Page images
PDF
EPUB

shall give great offence to many professors of our day, as I have done by almost every thing that I have written. My two discourses, which I published upon 'The Image of God in Man,' made a most terrible shaking among the dry bones, which have no life in them: and, although I was under a most remarkable influence when the matter of those discourses was brought to my mind, and at the delivery of them; yet this gave such an offence, that even a minister of Needingworth, in Huntingdonshire, who knows no more of the Spirit's work than an idiot, and whose conduct has been a scandal both to his profession and his assumed office; even this poor hardened wretch took up his pen against that little performance: and that which gave the offence was, my asserting that the Spirit of God dwelt in Adam; that it was the Holy Ghost that was breathed into his nostrils; and that the Holy Spirit formed the soul. of Adam, animated him, gave him life, and clothed him with the image of God. But this image, which he had by the Spirit, was by sin put off, and the old man, with his deceitful lusts, put on; in which old man there is another image, that God despises, Psalm lxxiii. 20. Adam, feeling the sad effects of his sin, and being naked, clothed himself with a covering, but not of God's Spirit, and so added sin to sin, Isaiah xxx. 1. And all his children have copied after him ever since. Nor is there any thing more common to

this day than a fig-leaved professor, or a wolf in a sheep's skin.

Not a few divines, falsely so called, have spent whole sabbaths, almost for a year together, labouring to prove that Adam before his fall was nothing else but a natural man: but surely not in the evil and gross sense which those words now convey to us. God is a Spirit; and the image of the invisible God must be spirit, or spiritual, be it wherever it may, whether in Adam before his fall, or in any sanctified soul since; for, "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." If he was a natural man, it must be in the highest sense, or what Peter calls being partakers of a divine nature; for in nothing else could the image of God consist. And it is plain that the Spirit of God spoke in him. The speech Adam delivered at his reception of Eve is by Christ applied to God: "Have ye not read that he, which made them at the beginning, made them male and female? And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife," Matth. xix. 4, 5. Now, as these words, uttered by Adam, are by Christ applied to God; and as Adam's speech was a prophecy of what should come to pass among married people to the world's end, and is the first exhibition of the mystical union between Christ and his church; and is by the Apostle brought in as representing it, and as the grand mystery signified by it,

Eph. v. 31; it is plain that this, as well as all scripture, was given by inspiration of God, 2 Tim. iii. 16. And that Adam's prophecy come not in old time by the will of a natural man, but holy men of God, and holy Adam among them, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, 2 Peter i. 21. And it is plain that by the Spirit Adam spake mysteries, 1 Cor. xiv. 2. For the Apostle, in his quotation and application of Adam's speech, says, "For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife; and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church," Eph. v. 30-32. No man now living has the light, knowledge, and understanding that Adam had in the works of God's hands. He knew much of God, and of the whole creation; and he had all that by the Spirit of divine revelation. "There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." Adam's mind was not clogged with blindness and ignorance, as ours is since the fall. We know but in part, indeed, and labour under a darkness that may be felt. Not so Adam; nor was he a stranger to the love of God; he loved God, and enjoyed God's love to him; nor was his love opposed by a carnal mind which is enmity against God, as ours is. Paul intimates that the image of God in man stands in righteousness and true holiness. And the same Apostle

tells us that love is the fulfilling of the law; and if so, then the righteousness of Adam stood in love. And the same Apostle makes true holiness to stand in the same. "According as he hath chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love," Eph. i. 4. Adam's righteousness and true holiness stood in love. "The law is spiritual; and spiritual righteousness he must possess that stands just before it; "but I am carnal, sold under sin," Rom. vii. 14. But who made us carnal, and sold us under sin, but Adam? He who was once spiritual, and endued with true holiness, by his fall he became carnal, and a condemned criminal, and sold all his posterity to work wickedness.

6

Nor am I the first person that ever asserted that the Holy Ghost was in Adam: four very learned divines have asserted the same; namely, the learned Milton, Doctor Goodwin, Doctor Owen; and even Doctor Gill, in his Preface to the book of Genesis, allows inspiration to Adam. His words are these: Yea, the knowledge of divine things, which Adam himself had in a state of innocence, was by inspiration: what knowledge he had of God, of his mind and will, and of the worship of him, and of his own salvation, was by divine revelation. Even the moral law was inspired into his heart, and written upon it, or he would not have had such certain and distinct knowledge of it. And especially he could not

have known any thing of the positive law of God, to abstain from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, without a revelation. And, if man in such a state stood in need of it, then much more man in his fallen state.'

Now, though the scriptures quoted sufficiently prove this, and such learned men have advanced the same, yet have I been represented in so odious a point of light, by the sons of darkness, as if I had opened the floodgates of all heresy; but sure I am that they have done worse than I did; for while they were proving Adam in a state of innocency to be only natural, they themselves feign to be spiritual, though they have nothing but Adam's old man of sin, and the earthly Adam's image in them. And the glorious subject I am now going upon will be full as offensive to such men as the other was. Those, that desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, are sure to be satisfied with a name to live though they are dead, and such are alienated from the life of God, and therefore oppose it.

To an awakened sinner death is the most formidable of all enemies; yea, the king of terrors, Job xviii. 14; especially when the universality of his reign, and the different branches of his empire, are properly considered, and duly laid to heart.

"Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," Rom. v. 14. Death reigned even over poor little infants, who never

« PreviousContinue »