162 VINDICI^ EVANGELIC^.
The argument for that state and condition wherein we affirm man to have been created from the consideration of the image of God wherein he was made, and whereunto in part we are renewed, was formerly insisted on. Let the reader look back unto it, and he will quickly discern how little is here offered to enervate it in the least ; for, —
1 . They cannot prove that man, in the condition and state of sin, doth retain any thing of the image of God. The places mentioned, as Gen. ix. 6, and James iii. 9, testify only that he was made in the image of God at first, but that he doth still retain the image they intimate not ; nor is the inference used in the places taken from what man is, but what he was created.
2. That the image of God did not consist in any one excellency hath been above declared ; so that the argument to prove that it did not consist in immortality, because it did consist in the dominion over the creatures, is no better than that would be which should con- clude that the sun did not give light because it gives heat. So that, —
3. Though the image of God, as to the main of it, in reference to the end of everlasting communion with God whereunto we were created, was utterly lost by sin (or else we could not be renewed unto it again by Jesus Christ), yet as to some footsteps of it, in refer- ence to our fellow-creatures, so much might be and was retained as to be a reason one towards another for our preservation from wrong and violence.
4. That place of Gen. i. 26, " Let us make man in our image, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea," etc., is so far from proving that the image of God wherein man was created did consist only in the dominion mentioned, that it doth not prove that domi- nion to have been any part of or to belong unto that image. It is rather a grant made to them who were made in the image of God than a description of that image wherein they were made.
It is evident, then, notwithstanding any thing here excepted to the contrary, that the immortality pleaded for belonged to the image of God, and from man's being created therein is rightly inferred; as above was made more evident.
Upon the testimony of the Book of Wisdom, it being confessedly apocryphal, I shall not insist. Neither do I think that in the origi- nal any new argument to that before mentioned of the image of God is added; but that is evidently pressed, and the nature of the image of God somewhat explained. The words are, "Or/ 6 Qihg 'Unai 7QV avdpoj'Trov kit d(pdapffia,, xa/ etXiOva rrjg id!ag ibiorrirog s'jroirjgiv avTov' <^d6vif} ds dia<^6Xou ^dvarog sia^Xdiv ug rh k6<S[j.ov' 'xsipd^ouffi ds avrov o'l rrig sKiivou [j^ipibog ovrsg. The opposition that is put between the creation of man in integrity and the image of God in one verse, and the en-
OF MAN S CONDITION BEFORE AND AFTER THE FALL. 163
trance of sin by the envy of the devil in the next, plainly evinces that the mind of the author of that book was, that man, by reason of his being created in the image of God, was immortal in his primi- tive condition. That which follows is of another nature, concerninsr which they thus inquire and answer: —
Q. What, moreover, wilt thou ansioer to the third testimony f
A. The apostle in that place treateth not of immortality [mortality], but of
death itself. But mortality differeth much from death, for a man may be mortal
and j'et never die.'
But, — 1. The apostle eminently treats of man's becoming obnoxi- ous to death, which until he was, he was immortal; for he says that death entered the world by sin, and passed on all men, not actually, but in the guilt of it and obnoxiousness to it. By what means death entered into the world, or had a right so to do, by that means man lost the immortality which before he had.
2. It is true, a man may be mortal as to state and condition, and yet by almighty power be preserved and delivered from actual dying, as it was with Enoch and Elijah; but in an ordinary course he that is mortal must die, and is directly obnoxious to death. But that which we plead for from those words of the apostle is, that man, by God's constitution and appointment, was so immortal as not to be liable or obnoxious to death until he sinned. But they will prove their assertion in their progress.
Q. What, therefore, is the sense of these words, " that death entered into the world hy sin?"
A. This, that Adam for sin, by the decree and sentence of God, was subject to eternal death ; and therefore all men, because (or inasmuch as) they are born of him, are subject to the same eternal death. And that this is so, the comparison of Christ with Adam, which the apostle instituteth from verse 1 2 to the en(i of the chapter, doth declare.^
1. Be it so that this is the meaning of those words; yet hence it inevitably follows that man was no way liable or obnoxious to death but upon the account of the commination of God annexed to the law he gave him. And this is the whole of what we affirm, — namely, that by God's appointment man was immortal, and the tenure of his immortality was his obedience, and thereupon his right thereunto he lost by his transgression.