1. IT was only infinite goodness that moved Almighty God to create the world of nothing, and particularly in this inferior visible world, to create man after His own image and similitude, consisting of a frail earthly body, which is the prison of an immortal, intellectual spirit, to the end that by his understanding, which is capable of an unlimited knowledge, and by his will, which cannot be replenished with any object of goodness less than infinite, he might so govern and order himself, and all other visible creatures, as thereby to arrive unto the end for which he was made, to wit, eternal beatitude both in soul and body in heaven, the which consists in a returning to the divine principle front whom he flowed, and an inconceivably happy union with Him, both in mind, contemplating eternally His infinite perfections, and in will and affections eternally loving, admiring, and enjoying the said perfections.
2. Now to the end that man might not (except by his own free,
and willful choice of misery) fail from attaining to the only
universal end of his creation, God was pleased to the natural
3. Hence it appears that the means to happiness, and the end itself, are essentially the same thing, to wit, union of the spirit with God, and differ only in degrees. And the union which Adam during his state of innocence did and would always have practised was in a sort perpetual, never being interrupted (except perhaps in sleep). For, loving God only and purely for Himself, he had no strange affection to distract him, and the images of creatures, which either by his consideration of them, or operations about them, did adhere to his internal senses, did not at all divert his mind from God, because he contemplated them only in order to God; or rather he contemplated God alone in them, loving and serving Him only in all his reflections on them, or workings about them. So that creatures and all offices towards them served as steps to raise Adam to a more sublime and more intimate union with God; the which was both his duty and his present happiness, besides that it was a disposition to his future eternal beatitude.
4. But our first parents by a willful contempt and transgression of
that one most easy command, which God for a trial of
their obedience had imposed on them, not only broke the foresaid
union, and deprived themselves of the hope of enjoying God
eternally in the future life, but moreover were utterly divested
of all supernatural graces, and extremely weakened and disordered
in all their natural gifts. So that having lost that divine
light, by which their understandings had been illustrated, and
that divine love by which their wills and affections adhered
continually to God, they were rendered incapable either of
5. All these miserable depravations having been caused in all the powers and faculties of their souls by the forbidden fruit, the which utterly and irreparably disordered that most healthful, exact temper of their bodily constitutions; insomuch as the spirits and humours, &c., which before did nothing at all hinder their exercisings and operations towards God, but did much promote them, now did wholly dispose them to love and seek themselves only, with an utter aversion from God, and the accomplishing of His divine will; and all circumstant creatures, instead of being steps to raise them towards God, on the contrary more and more seduced their affections from Him, and raised all other inordinate passions displeasing to Him. Hereby in lieu of that peaceable and happy condition which they before enjoyed in this world by a continual union with God (the which was to be perfected eternally in the world to come), they became disquieted, distracted, and even torn asunder with a multitude of passions and designs, oft contrary to one another, but all of them much more opposite to God; so that by falling from unity to a miserable multiplicity, and from peace to an endless war, they were therein captived by the devil, readily yielding to all his suggestions, hateful to and hating God, and so contracted not only an unavoidable necessity of a corporal death, but also the guilt and right to an eternal separation from God after death in that lake of fire and brimstone burning for ever, and prepared for the devil and his angels.
6. Now the whole stock of human nature being thus totally
and universally depraved in our first parents, it could not by
any possible natural means be avoided, but that all their posterity
should be equally infected and poisoned with all these
7. But Almighty God, the Father of mercies, pitying His own creatures thus ingulfed in utter misery by the fault of Adam, seduced by his and our common enemy, did in His most unspeakable mercy, freely and unasked, provide and ordain His own coeternal Son to be a Saviour unto mankind; who by His most bitter sufferings and death redeemed us from the guilt of eternal death; and by His glorious life and resurrection, having obtained a power of sending the Holy Ghost (communicated to us in His word and sacraments, &c.), He hath rectified all these disorders, shedding forth a new heavenly light to cure the blindness of our understandings, and divine charity in our hearts, the which abateth that inordinate self-love formerly reigning in us, and hereby He reinstates us (cooperating with His divine grace, and persevering therein) to a new right unto eternal happiness, (perhaps) more sublime than man in innocency was destined to.
8. Notwithstanding, it was not the good will and pleasure of God by this reparation to restore us to the same state of perfect holiness wherein Adam lived in paradise. And this we ought to ascribe to His infinite wisdom, and also to His unspeakable goodness towards us; for certainly, if we had been once more left, as Adam was, in the free power of our own wills, that is, in so casual an estate as Adam was, and assisted and fortified with no stronger an aid than the primitive grace, we should again have irreparably forfeited all our happiness, and plunged ourselves far more deeply in endless misery.
9. Therefore, Almighty God thought fit for our humiliation,
and to keep us in continual vigilance and fear, as also thereby
daily to refresh the memory of our primitive guilt, and our thankfulness
for His inestimable goodness, to leave us in a necessity of
incurring temporal death, which we are not now to look on as a
punishment of sin, so much as a freedom from sin, and a gate
and entrance to eternal glory. Moreover, though by His grace
He hath abolished the guilt of original sin, yet He hath suffered
10. Our duty therefore in our present state, and the employment of our whole lives, must be constantly and fervently to cooperate with divine grace, thereby endeavouring not only to get victory over self-love, pride, sensuality, &c., by humility, divine love, and all other virtues; but also not to content ourselves with any limited degrees of piety and holiness, but daily to aspire, according to our abilities assisted with grace by the same ways to the same perfection for which we were first created, and which was practised by Adam in innocence; to wit, an utter extinguishing of self-love and all affection to creatures, except in order to God, and as they may be instrumental to beget and increase divine love in us; and a continual uninterrupted union in spirit with God, by faith contemplating Him, and by love ever adhering to Him.
11. This, I say, is the duty and indispensable obligation of
all Christians, of what condition soever, not only seriously to
aspire to the divine love, but also to the perfection thereof suitably
to their several states and vocations, for it is morally impossible
for a soul to love God, as He ought to be loved (that
is, as the only object of her love, and as the only universal end
of her being and life, for the procuring of an inseparable union
with whom and for no other reason the use and comfort of