19. First, His principal plea was taken from the “image of God” wherein man was created: “ For this,” he saith, “was that human nature, consisting of soul and body, in the outward shape, lineaments, and proportion, which it hath in our persons, which the Son of God was to take upon him. God having ordained that his Son should take human nature, he created Adam in a conformity unto the idea or image thereof.”
Ans. This, doubtless, is a better course for the unfolding of our creation in the image of God than that of the old Anthropomor- phites, who, in the exposition of this expression, made God in the image of man; but yet is it not therefore according unto the truth,
SECT. 19.] PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 85
The image of God in man was in general those excellencies of hig nature wherein he excelled all other creatures here below. In espe- cial, it was that uprightness and rectitude of his soul and all its faculties, as one common principle of moral operations, whereby he was enabled to live unto God as his chiefest good and utmost end, Eccles. vii. 29. This by our apostle is termed “ righteousness and true holiness,” where he treats of the renovation of it in us by Jesus Christ, Eph. iv. 24; whereunto he adds that which is the principle of them both, in the renovation of our minds, Col. iii. 10. Nor doth this image of God consist, as some fancy, in moral duties, in distine- tion from and opposition unto any other effect of the grace of Christ in the hearts of men, which acts itself in any duty according to the will of God. “To pray, to hear the word, to celebrate religious wor- ship,” they say, “is no part of the image of God; because God doth none of these things, and an image must always correspond unto the thing it represents.” But our likeness unto God doth not consist in doing what God doth, neither is his image in us in any thing more express than in our universal dependence on him and resignation of ourselves unto him, which is a thing the divine nature is incapable of; and when we are commanded to be holy as he is holy, it is not a specificative similitude, but analogical only, that is intended, Wherefore, as the image of God consists in no outward actions of any kind whatever, so the internal grace that is acted in prayer, hearing, and other acts of sacred worship, according to the will of God, doth no less belong unto the image of God than any other grace, or duty, or virtue whatever. In like manner faith doth so also, and that not only as it is an intellectual perfection, but with respect unto all its operations and effects, as the Lord Christ himself and the promises of the gospel are in their several considerations the objects of it: for as in our first creation the image of God consisted in the concreated rectitude of our nature, whereby we were disposed and enabled to live unto God according to the law of our creation, —wherein there was a great representation of His righteousness, or universal, absolute rectitude of his nature, by whom we were made,— so whateyer is communicated unto us by the grace of Jesus Christ, whereby our nature is repaired, disposed, and enabled to live unto God, with all acts and duties suitable thereunto, according to the present law of our obedience, belongs to the restoration of the image of God in us; but yet with special respect unto that spiritual light, understanding, or knowledge, which is the directive principle of the whole, for “the new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him,” Col. iii. 10. This, therefore, being the image of God, it is evident that in the creation of man therein there was no respect unto the human nature of Christ, which, as the Son of God,
36 THE ORIGIN OF THE [EXERC XXVI.
he afterwards assumed. Only, it is granted that we are both formed and re-formed immediately in his image; for as he was and is, in his divine person, the express image of the Father, the divine qualifica- tions wherein the image of God originally consisted in us were im- mediately wrought in us by him, as those wherein he would represent his own perfection. And in the restoration of this image unto us, as God implanted in him incarnate all fulness of that grace wherein it doth consist, who therein absolutely represents the invisible God unto us, so we are transformed immediately into his likeness and. image, and unto that of God by him, 2 Cor. 11. 18.
20. It is further pleaded, “ That if the Son of God should not have. been incarnate if Adam had not-sinned, then Adam was not made in the image of Christ, but Christ was made in the image of Adam.”
Ans. How Adam was made in the image of the Son of God hath been declared,—namely, as to the principles of his nature, and their rectitude with respect unto the condition wherein and the end for which he was made; in which there was a representation of his righteousness and holiness. And in some sense Christ may be said to be made in the image of Adam, inasmuch as he was “made flesh,” or partaker of the same nature with him: “ Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same,” Heb.11. 14. “He took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men,” Phil. ii. 7. And this he was of God designed unto, even to take on himself that nature wherein Adam was created, and wherein he sinned. He was to be made like unto us in all things, sin only excepted, Heb. iv. 15. Whence, in his genealogy after the flesh, he is reduced by Luke unto the first Adam, chap. ii. 88; and he is called not the first, or the exemplar of the — creation of men, but the second Adam, 1 Cor. xy. 47, being to re- — cover and restore what was lost by the first. Wherefore, in respect of the substance and essence of human nature, Christ was made in the image of Adam; but in respect of the endowments and holy per- fections of that hater he was made in the image of God.