] 48 VINDICItE EVANGELTCtE.
The " defacing of the image of God in us" by this sin, as it is usually asserted, is in the next place denied. That man was created in the image of God, and wherein that image of God doth consist, were before declared. That we are now born with that character upon us, as it was at first enstamped upon us, must be affirmed, or some common cause of the defect that is in us, wherein all and every one of the posterity of Adam are equally concerned, besides that of the first sin, is to be assigned. That this latter cannot be done hath been already declared. He that shall undertake to make good the former must enorawe in a more difficult work than Mr B., in the midst of his other employments, is willing to undertake. To insist on all particulars relating to the image of God in man, how far it is defaced, whether any thing properly and directly thereunto belonging be yet left remaining in us ; to declare how far our souls, in respect of their immortal substance, faculties, and consciences, and our persons, in respect of that dominion over the creatures which yet, by God's gracious and merciful providence, we retain, may be said to bear the image'of God, — is a work of another nature than what I am now engaged in. For the asserting of what is here denied by Mr B., con- cerning the defacing of the image of God in us by sin, no more is required but only the tender of some demonstrations to the main of our intendment in the assertion touching the loss by the first sin, and our present want, in the state of nature, of that righteousness and holiness wherein man at his first creation stood before God (in re- ference unto the end whereunto he was created), in uprightness and ability of walking unto all well-pleasing. And as this will be fully manifested in the consideration of the ensuing particulars instanced in by Mr B., so it is sufficiently clear and evident from the renovation of that image which we have by Jesus Christ; and that is expressed both in general and in all the particulars wherein we affirm that image to be defaced. " The new man," which we put on in Jesus Christ, which " is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him," Col. iii. 10, is that which we want, by sin's defacing (suo more) of that image of God in us which we had in knowledge. So Eph. iv. 23, 24, that new man is said to consist in the " renewing of our mind, whereby after God we are created in righteousness and holiness." So, then, whereas we were created in the image of God, in righteousness and holiness, and are to be renewed again by Christ into the same condition of his image in righteousness and holiness, we doubt not to affirm that by the first sin (the only interposition of general concernment to all the sons of men) the image of God in us was exceedingly defaced. In sum, that which made us sinners brought sin and death upon us; that which made us liable to condem- nation, that defaced the image of God in us ; and that all this was done by the first sin the apostle plainly asserts, Rom. v. 12, 15, 17-19, etc.
OF man's condition befoke and after the fall, 149
To the next particular effect of sin by Mr B. rejected, " the dark- ening of our understandings," I shall only inquire of him whether God made us at first with our understandino-s dark and iofuorant as to those things which are of absolute necessity that we should be ac- quainted withal, for the attainment of the end whereunto he made us ? For once I will suppose he will not affirm it ; and shall there- fore proceed one step farther, and ask him whether there be not such a darkness now upon us by nature, opposed unto that light, that spiritual and saving knowledge, which is of absolute necessity for every one to have and be furnished withal that will again attain that image of God which we are born short of Now, because this is that which will most probably be denied, I shall, by the way, only desire him, —
1. To cast aside all the places of Scripture where it is positively and punctually asserted that we are so dark and blind, and darkness itself, in the things of God ; and then,
2. All those where it is no less punctually and positively asserted that Christ gives us light, knowledge, imder standing, which of our- selves we have not. And if he be not able to do so, then,
3. To tell me whether the darkness mentioned in the former places and innumerable others, and [of which mention is made], as to the manner and cause of its removal and taking away, in the latter, be part of that death which passed on all men "by the offence of one," or by what other chance it is come upon us.
Of the " enslaving of our wills, and the depriving us of power to do good," there is the same reason as of that next before. It is not my purpose to handle the common-place of the corruption of nature by sin: nor can I say that it is well for Mr B. that he finds none of those effects of sin in himself, nothing of darkness, bondage, or dis- abiUty, or if he do, that he knows where to charge it, and not on himself and the depravedness of his own nature; and that because I knoAV none who are more desperately sick than those who, by a fever of pride, have lost the sense of their own miserable condition. Only to stop him in his haste from rejecting the evils mentioned from being effects or consequences of the first sin, I desire him to peruse a little the ensuing scriptures; and I take them as they come to mind : Eph. ii. 1-8, 5 ; John v. 25 ; Matt. viii. 22 ; Eph. v. 8 ; Luke iv. 18; 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26; John viii. 34; Rom. vi. 16; Gen. vi. 5 ; Rom. vii. 5 ; John iii. 6 ; 1 Cor. ii. 14 ; Rom. iii. 12 ; Acts viii. 31 ; John v. 40 ; Rom. viii. 7; Jer. xiii. 23, etc.