A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

SECT. I.

I Shall conclude this Text, with that particular Observation about it, that relateth to the privative part in original corruption; for we have abbreviated that vast and large Subject of original righteousness into a little compass, briefly informing concerning the Nature of it. For howsoever Epiphanius (as Pererius and Suarez say) thought that it was impossible for any to determine, wherein the Image of God doth consist; yet Paul doth sufficiently explain Moses in this particular; So that we need not run to those forced expositions of some, who will have man in respect of his bodily constitution to bear the Image of God. Therefore (some say) God did assume an humane shape, and in that did make man, whereby man in a bodily manner was made after his Image. Others, That it was so said, Let us make man after our own Image, in reference to the Incarnation of Christ, who was in time to be made man: For we have already heard, that it was righteousness and holiness in the soul, which made man to be after Gods Image; So that the Image of God was not in the body, but as in sign, a sign and demonstration of that Image in the soul. It is true, Christ is the Image of God, but as he is the second Person in the Trinity in respect of the Father, but that is adequately and essentially so, we are not the image of God but in great imperfection, because we do not essentially participate of it. Christ in respect of the Divine Nature is the Image of God, but never said in Scripture to be made after it, for that would be an imperfection; yet if we speak of the humane nature of Christ, we may say, that it is created after Gods Image, because God filled it with holiness. Hence some (Durat. de Imag. Dei, lib. 1. pag. 7.) expound that Ephes. 4. of putting on the new man, to be meant of Christ; Christ (say they) is the new man, paralleling it with ⟨p. 132⟩Rom. 13. where we are exhorted to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now howsoever some of the Ancients have made it very dangerous to say, Adam, and in him all mankind lost the Image of God, yet that hath its truth no further, than if we limit the Image of God to the essentials of mans soul, as endowed with intelligence and immortality;