Man's Primitive State and the First Covenant

ECCLESIASTES VII. 29.

GOD made Man upright.

SOLOMON, when engaged in many puzzling Disquisitions, which his Soul sought to find out, but could not, arrived to certainty in a Point of greater Importance, The original State of Man. And he seems enraptur'd with the Discovery, and cries out with the old Mathematician, 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, I have found it! I have found it! Lo, this have I found as the true State of Man at first, and as the best Help to account for all that moral Evil wherewith the World is inundated, without any criminal Imputation to the CREATOR,—That GOD made Man upright.

THESE Words present to us a View of Man's primitive State; which it is my Province at present to consider: And therefore, p. 4pretermitting a critical Explication of them, which their intrinsic plainness admits not of; and extending them so as to include our present Scope, we shall take occasion from them to consider Man.

I. PHYSICALLY, or in Genere Entis, (if modern Politeness will indulge such a Scholasticism) as to his Being and temporal Circumstances.

II. MORALLY, or in Genere Moris, as to his Conformity to the moral Perfections of his all-holy Creator, transcribed in the Law of Nature. And

III. RELATIVELY, as to the Foederal Oeconomy under which he was,

I. CONSIDERING Man Physically, we take Notice of his Person, consisting of Body and Soul:—His blissful Situation in the Garden of Eden:—His conjugal Happiness in Eve his Wife: And his Dominion over the inferior Creation.

IF we consider the Person of Man, we shall find, that he is wonderfully and fearfully made:—A Work worthy not only of the divine Hands, but of the deliberating Wisdom of the Trinity Sitting in Council.

IF we take a View of his Body, the meaner Part of his Person, we shall find it curiously wrought, as the Psalmist speaks.—The Matter indeed was mean, the Dust of the Earth; as his Name Adam indicates; but materiam superebat opus; it is a s◊il to the amazing Machine.

p. 5WOULD Time allow us, or Skill qualify us to survey and anatomize the human Body, a thousand Excellencies and Wonders would appear in it.

p. 5IT'S upright Posture; the Organs of Sense; the Instruments of Motion and Activity; their Make and Situation; their mutual Subserviency to one another, and conjunct Subserviency to the Whole, are all Objects of wonder.

HOW wisely are those Parts that are more essential to the human Frame, and the principal Seats of Life and Activity, defended from external Injuries by various Inclosures! As the Brain by a Wall of Soull; the Marrow by Bones; the Heart, Lungs and Liver placed in the midst; and the Whole overlaid with a soft and neat Covering of Skin.

HOW amazing the continued Motion of the Lungs! the constant and regular Circulation of the Blood and Juices, even when the Man is asleep! The Continuance of vital Heat for so long a Time! Much more amazing this, than that the Frame is so soon dissolved by Death.

BUT his Soul, the other Constituent of his Person, is of a yet more excellent Nature and Endowments. And indeed the principal Excellencies of his Body, indicate the superior Excellency of this Principle of Activity within.

AS to it's Nature, it is immaterial, or spiritual.—Moses tells us, 'tis the Breath of the immaterial Deity—He breathed into his Nostrils the Breath of Life; and Man became a living p. 6Soul. Gen. ii. 7. And consequently it cannot be material.

FROM its Immateriality or Spirituality may be inferred it's Immortality, and intrinsic Tendency to exist.—But these two Particulars having been already fully evinc'd by one of my Brethren, I shall not insinuate the Contrary by a tedious Prosecution of them here.

FROM its Spirituality results also its Vitality or Activity;—Its amazing Activity we still experience; and Adam no doubt experienced in a vastly superior Degree,—What a vast Number of Ideas does it receive or form in a little Time! With what amazing Celerity does it fly from Object to Object! How unwearied in Operation, and vigorous in it's Contemplations of a thousand Things successively! With what Vigour and Sprightliness does the Will clasp about an apprehended Good! And recoil and start back from an apparent Evil!

p. 6THIS Activity or Capacity of acting, receives different Denominations from the different Objects about which it is versant; from which objective Diversity there arises a Diversity of Operations.

ALL the Objects about which it can be versant may in general be considered either as I◊◊◊◊◊gibles, or Eligibles and Non-eligibles,—That the Soul may be capable of being versant about the 〈…〉, it is endowed with an Understanding; and about the ◊◊ter, with a 〈…〉 ◊◊en of which are capable of sundry Modifications.

p. 7AS the first Step to the Knowledge of things, that are the proper Objects of it, the Understanding is capable of forming or receiving those Images or Impressions of things which are commonly called Ideas: These Ideas it can join or disjoin as they agree or disagree, by an Act of Judgment; and this Agreement or Disagreement, when it is self-evident, it can perceive by Intuition; and when it is not so, by Argumentation: It can survey things in their general Nature by Abstraction: Dwell upon things known at present by Contemplation; and recall things known in Time past by an Act of Memory.

Adam's Will was capable of choosing or refusing an Object according to it's apparent Goodness or Badness. Some of its Acts were more refin'd and spiritual, and less dependent on the Body; others, exerted with special Vigour, occasioned a Commotion in animal Nature, and are therefore called Passions or Affections.

GOOD was the Object of his Love, and Evil, of Hatred. The present Enjoyment of Good excited Joy; and the Loss of it would have occasioned Sorrow: An absent attainable Good was a fit Object of Desire and Hope; and an absent Evil to which he might be exposed, of Aversion and Fear.

NOW the Soul of Adam in this View bore the physical or natural Image of GOD, the Father of Spirits. As he is by Nature an immaterial, immortal, vital, and rational Spirit; so is the Soul in its Degree.