Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE FIKST AND THE SECOND MAN.63and adopted Sonship, and in this union was rootedthe integrity of his nature, and the supernaturalpower of so ruling all the lower faculties of hissoul that the higher could mount undisturbedlyto God: and certain other gifts over and above,such as immunity from error or deception, so longas he did not sin, immunity from even venialfault, immunity from death, and from all pain orsorrow. Such was the original condition whichgrace bestowed on human nature, wherein manhad not only a supernatural end, but the powerto attain it easily. 7Now it is evident that man, by being createdin grace, was raised to an astonishing height ofdignity, to which not only his nature, but anycreated nature whatsoever had 110 claim. Allthat the justice and goodness of God required himto do in creating such a being as man of two substances,soul and body, was to bestow on the compoundbeing so united such perfections as madethe several substances complete in their own order.the ideal state of simple nateated above. It was a gift beyond natsuch as nature in its first beginning could notclaim, to bestow on it the intesritv which in thesecond place we considered. But how farthis, passing it by an unmeasured chasm, was thatower of soiiship rooted in sanctifying grace whichGod actually bestowed on His favoured child ? It7 Kleutgen, die Thcologie der Vorzeit, vol. ii. 650. *