The work that I shall undertake from these words shall be to show what
this image of God in man is, and wherein it doth consist. Which I
shall do these two ways: 1. Negatively, by showing wherein it does not
consist. 2. Positively, by showing wherein it does.
For the first of these we are to remove the erroneous opinion of the
Socinians. They deny that the image of God consisted in any
habitual perfections that adorned the soul of Adam, but, as to his
understanding, bring him in void of all notion, a rude, unwritten
blank; making him to be created as much an infant as others are born;
sent into the world only to read and to spell out a God in the works
of creation, to learn by degrees, till at length his understanding
grew up to the stature of his body; also without any inherent habits
of virtue in his will; thus divesting him of all, and stripping him
of his bare essence; so that all the perfection they allowed his
understanding was aptness and docility, and all that they attributed
to his will was a possibility to be virtuous.
But wherein, then, according to their opinion, did this image of God
consist? Why, in that power and dominion that God gave Adam over the
creatures; in that he was vouched His immediate deputy upon earth, the
viceroy of the creation, and lord-lieutenant of the world.
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