ur
brethren; and, as I may so say, such as we were taught without the
help of a teacher.
Now it was Adam's happiness in the state of innocence to have these
clear and unsullied. He came into the world a philosopher, which
sufficiently appeared by his writing the nature of things upon their
names; he could view essences in themselves, and read forms without
the comment of their respective properties; he could see consequents
yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet unborn and in the
womb of their causes; his understanding could almost pierce into
future contingents; his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the
certainties of prediction; till his fall, it was ignorant of nothing
but sin, or at least it rested in the notion, without the smart of the
experiment. Could any difficulty have been proposed, the resolution
would have been as early as the proposal; it could not have had time
to settle into doubt. Like a better Archimedes, the issue of all his
inquiries was a _eureka_, a _eureka_, the offspring of his
brain without the sweat of his brow. Study was not then a duty,
night-watchings were needless, the light of reason wanted not the
assistance of a candle. This is the doom of fallen man, to labor in
the fire, to seek truth _in profundo_, to exhaust his time and impair
his health, and perhaps to spin out his days and himself into one
pitiful, controverted conclusion. There was then no poring, no
struggling with memory, no straining for invention; his faculties were
quick and expedite, they answered without knocking, they were ready
upon the first summons.
2. The image of God was no less resplendent in that which we call
man's practical understanding; namely, that storehouse of the soul in
which are treasured up the rules of action, and the seeds of morality;
where, we must observe, that many who deny all connate notions in the
speculative intellect, do yet admit them in this. Now of this sort are
these maxims, "That God is to be worshiped, that parents are to be
honored, that a man's word is to be kept," and the like; which, being
of universal influence, as to the regulation of the behavior and
converse of mankind, are the ground of all virtue and civility, and
the foundation of religion.
It was the privilege of Adam innocent, to have these notions also
firm and untainted, to carry his monitor in his bosom, his law in his
heart, and to have such a conscience as might be its own casuist;
and certain
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