In like manner must it be with the eternal world; every thing which comes from it, must be in its degree, a microcosm of all the powers and glories of eternity.
Let it be said, that the matter of this world, was in its first created state, free from all extension, solidity and parts, and this would be as grave a saying, and as much founded in nature, as the rasa tabula of the soul: say again, that by degrees it got a materiality of length, breadth and parts, from without, and this would be no greater a wonder, than that a soul, created inwardly destitute of any principle of knowledge, should from outward causes grow up into a profound philosopher. Again, say that the soul was at first, but a blank paper, till the organs of the body began to act upon it; and may not the enemies of religion, as justly say, that it must be the same blank paper again at the last, when the body shall be broken off from it?
If therefore the Essay upon human understanding (which the Doctor calls the most original book that ever was published) has produced a metaphysicks, in many points dangerous to religion, and greatly serviceable to false, and superficial reasoning, it is not to be wondered at, since so eminent an error, is the fundamental principle on which it proceeds.
But to return to the Doctor: he says, “The divine image and likeness must consist in something that is peculiar to man,—that the two things peculiar to man, are his shape, and his reason; that it cannot be in his shape, therefore it must be in his reason.”[¹]
[¹] Page 554.
The divine image and likeness cannot consist in something that is peculiar to man. It might as well consist in his shape, as in his faculty of making syllogisms; but on the contrary, it must consist in that, and only that, which is, peculiar to God. Nor could man possibly be created in the image and likeness of God, unless something peculiar to God, had been the divine glory and perfection of his creaturely life. For the creaturely life, and all that is peculiar to it, is at the utmost distance from God, and can only have a likeness to that, which is to be found in creatures.—God dwelling in a supernatural way in the creature, is the only possible image of God that can be in it. The fallen angels have every thing that was creaturely left in them, but they are horrible devils, because they have lost their supernatural image of God, which dwelt in them at their creation. They have still reason, craft and subtlety; but because they have nothing, but what is peculiar to the creature, they are all rage, torment and misery.
The Doctor therefore, instead of appealing to two things in man, his shape and his reason, as his true distinction from beasts, should have said, by the authority of Moses, that only one thing was peculiar to man, as his glorious distinction both from fallen angels, and terrestrial animals, and that one thing is, his being created in the image and likeness of God. As to his outward shape, considered only as different from other animals, there is but little distinction in it; because they are as different in shape from one another, as man is from them all. And if man at his creation had had no higher a guest within him, than his reason, his shape would have been little better, than that of a fox, or a serpent. For reason, when not under the government of a higher principle, is that same craft, and cunning, that is visible in variety of beasts; and is for the most part, as earthly an instrument of mischievous passions, and lusts in man, as it is in beasts. And what is more, it must be so, till it comes under the government of that, which was the image and likeness of God, in the first creation of man.
* What is the difference between reason in St. Paul, a Spinosa, a Hobbes, or a Bolingbroke? None at all, or no other than in their outward shape. Therefore if reason be the divine image and likeness of God in man, a Hobbes and a Bolingbroke, had as much of it as St. Paul. And a man that is all his life long reasoning himself into atheism, and the wisdom of living according to his own lusts, must be allowed to give daily proof of his having the image and likeness of God, very powerfully manifested in him.
The Doctor’s great proof, that reason is the image and likeness of God, is because Moses immediately adds, Let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of heaven, and over the beasts of the earth. “For what, says he, could invest man with this dominion de facto, as well as de jure, but his reason?”[¹]
[¹] D. L. page 554.