And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
~ Genesis 6:5-6
Thou answeredst them, O LORD our God: thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions.
~ Psalm 99:8
For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
~ Jeremiah 4:22
For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
~ Titus 3:3
The State of Innocence, by Thomas Boston. The following contains an excerpt from Chapter One of his work, “Human Nature in its Fourfold State”.
I. The State of Innocence
“Lo, this only have I found, that God has made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” Eccl. 7:29
There are four things very necessary to be known by all who would see heaven:
1. What man was in the state of innocence, as God made him.
2. What he is in the state of corrupt nature, as he has unmade himself.
3. What he must be in the state of grace, as created in Christ Jesus unto good works, if ever he be made a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light.
4. What he will be in his eternal state, as made by the Judge of all, either perfectly happy, or completely miserable, and that forever.
These are weighty points, which touch the vitals of practical godliness, from which most men, and even many professors, in these dregs of time, are quite estranged. I design, therefore, under the divine conduct, to open up these things, and apply them. I begin with the first of them, namely, the State of Innocence: that beholding man polished after the similitude of a palace, the ruins may the more affect us; we may the more prize that matchless Person whom the Father has appointed the repairer of the breach; and that we may, with fixed resolves, betake ourselves to that way which leads to the city which has immoveable foundations.
In the text we have three things:
1. The state of innocence wherein man was created. “God has made man upright.” By “man” here we are to understand our first parents; the archetypal pair, the root of mankind, and the fountain fromwhence all generations have streamed; as may appear by comparing Gen. 5:1, 2, “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him: male and female created he them; and blessed them,” as the root of mankind, “and called their name Adam.” The original word is the same in our text. In this sense, man was made upright (agreeable to the nature of God, whose work is perfect), without any imperfection, corruption, or principle of corruption, in his body or soul. He was made “upright,” that is, straight with the will and law of God, without any irregularity in his soul. By the set it got in its creation, it directly pointed towards God, as his chief end; which straight inclination was represented, as in an emblem, by the erect figure of his body, a figure that no other living creature partakes of. What David was in a gospel sense, that was he in a legal sense; one “according to God’s own heart,” altogether righteous, pure, and holy. God made him thus: he did not first make him, and then make him righteous; but in the very making of him, he made him righteous. Original righteousness was created with him; so that in the same moment he was a man, he was a righteous man, morally good; with the same breath that God breathed into him a living soul, he breathed into him a righteous soul.
2. Here is man’s fallen state: “But they have sought out many inventions.” They fell off from their rest in God, and fell upon seeking inventions of their own, to mend their case; and they quite marred it. Their ruin was from their own proper motion: they would not abide as God had made them; but they sought out inventions, to deform and undo themselves.
3. Observe here the certainty and importance of these things:
“Lo, this only have I found,” etc. Believe them, they are the result of a narrow search, and a serious inquiry, performed by the wisest of men. In the two preceding verses, Solomon represents himself as in quest of goodness in the world; but the issue of it was, he could find no satisfying end of his search after it; though it was not for lack of pains, for he “counted one by one, to find out the account.” “Behold, this have I found, says the preacher,” namely, “That,” as the same word is read in our text, “yet my soul seeks—but I find not.” He could make no satisfying discovery of it, which might end his inquiry. He found the good very rare, one as it were among a thousand. But could that satisfy the grand query, “Where shall wisdom be found?” No it could not—and if the experience of others in this point, run counter to Solomon’s, as it is no reflection on his discernment, it can as little decide the question, which will remain undetermined until the last day. But, amidst all this uncertainty there is one point found out and fixed—”This have I found.” You may depend upon it as a most certain truth, and be fully satisfied in it; “Lo this;” fix your eyes upon it, as a matter worthy of most deep and serious regard, namely, that man’s nature is now depraved—but that depravity was not from God, for he “made man upright;” but from themselves, “they have sought out many inventions.”
Doctrine. God made man altogether righteous.
This is that state of innocence in which God placed man in the world. It is described in the holy Scripture with a running pen, in comparison of the following states; for it was of no continuance—but passed away as a flying shadow, by man’s abusing the freedom of his will. I shall,
I. Inquire into the righteousness of this state wherein man was created.
II. Lay before you some of the happy attendants and consequences thereof.
III. Applying the whole.
I. Of Man’s Original Righteousness.
As to the righteousness of this state, consider, that as uncreated righteousness, the righteousness of God is the supreme rule; so all created righteousness, whether of men or angels, has respect to a law as its rule, and is a conformity thereto. A creature can no more be morally independent of God in its actions and powers, than it can be naturally independent of him. A creature, as a creature, must acknowledge the Creator’s will as its supreme law; for as it cannot exist without him, so it must not be but for him, and according to his will; yet no law obliges, until it is revealed. And hence it follows, that there was a law, which man, as a rational creature, was subjected to in his creation; and that this law was revealed to him.
“God made man upright,” says the text. This supposes a law to which he was conformed in his creation; as when anything is made regular, or according to rule, of necessity the rule itself is presupposed. Whence we may gather, that this law was no other than the eternal, indispensable law of righteousness, observed in all points by the second Adam, opposed by the carnal mind, and some notions of which remain yet among the Pagans, who, “having not the law, are a law unto themselves,” Romans 2:14. In a word, this law is the very same which was afterwards summed up in the ten commandments, and promulgated, on mount Sinai, to the Israelites, called by us the moral law, and man’s righteousness consisted in conformity to this law or rule.
More particularly, there is a twofold conformity required of a man—a conformity of the powers of his soul to the law, which you may call habitual righteousness; and a conformity of all his actions to it, which is actual righteousness. Now, God made man habitually righteous; man was to make himself actually righteous—the former was the stock which God put into his hand; the latter was the improvement he should have made of it. The sum of what I have said is, that the righteousness wherein man was created, was the conformity of all the faculties and powers of his soul to the moral law. This is what we call Original Righteousness, which man was originally endued with. We may take it up in these three things:
1. Man’s UNDERSTANDING was a lamp of light. He had perfect knowledge of the law, and of his duty accordingly—he was made after God’s image, and consequently could not lack knowledge, which is a part thereof, Col. 3:10, “The new man is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him who created him.” And indeed, this was necessary to fit him for universal obedience; seeing no obedience can be according to the law, unless it proceed from a sense of the commandment of God requiring it. It is true, Adam had not the law written upon tables of stone; but it was written upon his mind, the knowledge thereof being created with him. God impressed it upon his soul, and made him a law to himself, as the remains of it among the heathens do testify, Romans 2:14, 15. And seeing man was made to be the mouth of the creation, to glorify God in his works, we have ground to believe he had naturally an exquisite knowledge of the works of God. We have a proof of this in Adam’s giving names to the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, and those such as express their nature. “Whatever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof,” Gen. 2:19. The dominion which God gave him over the creatures, soberly to use and dispose of them according to his will (still in subordination to the will of God), seems to require no less than a knowledge of their natures. And, besides all this, his perfect knowledge of the law proves his knowledge in the management of civil affairs, which, in respect of the law of God, “a good man will guide with discretion,” Psalm 112:5.
2. His WILL in all things was agreeable with the will of God, Eph. 4:24. There was no corruption in his will, no inclination to evil; for that is sin, properly and truly so called—hence the apostle says, Rom 7:7, “I had not known sin—but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, You shall not covet.” An inclination to evil is really a fountain of sin, and therefore inconsistent with that rectitude and uprightness which the text expressly says he was endued with at his creation. The will of man, then, was directed and naturally inclined to God and goodness, though mutable. It was disposed, by its original make, to follow the Creator’s will, as the shadow does the body; and was not left in an equal balance to good and evil—for at that rate he had not been upright, nor habitually conformed to the law; which in no moment can allow the creature not to be inclined towards God as his chief end, any more than it can allow man to be a God to himself. The law was impressed upon Adam’s soul—now this, according to the new covenant, by which the image of God is repaired, consists in two things:
(1.) Putting the law in the mind, denoting the knowledge of it.
(2.) Writing it in the heart, denoting inclinations in the will, answerable to the commands of the law, Heb. 8:10. So that as the will, when we consider it as renewed by grace, is by that grace naturally inclined to the same holiness, in all its parts, which the law requires; so was the will of man, when we consider him as God made him at first, endued with natural inclinations to everything commanded by the law. For if the regenerate are partakers of the divine nature, as undoubtedly they are, for so says the Scripture, 2 Pet. 1:4; and if this divine nature can import no less than the inclination of the heart to holiness, then surely Adam’s will could not lack this inclination; for in him the image of God was perfect. It is true it is said, Romans 2:14, 15, “That the Gentiles show the work of the law written in their hearts;” but this denotes only their knowledge of that law, such as it is—but the apostle to the Hebrews, in the text cited, takes the word heart in another sense, distinguishing it plainly from the mind. And it must be granted, that, when God promises, in the new covenant, “to write his law in the hearts of his people,” it imports quite another thing than what heathens have—for though they have notions of it in their minds—yet their hearts go another way; their will has a bent and bias quite contrary to that law; therefore, the expression suitable to the present purpose must needs import, besides these notions of the mind, inclinations of the will going along therewith; which inclinations, though mixed with corruption in the regenerate, were pure and unmixed in upright Adam. In a word, as Adam knew his Master’s pleasure in the matter of duty, so his will inclined to what he knew.
3. His AFFECTIONS were orderly, pure, and holy; which is a necessary part of that uprightness wherein man was created. The apostle has a petition, 2 Thess. 3:5, “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God;” that is, “The Lord straighten your hearts,” or make them lie straight to the love of God—and our text tells us that man was made straight. “The new man is created in righteousness and true holiness,” Eph. 4:24. Now this holiness, as it is distinguished from righteousness, may import the purity and good order of the affections. Thus the apostle, 1 Tim. 2:8, will have men to “pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting:” because, as troubled water is unfit to receive the image of the sun, so the heart filled with impure and disorderly affections is not fit for divine communications. Man’s sensitive appetite was, indeed, naturally carried out towards objects grateful to the senses. For seeing man was made up of body and soul, and God made man to glorify and enjoy him, and for this end to use his good creatures in subordination to himself; it is plain that man was naturally inclined both to spiritual and sensible good; yet to spiritual good, the chief good as his ultimate end. Therefore, his sensitive motions and inclinations were subordinate to his reason and will, which lay straight with the will of God, and were not in the least contrary to the same. Otherwise he would have been made up of contradictions; his soul being naturally inclined to God, as the chief end, in the superior part thereof; and the same soul inclined to the creature, as the chief end, in the inferior part thereof, as they call it—which is impossible, for man, at the same instant, cannot have two chief ends.
Man’s affections, then, in his primitive state, were pure from all defilement, free from all disorder and distemper, because in all their motions they were duly subjected to his clear reason, and his holy will. He had also an executive power answerable to his will; a power to do the good which he knew should be done, and which he was inclined to do, even to fulfill the whole law of God. If it had not been so, God would have required of him perfect obedience; for to say that “the Lord gathers where he has not sown,” is but the blasphemy of a wicked heart against so good and bountiful a God, Matt. 25:24-26.
From what has been said, it may be gathered, that the original righteousness explained was universal and natural—yet mutable.
1. It was UNIVERSAL, both with respect to the subject of it—the whole man; and the object of it—the whole law. Universal, I say, with respect to the subject of it; for this righteousness was diffused through the whole man—it was a blessed leaven, which leavened the whole lump. There was not a wrong pin in the tabernacle of human nature, when God set it up, however shattered it is now. Man was then holy in soul, body, and spirit; while the soul remained untainted, its lodging was kept clean and undefiled; the members of the body were consecrated vessels, and instruments of righteousness. A combat between flesh and spirit, reason and appetite, nay, the least inclination to sin, or lust of the flesh in the inferior part of the soul, was utterly inconsistent with this uprightness in which man was created; and has been invented to veil the corruption of man’s nature, and to obscure the grace of God in Jesus Christ; it looks very much like the language of fallen Adam, laying his own sin at his Maker’s door, Gen. 3:12, “The woman whom you gave me—she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”
But as this righteousness was universal in respect of the subject, because it spread through the whole man; so also it was universal in respect of the object, the holy law. There was nothing in the law but what was agreeable to his reason and will, as God made him, though sin has now set him at odds with it; his soul was shaped out in length and breadth to the commandment, though exceeding broad; so that his original righteousness was not only perfect in its parts—but in degrees.
2. As it was universal, so it was NATURAL to him, and not supernatural in that state. Not that it was essential to man, as man, for then he could not have lost it, without the loss of his very being; but it was natural to him—he was created with it, and it was necessary to the perfection of man, as he came out of the hand of God, necessary to his being placed in a state of integrity. Yet,
3. It was MUTABLE; it was a righteousness that might be lost, as is manifested by the doleful event. His will was not absolutely indifferent to good and evil; God set it towards good only—yet he did not so fix and confirm its inclinations, that it could not alter. No, it was moveable to evil, and that only by man himself, God having given him a sufficient power to stand in this integrity, if he had pleased. Let no man quarrel with God’s works in this; for if Adam had been unchangeably righteous, he must have been so either by nature or by free gift—by nature he could not be so, for that is proper to God, and incommunicable to any creature; if by free gift, then no wrong was done to him in withholding what he could not crave. Confirmation in a righteous state is a reward of grace, given upon continuing righteous through the state of trial, and would have been given to Adam if he had stood out the time appointed for probation by the Creator; and accordingly is given to the saints upon account of the merits of Christ, who “was obedient even unto death.” And herein believers have the advantage of Adam, that they can never totally nor finally fall away from grace.
Thus was man made originally righteous, being created in “God’s own image,” Gen. 1:27, which consists in the positive qualities of “knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness,” Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24. “All that God made was very good,” according to their several natures, Gen. 1:31. And so was man morally good, being made after the image of him who is “good and upright,” Psalm 25:8. Without this, he could not have answered the great end of his creation, which was, to know, love, and serve his God, according to his will; nay, he could not be created otherwise, for he must either be conformed to the law in his powers, principles, and inclinations, or not—if he was, then he was righteous; and, if not, he was a sinner, which is absurd and horrible to imagine.
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