Scripture, in the description of the effects of this depravation of our nature, calls in the body and the members of it unto a partnership in all this obliquity and sin: the "members" of the body are "ser- vants unto uncleanness and iniquity," Rom. vi. 19. And the en- gagement of them all in the course and actings of depraved nature is particularly declared by our apostle out of the psalmist, Rom. iii. 12—15, "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. . Their throat is an open sepulchre ; with their tongues they have used de- ceit ; the poison of asps is under their lips : whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood," in all ways of evil.
This being the state of our whole nature in its dejjravation, our sanctification, wherein alone its reparation in this life doth consist, must equally respect the whole. Some suppose that it is our aifec- tions only, in their deliverance from corrupt lusts and prejudices, with their direction unto heavenly objects, that are the subject of this work; for "the mind, or rational, intellectual power of the soul, is in itself," they say, " pure, noble, untainted, and needs no other aid but to be delivered from the prejudices and obstructions of its operations, which are cast upon it by the engagements and inclina- tions of corrupt affections, and a vicious course of conversation in the world, received by uninterrupted tradition from our fathers, from
CHAP. HI.] AND SUBJECT OF GOSrEL HOLINESS. 419
whence it is not able to extricate or deliver itself without the aid of grace/' But they have placed their instance very unhappily; for, among all the things that belong unto our nature, there is not any one which the Scripture so chargeth this depravation of it upon as the mind. This, in pai'ticular, is said to be " fleshly," to be " enmity against God," to be filled with " vanity, folly, and blindness," as we have at large before evinced. Nor is there any thing concerning which the work of sanctification and renovation is so expressly affirmed as it is concerning the mind. It is declared by the "renovation of our mind," Rom. xii. 2; or "being renewed in the spirit of our mind," Eph. iv. 23 ; that we "put on the new man, which is renewed in know- ledge," Col. iii. 10 ; with other expressions of the like nature. It is therefore our entire nature that is the subject of evangelical holi- ness; for to manifest in particulars: —
1. Hence it is called the neiv man: Eph. iv. 24, " Put on the new . man, which after God is created in righteousness and holiness." As the principle of sin and corrupted nature in us is called "The old man," for no other reason but that it possesseth all the active powers of the whole man, so that he neither doth nor can do any thing but what