Chapter 36: Of God's Image in the Soul — Power, Wisdom, Holiness, and Original Justice

The other properties or attributes of God, of which man's soul bears an image and dark resemblance, are those, which according to our apprehension seem not so intrinsical and essential as the former. And they are such as may be either generally collected from the manifestation of his works, or more particularly from his Word. These, which refer to his works, are his power in making and ruling them; his wisdom in ordering and preserving them; his knowledge in the contemplation of them: and of these it pleases him at the first to bestow some few degrees upon man's soul.

Concerning the attribute of power, most certain it is that those great parts of God's workmanship, creation and redemption, are incommunicably belonging to him as his own royal prerogative. Insomuch that it were desperate blasphemy to assume to ourselves the least resemblance of them. Yet in many other proceedings of God's works, there is some analogy and resemblance in the works of men. For first, what are all the motions and courses of nature, but the ordinary works of God? All forms and intrinsical motive principles are indeed but his instruments; for by him we live, and move, and have our being. And of all other works, man's only imitate nature: as Aristotle observes of the works of art, which peculiarly belong to man (all other creatures being carried by that natural instinct, which is intrinsically belonging to their condition, without any manner of art or variety.) The resemblances of nature in the works of art are chiefly seen in these two proportions: First, as nature does nothing in vain, but in all her works aims at some end, the perfection, or the ornament, or the conservation of the universe (for those are the three ends of nature subordinate to the main, which is, the glory of the Maker) so likewise are the works of art all directed by the understanding to some one of those ends; either to the perfection of men, such are all those, which inform the understanding, and govern the life: or to his conservation, as those directed to the furthering of his welfare, and repairing the decays, or sheltering the weaknesses of nature: or lastly to his ornament, such as are those elegances of art, and curiosities of invention, which, though not necessary to his being, yet are special instruments of his delight, either sensitive or intellectual.

The second resemblance, is between the manner and progress of their works: for as the method of nature is to proceed, ab imperfectioribus ad Perfectiora, and per determinata Media ad [illegible] Finem; so art likewise (as is plain in those which are manual) by certain fixed rules, which alter not, proceeds to the producing of a more perfect effect, from more tough and unformed beginnings, by the help of instruments, appropriated to particular services. But this, because [reconstructed: it limits] man's dignity, as well as commends it, I forbear to speak of. Though even herein also we do seem to imitate God, who in his great work of creation did proceed both by succession of time, and degrees of perfection; only it is necessity in us which was in him his will.

To come therefore nearer, it is observable, that in the first act of God's power, in the making and framing of the world, there was nothing here below created properly, immediately, and totally, but the chaos and mass, or the earth without form, and void, out of the obedience whereof, his power did further educe and extract those wonderful, various, and beautiful forms, which do evidently set forth to the soul of man, the glory and majesty of him that made them. By a small resemblance of this manner of working, man also in those works of art, peculiar to him from other creatures, does ex Potentia Obedientiall (as the schools call it) out of the obedience and subjection of any proposed mass produce, Non per Naturam, sed per Imperium, not out of the nature of the subject, but by the command of reason sundry forms of art full of decency and beauty.

And for government, I mean subordinate, and by derivation or indulgence, it is manifest that all creatures inhabiting the world with him were subdued to man; and, next to the glory of the great Maker, were ordained for his service and benefit. And therefore, whenever we find any of them hurtful and rebellious, we cannot but remember that the occasion thereof was our own disloyalty; they do but revenge their great Master's wrong, and, out of a faithful care and jealousy to preserve his honor, renounce their fidelity and obedience to a traitor. And indeed how can we look to have our dominion entire over beasts and inferior creatures, when by continual enormities we make ourselves as one of them? [⟨1 page missing⟩] Continued by the general providence of God, whereby he is pleased to preserve things in that course of subordination wherein first he made them, and like a gracious prince, to continue to man the use of his creatures, even then when he is a prisoner to his justice. Renewed, by the promise and grant made again to Noah. And there is a double promise under which we may enjoy the creatures, the one a moral promise made to industry, as, The diligent hand makes rich; and, he that plows his land, shall have plenty of corn: the other an evangelical promise made to piety, and faith in Christ, whereby is given to Christian men both a freer use of the creatures than the Jews had, and a purer use than the wicked have. For, to the clean all things are clean.

And this grant of God does sometimes show itself extraordinarily, as in the obedience of the crows to Elijah, the viper to Paul, the lions to Daniel, the whale to Jonah, the fire to the three children, and the trembling and fear of wild beasts towards many of the martyrs: always ordinarily, in ordering and dispensing the course of nature so, as that human society may be preserved, both by power in subduing the creatures which he must use, and by wisdom in escaping the creatures which he does fear.

Now for the second attribute, wisdom, there is also a remainder of the image thereof in man: for albeit, the fall and corruption of nature has darkened his eyes, so that he is inclined to work confusedly, or to walk as in a maze, without method or order (as in a storm the guide of a vessel is oftentimes to seek of his art, and forced to yield to the winds and waves) yet certain it is that in the mind of man there still remains a pilot, or light of nature; many principles of practical prudence, whereby (though for their faintings a man does often miscarry and walk awry) the course of our actions may be directed with success and issue to civil and honest ends. And this is evident, not only by the continual practice of grave and wise men, in all states, times, and nations; but also by those sundry learned and judicious precepts, which historians, politicians, and philosophers have by their natural reason and observation framed for the compassing of a man's just ends, and also for prevention and disappointment of such inconveniences as may hinder them.

Lastly, for the attribute of knowledge, it was doubtless after a most eminent manner at first infused into the heart of man, when he was able by intuition of the creatures to give to them all names, according to their several properties and natures; and in them to show himself, as well a philosopher, as a lord. He filled them, says Siracides, with the knowledge of understanding. And herein, if we will believe Aristotle, the soul is most nearly like to God, whose infinite delight is the eternal knowledge and contemplation of himself, and his works. Hereby, says he, the soul of man is made most beloved of God, and his mind, which is allied to God, is itself divine, and, of all other parts of man, most divine. And this made the Serpent use that insinuation only, as most likely to prevail, for compassing that cursed and miserable project of man's ruin. By means of which fall, though man blinded his understanding, and [reconstructed: robbed] himself of this, as of all other blessed habits, I mean of those excellent degrees thereof, which he then enjoyed: yet still the desire remains vast and impatient, and the pursuit so violent, that it proves often prejudicial to the estate both of the body and mind. So that it is as true now, as ever, that man is by nature a curious and inquiring creature, of an active and restless spirit, which is never quiet, except in motion, winding itself into all the paths of nature; and continually traversing the world of knowledge. There are two main desires naturally stamped in each creature; a desire of perfecting, and a desire of perpetuating himself. Of these Aristotle attributes in the highest degree, the latter to each living creature, when he says, that of all the works of living creatures, the most natural is to generate the like: and his reason is [illegible]. Because hereby that immortality (the principal end (as he there supposes) of all natural agents) which in their own individuals they cannot obtain, they procure by deriving their nature to a continued offspring and succession. But (though in regard of life it holds true of all) man notwithstanding is to be exempted from the universality of this assertion. And of himself that other desire of perfection, which is principally the desire of knowledge (for that is one of the principal advancements of the soul) should not only in a positive sense, as Aristotle has determined in the entrance to his Metaphysics, but in a superlative degree be verified, that he is by nature desirous of knowledge. This being the principal thing (to use Aristotle's own reason) whereby man does [illegible], partake of divinity, as I observed before out of Aristotle himself. And the reason of the difference between man and other creatures in this particular is: first, because man has not such necessary use of that former desire, as others have, in regard of his own immortality, which takes away the necessity of propagation to sustain his nature. And secondly, because knowledge, the perfection of the soul, is to man (as I may so speak) a kind of generation, being of sufficiency to exempt the person, endowed therewith, from all injury of time, and making him to survive and outlive his own mortality. So that when the body has surrendered to each region of the world those elements and principles, of which it was composed, and has not so much as dust and cinders left to testify that being, which once it had, then does the name lie wrapped in the monuments of knowledge, beyond the reach of fate and corruption.

The attributes of God, which are manifested more especially in his Word, though sundry, yet (as far as they had ever any image in man) may be comprised in this more general one of holiness. Whereby I understand that absolute and infinite goodness of his nature, which is in him most perfect, pure, and eternal. Of which, though man according to that measure, as it was to him communicated, was in his great fall utterly robbed and spoiled, as not being able in anything to resemble it, or to retain any the least prints of those pure and divine impressions of original righteousness — yet still there remains, even in depraved and polluted nature some shadows thereof: there is still the Opus Operatum in many actions of mortality, though the obliquity of the heart, and ignorance of the true end, whether it should be directed, take away the goodness and the sanctity thereof. The top and highest pitch of nature touches the hem and lowest of grace. We have in us the testimonies, though not the goodness of our first estate; the ruins of a temple to be lamented, though not the holy places thereof to be inhabited. It is true indeed those great endowments of the most severe and enlightened heathen, were indeed but glorious miseries and withered virtues, in that they proceeded from a depraved nature, and aimed at sinister and false ends: yet withal both the corruption of them proves their precedent loss (which also the heathen themselves espied in their distinction of ages into golden and iron times:) and likewise the pursuit and practice of them (though weak, imperfect, corrupt) imply manifestly that there was much more an original aspiring of nature in her perfection to be like her Maker in an absolute and universal purity. Now in this rectitude and perfect regularity of the soul in this divine habit of original justice did man most eminently bear the image and signature of God on him. And therefore notwithstanding we continue still immortal, spiritual, reasonable — yet we are said to have defaced that image in us by our hereditary pollution. And he always recovers most thereof, who in the greatest measure repairs the ruins, and vindicates the lapses of his decayed estate, to that prime original purity, wherein he was created.

These are the dignities of the soul considered wholly in itself. In all which it far surmounts the greatest perfections which the body or any faculty thereof are endowed with. And yet such is the preposterous and unnatural baseness of many men, that they are content to make their souls vassals to their own servant. How do they force their understandings, which in their own worthiest objects, those deep and Divine contemplations, are as drowsy as Endymion, to spend and waste themselves in proud, luxurious, vanishing inventions? How do they enthrall that supreme and architectonic power in man's little world, his will, to the tyranny of slavish appetite, and sensual desires? As if they served here but as cooks to dress their own bodies for the worms? Strange is it that man, conscious to himself of immortality and of a heroic and heavenly complexion, that has received such immediate impressions of God, and is the very model of all nature's perfections, should so much degrade himself, as to dote only on that part, which is the vassal and slave of death. If there were no other mischief which sin did the soul but to debase it, even that were argument sufficient for noble spirits to have it in detestation. For man being in honor, and who understands not, is like the beasts that perish.