The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 265

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;

ORIGINAL RIGHTEOUSNESS ought to do.

"

Optimi coruptio pessimal" says the proverb of the

wise— /.<?., the greater the excellency ous

225

of a thing, the

more danger-

the admiral of the fleet were to choose which of his ships should betray him, he would say " Let it be the weakits

defection.

If

:

est, for

in

defection of the strongest

every sphere of

life

is

the most dangerous."

It is

true

that the excellent qualities of a thing or be-

ing do not disappear in reversed action, but become most excellently bad.

way we understand man's fall. Before it he possessed most exquisite organism which by holy impulse was directed toward the most exalted aim. Tho reversed by the fall, this precious human instrument remained, but, directed by unholy impulse, it aims at a deeply unholy object. Comparing man to a steamship, his fall did not remove the But as before the fall he moved in righteousness, so he engine. moves now in unrighteousness. In fact, as fast as he steamed then toward felicity, so fast he steams now toward perdition, i.e., away from God. Hence the retaining of the engine made his fall all the more terrible and his destruction more certain. And thus we reconcile the two that man retained his former features of excellency, and that his destruction is sure except he be born again. But in the divine image we must carefully distinguish First, the wonderful and artistic organism called human nature. Second, the direction in which it moved, i.e., toward the holiest In this

the

:

end, in that

God

created

man

in original righteousness.

That God created man good and after His own image does not mean that Adam was in a state of imwcence, in that he had not sinned nor that he was perfectly equipped to become holy, gradually to ascend to greater development but that he was created in true righteousness and holiness, indicating not the degree of his development, but his status. This was his original righteousness. Hence all the inclinations and outgoings of his heart were perfect. He lacked nothing. Only in one respect his blessedness differed from that of God's children, viz., his good was losable and theirs not. Of these two parts constituting the divine image first, the inward, artistic organism of man's being, and, second, the original righteousness in which the organism moved naturally the latter is completely lost, and ih^ former is reversed; but the being of the instrument, tho terribly marred, remained the same, to work in the wrong direction, i.e., in unrighteousness. Hence the features or ;

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IS

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