I
' " Poterat ct illud de angelis intelligi, Faaamus hominem, etc., sod quia sequitur, ad imaginem nostram, nefas est credere, ad imagines angelorum hominem esse factum, aut candem esse imaginem angelorum et Dei. Et ideo recte intelligitur pluralitas Trinitatis. Qua2 tamen Trinitas, quia unus est Deus, etiam cum dixisset, faciamus, et fecit, inquit, Deus hominem ad imaginem Dei : uon vero dixit, feccrunt Dii ad imaginem Deorum." — Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. xvi. cap. vi.
' Georg. Enjed. in. Explicat. loc. Ver. et Nov. Testam. in Gen. i. 26.
TfiTiir6i xctra (pinv v/aiT; it) t>)v tuv Z,uiuyi onfiiovpyiav, fiii/.oifj.i\ioi ttiv l/u.n]i ivvu/ilf
TTtfi T«v iftiripav yUiriv. — Plato. in Timago. Dial. p. iii. voL ii. p. 43.
OF man's condition before and after the fall. 143
shall suppose them to have been created before any creation, and to have been instrumental of their own production. But of these things in their proper place.
His second question is, " How long was God in making them ?" and he answers from Exod. xx. 11, " In six days the LoRD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is."
The rule I formerly prescribed to myself of dealing with Mr B. causes me to pass this question also without farther inquiry ; although, having already considered what his notions are concerning the nature and properties of God, I can scarce avoid conjecturing that by this crude proposal of the time wherein the work of God's creation was finished, there is an intendment to insinuate such a gross conception of the working of God as will by no means be suited to his omnipo- tent production of all things. But speaking of things no farther than enforced, I shall not insist on this query.
His third is, "How did God create man?" and the answer is. Gen. ii. 7. To which he adds a fourth, " How did he create woman ?" which he resolves from Gen. ii. 21, 22.
Mr B., undertaking to give all the grounds of religion in his Cate- chisms, teacheth as well by his silence as his expressions. What he mentions not, in the known doctrine he opposeth, he may well be interpreted to reject. As to the matter whereof man and woman were made, Mr B.'s answers do express it; but as to the condi- tion and state wherein they were made, of that he is silent, though he knows the Scripture doth much more abound in delivering the one than the other. Neither can his silence in this thing be imputed to oversiofht or forgetfulness, considering how subservient it is to his intendment in his last two questions, for the subverting of the doc- trine of original sin, and the denial of all those effects and conse- quences of the first breach of covenant whereof he speaks. He can, upon another account, take notice that man was made in the image of God: but whereas hitherto Christians have supposed that that denoted some spiritual perfection bestowed on man, wherein he resembles God, Mr B. hath discovered that it is only an expression of some imperfection of God, wherein he resembles man ; which yet he will as hardly persuade us of as that a man hath seven eyes or two wings, which are ascribed unto God also. That man was created in a resemblance and likeness \mto God in that immortal substance breathed into his nostrils. Gen. ii. 7, in the excellent rational faculties thereof, in the dominion he was intrusted withal over a great part of God's creation, but especially in the integrity and uprightness of his person, Eccles. vii. 29, wherein he stood before God, in reference to the obedience required at his hands, — which condition, by the im- planting of new qualities in our soul, we are, through Christ, in some measure renewed unto. Col. iii. 10, 12, Eph. iv. 24, — the Scripture is
144 VINDICI^ EVANGELIC^.
clear, evident, and full in tlie discovery of ; but hereof Mr B. con- ceives not himself bound to take notice. But what is farther needful to be spoken as to the state of man before the fall will fall under the consideration of the last question of this chapter.
Mr B.'s process in the following questions is, to express the story of man's outward condition, unto the eighth, where he inquires after the commandment given of God to man when he put him into the garden, in these words: — "Q. What commandment gave he to the man when he put him into the garden?" This he resolves from Gen. ii. 16, 17. That God gave our first parents the command ex- pressed is undeniable. That the matter chiefly expressed in that command was all or the principal part of what he required of them> Mr B. doth not go about to prove. I shall only desire to know of him whether God did not in that estate require of them that they should love him, fear him, believe him, acknowledge their dependence on him, in universal obedience to his will? and whether a suitable- ness unto all this duty were not wrought within them by God? If he shall say No, and that God required no more of them but only not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, I desire to know whether they might have hated God, abhorred him, believed Satan, and yet been free from the threatening here mentioned, if they had only forbore the outward eating of the fruit? If this shall be granted, I hope I need not insist to manifest what will easily be inferred, nor to show how impossible this is, God continuing God, and man a rational creature. ^ If he shall say that certainly God did require that they should own him for God, — that is, believe him, love him, fear him, and worship him, according to all that he should reveal to them and require of them, — I desire to know whether this particular command could be any other than sacramental and symljolical as to the matter of it, being a thing of so small importance in its own nature, in com- parison of those moral acknowledgments of God before mentioned; and to that question I shall not need to add more.