The World's Great Sermons, Volume 02: Hooker to South
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 02: Hooker to South
Sermons
Having now made our way through this false opinion, we are in the next
place to lay down positively what this image of God in man is. It is,
in short, that universal rectitude of all the faculties of the soul,
by which they stand apt and disposed to their respective offices and
operations, which will be more fully set forth by taking a distinct
survey of it in the several faculties belonging to the soul.
1. In the understanding. 2. In the will. 3. In the passions or
affections.
I. And, first, for its noblest faculty, the understanding: it was
then sublime, clear, and aspiring--and, as it were, the soul's upper
region, lofty and serene, free from vapors and disturbances of the
inferior affections. It was the leading, controlling faculty; all the
passions wore the colors of reason; it was not consul, but dictator.
Discourse was then almost as quick as intuition; it was nimble in
proposing, firm in concluding; it could sooner determine than now it
can dispute. Like the sun, it had both light and agility; it knew no
rest but in motion, no quiet but in activity. It did not so properly
apprehend, as irradiate the object; not so much find, as make things
intelligible. It did not arbitrate upon the several reports of sense,
and all the varieties of imagination, like a drowsy judge, not only
hearing, but also directing their verdict. In sum, it was vegete,
quick, and lively, open as the day, untainted as the morning, full of
the innocence and sprightliness of youth, it gave the soul a bright
and a full view into all things, and was not only a window, but itself
the prospect. Briefly, there is as much difference between the clear
representations of the understanding then and the obscure discoveries
that it makes now as there is between the prospect of a casement and
of a keyhole.
Now, as there are two great functions of the soul, contemplation and
practise, according to that general division of objects, some of which
only entertain our speculation, others also employ our actions, so the
understanding, with relation to these, not because of any distinction
in the faculty itself, is accordingly divided into speculative and
practical; in both of which the image of God was then apparent.
1. For the understanding speculative. There are some general maxims
and notions in the mind of man which are the rules of discourse and
the basis of all philosophy: as, that the same thing can not at the
same time be and not be; that the whole is bigger than a part; that
two dimensions, severally equal to a third, must also be equal to one
another. Aristotle, indeed, affirms the mind to be at first a mere
_tabula rasa_, and that these notions are not ingenit, and imprinted
by the finger of nature, but by the later and more languid impressions
of sense, being only the reports of observation, and the result of so
many repeated experiments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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