ys rational to measure the truth of an assertion by the standard
of our apprehension.

But, to bring things even to the bare preception of reason, I
appeal to any one who shall impartially reflect upon the ideas and
conceptions of his own mind, whether he doth not find it as easy and
suitable to his natural notions to conceive that an infinite Almighty
power might produce a thing out of nothing, and make that to exist _de
novo_, which did not exist before, as to conceive the world to have
had no beginning, but to have existed from eternity, which, were it so
proper for this place and exercise, I could easily demonstrate to be
attended with no small train of absurdities. But then, besides
that the acknowledging of a creation is safe, and the denial of it
dangerous and irreligious, and yet not more, perhaps much less,
demonstrable than the affirmative; so, over and above, it gives me
this advantage, that, let it seem never so strange, uncouth, and
incomprehensible, the nonplus of my reason will yield a fairer
opportunity to my faith.

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. But that
this power and dominion is not adequately and formally the image of
God, but only a p