The divine image and likeness cannot consist in something that is peculiar to man. It might as well consist in his shape, as in his faculty of making _syllogisms_; but on the contrary, it must consist in that, and only that, which is, peculiar to God. Nor could man possibly be created in the image and likeness of God, unless something peculiar to God, had been the divine glory and perfection of his creaturely life. For the creaturely life, and all that is peculiar to it, is at the utmost distance from God, and can only have a likeness to that, which is to be found in creatures.――God dwelling in a supernatural way in the creature, is the only possible image of God that can be in it. The fallen angels have every thing _that_ was creaturely _left_ in them, but they are horrible devils, because they have lost their supernatural image of God, which dwelt in them at their creation. They have still reason, craft and subtlety; but because they have nothing, but what is peculiar to the creature, they are all rage, torment and misery.
The Doctor therefore, instead of appealing to two things in man, his shape and his reason, as his true distinction from beasts, should have said, by the authority of _Moses_, that only one thing was peculiar to man, as his glorious distinction both from fallen angels, and terrestrial animals, and _that_ one thing is, his being created in the image and likeness of God. As to his outward shape, considered only as different from other animals, there is but little distinction in it; because they are as different in shape from one another, as man is from them all. And if man at his creation had had no higher a guest within him, than his reason, his shape would have been little better, than that of a fox, or a serpent. For reason, when not under the government of a higher principle, is that same craft, and cunning, _that_ is visible in variety of beasts; and is for the most part, as earthly an instrument of mischievous passions, and lusts in man, as it is in beasts. And what is more, it must be so, till it comes under the government of _that_, which was the _image and likeness_ of God, in the first creation of man.
* What is the difference between reason in St. _Paul_, a _Spinosa_, a _Hobbes_, or a _Bolingbroke_? None at all, or no other than in their outward shape. Therefore if reason be the divine image and likeness of God in man, a _Hobbes_ and a _Bolingbroke_, had as much of it as St. _Paul_. And a man that is all his life long reasoning himself into atheism, and the wisdom of living according to his own lusts, must be allowed to give daily proof of his having the image and likeness of God, very powerfully manifested in him.
The Doctor’s great proof, that reason is the image and likeness of God, is because _Moses_ immediately adds, _Let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of heaven, and over the beasts of the earth_. “For what, says he, could invest man with this dominion _de facto_, as well as _de jure_, but his reason?”¹
¹ D. L. page 554.
Our blessed Lord, at leaving the world, saith, “These signs shall follow them that believe; in my name, they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” Now let it be asked, _what could invest the believers in Christ with this dominion_ de facto, _as well as_ de jure, _but their reason_? Both this question, and the solution of it, is just as sound, and theological as the Doctor’s.
For it was not any thing of their own, but solely the name, that is, power of Christ dwelling, and operating in them, that invested them with the dominion over devils, serpents, diseases, and all outward deadly, or hurtful things. Now _that_ which gave this power, to the believers in Christ, was _that very same_, which gave to the first perfect man, a _power of ruling_ over all the creatures of this world, and of living in full superiority and dominion over all that was, or could be hurtful, and deadly, in fire, or water, heat or cold, or any elementary things. So _that Adam_ whilst standing in his first state of glory, and power, had the same reason to say of all _that_ he was, and did, that which St. _Paul_ said, yet _not I, but Christ that liveth in me_.
And how the Doctor came to think of any other power, as the _ability_ of man to _rule_ over the creatures, is very strange, since the gospel has so plainly told him, _that they only are the children of God, who are led by the Spirit of God_. If therefore the first man, created in the image and likeness of God, may be supposed by his creation, to have been a child of God, then sure is it, that he had the _Spirit of God_, living and working in him. And that surely may be allowed to have been his _true_ and his only qualification, to have and exercise a dominion over the rest of the creation.