A26976:361
Of the immortality of mans soul, and the nature of it and other spirits.…
Of the immortality of mans soul, and the nature of it and other spirits. Two discourses, one in a letter to an unknown doubter, the other in a reply to Dr. Henry Moore's Animadversions on a private letter to him, which he published in his second edition of Mr. Joseph Glanvil's Sadducismus triumphatus, or, History of apparitions by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for B. Simons, 1682
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
But you say, Adam knew not that he was naked. Ans. What! and yet knew God and his Law, and how to name the Creatures, and how to dress and keep the Garden? He knew not that nakedness was shameful; for he had newly made it shameful.
Perhaps you think of Adam's forbidden desire of knowledge, and his miserable attainment of it. But that did not make him a new Soul, that had no such Faculty before. Adam was the Son of God by Creation, Luk. 3. and it was his duty and interest to live as a Son, in absolute trust on his Fathers care and love: and instead of this, he was tempted to self-dependence, and must needs know more than his duty, & his fathers love and reward: He must know good and evil for himself: like a Child that must know what Food, and Raiment, and Work is fittest for him, which ⟨p. 52⟩he should know only by trusting his Fathers choice; or as a Patient that must needs know every Ingredient in his Physic, and the Nature and Reason of it, before he will take it, when he should implicitly trust his Physician. Man should have waited on God for all his Notices, and sought to know no more than he revealed. But a distrustful, and a selfish knowledge, and busy enquiring into unrevealed things, is become our sin and misery.
Perhaps you think of Adam's forbidden desire of knowledg, and his miserable attainment of it. But that did not make him a new Soul, that had no such Faculty before. Adam was the Son of God by Creation, Luk. 3. and it was his duty and interest to live as a Son, in absolute trust on his Fathers care and love: and instead of this, he was tempted to self-dependance, and must needs know more than his duty, & his fathers love and reward: He must know good and evil for himself: like a Child that must know what Food, and Rayment, and Work is fittest for him, which ⟨p. 52⟩he should know only by trusting his Fathers choice; or as a Patient that must needs know every Ingredient in his Physick, and the Nature and Reason of it, before he will take it, when he should implicitly trust his Physician. Man should have waited on God for all his Notices, and sought to know no more than he revealed. But a distrustful, and a selfish knowledg, and busy enquiring into unrevealed things, is become our sin and misery.