prayers what is false with what is real; what is perishable with what
is eternal; low and temporal interests with that which concerns our
salvation. Do not seek to render God the protector of your self-love
and ambition, but the promoter of your good desires. You ask for the
gratification of your passions, or to be delivered from the cross,
of which He knows you have need. Carry not to the foot of the altar
irregular desires and indiscreet prayers. Sigh not for vain and
fleeting pleasures. Open your heart to your Father in heaven, that His
Spirit may enable you to ask for the true riches. How can He grant
you, says St. Augustine, what you do not yourself desire to receive?
You pray every day that His will may be done, and that His kingdom may
come. How can you utter this prayer with sincerity when you prefer
your own will to His, and make His law yield to the vain pretexts with
which your self-love seeks to elude it? Can you make this prayer--you
who disturb His reign in your heart by so many impure and vain
desires? You, in fine, who fear the coming of His reign, and do not
desire that God should grant what you seem to pray for? No! If He, at
this moment, were to offer to give you a new heart, and render you
humble, and willing to bear the cross, your pride would revolt, and
you would not accept the offer; or you would make a reservation in
favor of your ruling passion, and try to accommodate your piety to
your humor and fancies!
SOUTH
THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Robert South, who was born in the borough of Hackney, London, England,
in 1638, attracted wide attention by his vigorous mind and his clear,
argumentative style in preaching. Some of his sermons are notable
specimens of pulpit eloquence. A keen analytical mind, great depth of
feeling, and wide range of fancy combined to make him a powerful and
impressive speaker. By some critics his style has been considered
unsurpassed in force and beauty. What he lacked in tenderness was made
up in masculine strength. He was a born satirist. Henry Rogers said of
him: "Of all the English preachers, South seems to furnish, in point
of style, the truest specimens of pulpit eloquence. His robust
intellect, his shrewd common sense, his vehement feelings, and a
fancy always more distinguished by force than by elegance, admirably
qualified him for a powerful public speaker." South became prebendary
of Westminster in 1663, canon at Oxford in 1670, and rector of Islip
in 1678. An edition of his writings was published in 1823. He died in
1716.
SOUTH
1638-1716
THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN
_So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him_.--Genesis i., 27.
How hard it is for natural reason to discover a creation before
revealed, or, being revealed, to believe it, the strange opinions of
the old philosophers, and the infidelity of modern atheists, is too
sad a demonstration. To run the world back to its first original and
infancy, and, as it were, to view nature in its cradle, and trace the
outgoings of the Ancient of Days in the first instance and specimen of
His creative power, is a research too great for any mortal inquiry;
and we might continue our scrutiny to the end of the world, before
natural reason would be able to find out when it began.
Epicurus's discourse concerning the original of the world is so
fabulous and ridiculously merry that we may well judge the design of
his philosophy to have been pleasure, and not instruction. Aristotle
held that it streamed by connatural result and emanation from God, the
infinite and eternal Mind, as the light issues from the sun; so that
there was no instant of duration assignable of God's eternal existence
in which the world did not also coexist. Others held a fortuitous
concourse of atoms--but all seem jointly to explode a creation, still
beating upon this ground, that the producing something out of nothing
is impossible and incomprehensible; incomprehensible, indeed, I grant,
but not therefore impossible. There is not the least transaction of
sense and motion in the whole man, but philosophers are at a loss to
comprehend, I am sure they are to explain it. Wherefore it is not
always rational to measure the truth of an assertion by the standard
of our apprehension.
But, to bring things even to the bare preception of reason, I
appeal to any one who shall impartially reflect upon the ideas and
conceptions of his own mind, whether he doth not find it as easy and
suitable to his natural notions to conceive that an infinite Almighty
power might produce a thing out of nothing, and make that to exist _de
novo_, which did not exist before, as to conceive the world to have
had no beginning, but to have existed from eternity, which, were it so
proper for this place and exercise, I could easily demonstrate to be
attended with no small train of absurdities. But then, besides
that the acknowledging of a creation is safe, and the denial of it
dangerous and irreligious, and yet not more, perhaps much less,
demonstrable than the affirmative; so, over and above, it gives me
this advantage, that, let it seem never so strange, uncouth, and
incomprehensible, the nonplus of my reason will yield a fairer
opportunity to my faith.
The work that I shall undertake from these words shall be to show what
this image of God in man is, and wherein it doth consist. Which I
shall do these two ways: 1. Negatively, by showing wherein it does not
consist. 2. Positively, by showing wherein it does.
For the first of these we are to remove the erroneous opinion of the
Socinians. They deny that the image of God consisted in any
habitual perfections that adorned the soul of Adam, but, as to his
understanding, bring him in void of all notion, a rude, unwritten
blank; making him to be created as much an infant as others are born;
sent into the world only to read and to spell out a God in the works
of creation, to learn by degrees, till at length his understanding
grew up to the stature of his body; also without any inherent habits
of virtue in his will; thus divesting him of all, and stripping him
of his bare essence; so that all the perfection they allowed his
understanding was aptness and docility, and all that they attributed
to his will was a possibility to be virtuous.
But wherein, then, according to their opinion, did this image of God
consist? Why, in that power and dominion that God gave Adam over the
creatures; in that he was vouched His immediate deputy upon earth, the
viceroy of the creation, and lord-lieutenant of the world. But that
this power and dominion is not adequately and formally the image of
God, but only a part of it, is clear from hence, because then he that
had most of this would have most of God's image; and consequently
Nimrod had more of it than Noah, Saul than Samuel, the persecutors
than the martyrs, and Caesar than Christ Himself, which, to assert,
is a, blasphemous paradox. And if the image of God is only grandeur,
power, and sovereignty, certainly we have been hitherto much mistaken
in our duty, and hereafter are by all means to beware of making
ourselves unlike God by too much self-denial and humility. I am not
ignorant that some may distinguish between a lawful authority and
actual power, and affirm that God's image consists only in the former,
which wicked princes, such, as Saul and Nimrod, have not, tho they
possess the latter. But to this I answer,
1. That the Scripture neither makes nor owns such a distinction, nor
anywhere asserts that when princes begin to be wicked they cease of
right to be governors. Add to this, that when God renewed this charter
of man's sovereignty over the creatures to Noah and his family we find
no exception at all, but that Shem stood as fully invested with this
right as any of his brethren.
2. But, secondly, this savors of something ranker than Socinianism,
even the tenants of the fifth monarchy, and of sovereignty founded
only upon saintship, and therefore fitter to be answered by the judge
than the divine, and to receive its confutation at the bar of justice
than from the pulpit.
Having now made our way through this false opinion, we are in the next
place to lay down positively what this image of God in man is. It is,
in short, that universal rectitude of all the faculties of the soul,
by which they stand apt and disposed to their respective offices and
operations, which will be more fully set forth by taking a distinct
survey of it in the several faculties belonging to the soul.
1. In the understanding. 2. In the will. 3. In the passions or
affections.
I. And, first, for its noblest faculty, the understanding: it was
then sublime, clear, and aspiring--and, as it were, the soul's upper
region, lofty and serene, free from vapors and disturbances of the
inferior affections. It was the leading, controlling faculty; all the
passions wore the colors of reason; it was not consul, but dictator.
Discourse was then almost as quick as intuition; it was nimble in
proposing, firm in concluding; it could sooner determine than now it
can dispute. Like the sun, it had both light and agility; it knew no
rest but in motion, no quiet but in activity. It did not so properly
apprehend, as irradiate the object; not so much find, as make things
intelligible. It did not arbitrate upon the several reports of sense,
and all the varieties of imagination, like a drowsy judge, not only
hearing, but also directing their verdict. In sum, it was vegete,
quick, and lively, open as the day, untainted as the morning, full of
the innocence and sprightliness of youth, it gave the soul a bright
and a full view into all things, and was not only a window, but itself
the prospect. Briefly, there is as much difference between the clear
representations of the understanding then and the obscure discoveries
that it makes now as there is between the prospect of a casement and
of a keyhole.
Now, as there are two great functions of the soul, contemplation and
practise, according to that general division of objects, some of which
only entertain our speculation, others also employ our actions, so the
understanding, with relation to these, not because of any distinction
in the faculty itself, is accordingly divided into speculative and
practical; in both of which the image of God was then apparent.
1. For the understanding speculative. There are some general maxims
and notions in the mind of man which are the rules of discourse and
the basis of all philosophy: as, that the same thing can not at the
same time be and not be; that the whole is bigger than a part; that
two dimensions, severally equal to a third, must also be equal to one
another. Aristotle, indeed, affirms the mind to be at first a mere
_tabula rasa_, and that these notions are not ingenit, and imprinted
by the finger of nature, but by the later and more languid impressions
of sense, being only the reports of observation, and the result of so
many repeated experiments.
(1.) That these notions are universal, and what is universal must
needs proceed from some universal, constant principle, the same in all
particulars, which here can be nothing else but human nature.
(2.) These can not be infused by observation, because they are the
rules by which men take their first apprehensions and observations of
things, and therefore, in order of nature, must needs precede them;
as the being of the rule must be before its application to the thing
directed by it. From whence it follows that these were notions not
descending from us, but born with us, not our offspring, but our
brethren; and, as I may so say, such as we were taught without the
help of a teacher.
Now it was Adam's happiness in the state of innocence to have these
clear and unsullied. He came into the world a philosopher, which
sufficiently appeared by his writing the nature of things upon their
names; he could view essences in themselves, and read forms without
the comment of their respective properties; he could see consequents
yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet unborn and in the
womb of their causes; his understanding could almost pierce into
future contingents; his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the
certainties of prediction; till his fall, it was ignorant of nothing
but sin, or at least it rested in the notion, without the smart of the
experiment. Could any difficulty have been proposed, the resolution
would have been as early as the proposal; it could not have had time
to settle into doubt. Like a better Archimedes, the issue of all his
inquiries was a _eureka_, a _eureka_, the offspring of his
brain without the sweat of his brow. Study was not then a duty,
night-watchings were needless, the light of reason wanted not the
assistance of a candle. This is the doom of fallen man, to labor in
the fire, to seek truth _in profundo_, to exhaust his time and impair
his health, and perhaps to spin out his days and himself into one
pitiful, controverted conclusion. There was then no poring, no
struggling with memory, no straining for invention; his faculties were
quick and expedite, they answered without knocking, they were ready
upon the first summons.
2. The image of God was no less resplendent in that which we call
man's practical understanding; namely, that storehouse of the soul in
which are treasured up the rules of action, and the seeds of morality;
where, we must observe, that many who deny all connate notions in the
speculative intellect, do yet admit them in this. Now of this sort are
these maxims, "That God is to be worshiped, that parents are to be
honored, that a man's word is to be kept," and the like; which, being
of universal influence, as to the regulation of the behavior and
converse of mankind, are the ground of all virtue and civility, and
the foundation of religion.
It was the privilege of Adam innocent, to have these notions also
firm and untainted, to carry his monitor in his bosom, his law in his
heart, and to have such a conscience as might be its own casuist;
and certainly those actions must needs be regular where there is an
identity between the rule and the faculty. His own mind taught him a
due dependence upon God, and chalked out to him the just proportions
and measures of behavior to his fellow creatures. He had no catechism
but the creation, needed no study but reflection, read no book but the
volume of the world, and that too, not for the rules to work by,
but for the objects to work upon. Reason was his tutor, and first
principles his _magna moralia_. The decalogue of Moses was but a
transcript, not an original. All the laws of nations, and wise decrees
of states, the statutes of Solon, and the twelve tables, were but
a paraphrase upon this standing rectitude of nature, this fruitful
principle of justice, that was ready to run out and enlarge itself
into suitable demonstrations upon all emergent objects and occasions.
And this much for the image of God, as it shone in man's
understanding.
II. Let us in the next place take a view of it as it was stamped upon
the will. It is much disputed by divines concerning the power of man's
will to good and evil in the state of innocence: and upon very nice
and dangerous precipices stand their determinations on either side.
Some hold that God invested him with a power to stand so that in the
strength of that power received, he might, without the auxiliaries of
any further influence, have determined his will to a full choice
of good. Others hold that notwithstanding this power, yet it was
impossible for him to exert it in any good action without a superadded
assistance of grace actually determining that power to the certain
production of such an act; so that whereas some distinguish between
sufficient and effectual grace, they order the matter so as to
acknowledge some sufficient but what is indeed effected, and
actually productive of good action. I shall not presume to interpose
dogmatically in a controversy which I look never to see decided. But
concerning the latter of these opinions, I shall only give these two
remarks:
1. That it seems contrary to the common and natural conceptions of all
mankind, who acknowledge themselves able and sufficient to do many
things which actually they never do.
2. That to assert that God looked upon Adam's fall as a sin, and
punished it as such when, without any antecedent sin of his, he
withdrew that actual grace from him upon the withdrawing of which
it was impossible for him not to fall, seems a thing that highly
reproaches the essential equity and goodness of the divine nature.
Wherefore, doubtless the will of man in the state of innocence had an
entire freedom, a perfect equipendency and indifference to either part
of the contradiction, to stand, or not to stand; to accept, or not to
accept the temptation. I will grant the will of man now to be as much
a slave as any one who will have it, and be only free to sin; that is,
instead of a liberty, to have only a licentiousness; yet certainly
this is not nature, but chance. We were not born crooked; we learned
these windings and turnings of the serpent: and therefore it can not
but be a blasphemous piece of ingratitude to ascribe them to God, and
to make the plague of our nature the condition of our creation.
The will was then ductile and pliant to all the motions of right
reason; it met the dictates of a clarified understanding half way.
And the active informations of the intellect, filling the passive
reception of the will, like form closing with matter, grew actuate
into a third and distinct perfection of practise; the understanding
and will never disagreed; for the proposals of the one never thwarted
the inclinations of the other. Yet neither did the will servilely
attend upon the understanding, but as a favorite does upon his prince,
where the service is privilege and preferment; or as Solomon's
servants waited upon him: it admired its wisdom, and heard its prudent
dictates and counsels--both the direction and the reward of its
obedience. It is indeed the nature of this faculty to follow a
superior guide--to be drawn by the intellect; but then it was drawn
as a triumphant chariot, which at the same time both follows and
triumphs: while it obeyed this, it commanded the other faculties. It
was subordinate, not enslaved to the understanding: not as a servant
to a master, but as a queen to her king, who both acknowledges a
subjection and yet retains a majesty.
III. Pass we now downward from man's intellect and will to the
passions, which have their residence and situation chiefly in the
sensitive appetite. For we must know that inasmuch as man is a
compound, and mixture of flesh as well as spirit, the soul, during its
abode in the body, does all things by the mediation of these passions
and inferior affections. And here the opinion of the Stoics was
famous and singular, who looked upon all these as sinful defects
and irregularities, as so many deviations from right reason, making
passion to be only another word for perturbation. Sorrow in their
esteem was a sin scarce to be expiated by another; to pity, was a
fault; to rejoice, an extravagance; and the apostle's advice, "to be
angry and sin not," was a contradiction in their philosophy. But in
this they were constantly outvoted by other sects of philosophers,
neither for fame nor number less than themselves: so that all
arguments brought against them from divinity would come in by way of
overplus to their confutation. To us let this be sufficient, that our
Savior Christ, who took upon Him all our natural infirmities, but none
of our sinful, has been seen to weep, to be sorrowful, to pity, and
to be angry: which shows that there might be gall in a dove, passion
without sin, fire without smoke, and motion without disturbance.
For it is not bare agitation, but the sediment at the bottom, that
troubles and defiles the water; and when we see it windy and dusty,
the wind does not (as we used to say) make, but only raise a dust.
Now, tho the schools reduce all the passions to these two heads, the
concupiscible and the irascible appetite, yet I shall not tie myself
to an exact prosecution of them under this division; but at this time,
leaving both their terms and their method to themselves, consider only
the principal and noted passions, from whence we may take an estimate
of the rest.
And first for the grand leading affection of all, which is love. This
is the great instrument and engine of nature, the bond and cement
of society, the spring and spirit of the universe. Love is such an
affection as can not so properly be said to be in the soul as the soul
to be in that. It is the whole man wrapt up into one desire; all
the powers, vigor, and faculties of the soul abridged into one
inclination. And it is of that active, restless nature that it must
of necessity exert itself; and, like the fire to which it is so often
compared, it is not a free agent, to choose whether it will heat
or no, but it streams forth by natural results and unavoidable
emanations. So that it will fasten upon any inferior, unsuitable
object, rather than none at all. The soul may sooner leave off to
subsist than to love; and, like the vine, it withers and dies if it
has nothing to embrace. Now this affection, in the state of innocence,
was happily pitched upon its right object; it flamed up in direct
fervors of devotion to God, and in collateral emissions of charity to
its neighbor. It was not then only another and more cleanly name
for lust. It had none of those impure heats that both represent and
deserve hell. It was a vestal and a virgin fire, and differed as much
from that which usually passes by this name nowadays as the vital heat
from the burning of a fever.
Then for the contrary passion of hatred. This we know is the passion
of defiance, and there is a kind of aversation and hostility included
in its very essence and being. But then (if there could have been
hatred in the world when there was scarce anything odious) it would
have acted within the compass of its proper object; like aloes, bitter
indeed, but wholesome. There would have been no rancor, no hatred of
our brother: an innocent nature could hate nothing that was innocent.
In a word, so great is the commutation that the soul then hated only
that which now only it loves, that is, sin.
And if we may bring anger under this head, as being, according to
some, a transient hatred, or at least very like it, this also, as
unruly as now it is, yet then it vented itself by the measures of
reason. There was no such thing as the transports of malice or the
violences of revenge, no rendering evil for evil, when evil was truly
a nonentity and nowhere to be found. Anger, then, was like the sword
of justice, keen, but innocent and righteous: it did not act like
fury, then call itself zeal. It always espoused God's honor, and never
kindled upon anything but in order to a sacrifice. It sparkled like
the coal upon the altar with the fervors of piety, the heats of
devotion, the sallies and vibrations of a harmless activity.
In the next place, for the lightsome passion of joy. It was not that
which now often usurps this name; that trivial, vanishing, superficial
thing, that only gilds the apprehension and plays upon the surface of
the soul. It was not the mere crackling of thorns or sudden blaze of
the spirits, the exultation of a tickled fancy or a pleased appetite.
Joy was then a masculine and a severe thing; the recreation of the
judgment, the jubilee of reason. It was the result of a real good,
suitably applied. It commenced upon the solidity of truth and the
substance of fruition. It did not run out in voice or indecent
eruptions, but filled the soul, as God does the universe, silently and
without noise. It was refreshing, but composed, like the pleasantness
of youth tempered with the gravity of age; or the mirth of a festival
managed with the silence of contemplation.