The Formation of Christendom, Volume II. Allies Thomas William
it is a gift superadded to nature.
It must further be noted that this state of nature in its integrity, however high and beautiful, is not only entirely distinct from but of an inferior order to the state of human nature raised to the gift of Divine Sonship. Between human nature in this condition and human nature raised to the gift of sonship, there would be more than the difference52 that with us exists between the kindly-treated servant and the adopted son: for human nature in this integrity would still not by virtue of it possess sanctifying grace, or, in consequence, have God and His vision for its supernatural end.
But, thirdly, it was not merely in this state that God created man, but in a state which not only included this, but had grace for its basis,53 that is to say, every perfection which it had sprang out of this, that it was united to God by grace. This is a state of far superior order, absolutely gratuitous, and beyond anything which is due to nature. The first man, Adam, then, was not only a union of soul and body, not only did he possess this nature in its integrity, but he was created in grace, so that there was a union of the Holy Spirit with him, whereby he was exalted to the condition of a supernatural end and adopted Sonship, and in this union was rooted the integrity of his nature, and the supernatural power of so ruling all the lower faculties of his soul that the higher could mount undisturbedly to God: and certain other gifts over and above, such as immunity from error or deception, so long as he did not sin, immunity from even venial fault, immunity from death, and from all pain or sorrow. Such was the original condition which grace bestowed on human nature, wherein man had not only a supernatural end, but the power to attain it easily.54
Now it is evident that man, by being created in grace, was raised to an astonishing height of dignity, to which not only his nature, but any created nature whatsoever had no claim. All that the justice and goodness of God required him to do in creating such a being as man of two substances, soul and body, was to bestow on the compound being so united such perfections as made the several substances complete in their own order. Such would be the ideal state of simple nature as delineated above. It was a gift beyond nature, such as nature in its first beginning could not claim, to bestow on it the integrity which in the second place we considered. But how far beyond this, passing it by an unmeasured chasm, was that dower of sonship rooted in sanctifying grace which God actually bestowed on His favoured child? It is obvious at first sight that the divine gift here intended, being in Adam's actual creation the root of all which was over and above the natural faculties of body and soul in their union, was bestowed absolutely by the pure goodness of God, and therefore could be bestowed with such conditions attached to it as pleased the Giver. In all that is beyond the mere faculties and needs of nature – in forming which God's own being is a sort of rule to Him – He is absolutely free to give as pleases Himself, to what degree He pleases, on what terms He pleases. What, then, were the conditions on which He invested Adam with the gift of Sonship, and created Him in grace as its foundation? He created him, not only as the individual Adam, but as the Head of his race, so that his race was summed up in him, and a unity was founded in him attaching his whole race as members to his body, in such manner that the supernatural gift of sonship bestowed on him was to descend from him by virtue of natural propagation to every member of that body, which thus became a supernatural race from a supernatural father. So absolute was this unity that the order maintained in the case of every other creature put under the dominion of the man so formed was not followed in his case. For whereas they were created with the difference of sex, each a male and a female, he was created alone, as the Head, and then she, by whose coöperation the race was to be continued, was formed out of him. It was not a second man who was so formed from the first, but one made with reference to him, in dependence on him, to be a help meet for him, not for herself, with an independent being, but for him. This formation of Eve from Adam, which has a meaning of unfathomable depth in the development of the race, is an essential part of the original design. “Therefore,” says Adam, speaking in an ecstasy sent upon him by God, the words of God, “this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” First, the Eve so formed from him is one flesh with him; secondly, the race springing from both is one flesh likewise with him. The consequence intended by that one flesh was the transmission of that magnificent inheritance in which Adam was standing when he so spoke. In this he was Father and Head, for this created alone, then Eve built up from him, from whom afterwards was to issue their joint race. On the further condition of his personal obedience to God and fidelity to his grace, he held the whole supernatural gift of grace conferring sonship, both for himself and for his race: on these terms it was bestowed by the charter of God, the original Giver. Thus, the greatness of his Headship was visible in two things, the power of transmitting his quality of divine sonship to his race by propagation, and the dependence of that quality, in them as well as in himself, on his personal fidelity to God.
But the First Man, the Father and Head of the race, did not stand in his inheritance. He broke the divine command, and lost the gift of sonship, and with it all the prerogatives attendant on that gift, which were above nature and rooted in grace, and which the eminent goodness of God had bestowed upon him: and by the terms of the original charter lost the gift, not only for himself, but for his race. But he did not, therefore, destroy that relation between the Head and the Race, which was part of the original foundation of God. This continued; but whereas it had been intended to communicate the blessing of adoption, it now served to communicate the demerit of adoption lost, the guilt, and with it the punishment incurred by that loss. This is the original sin, the sin of the nature, not of the person, inherited by the members of Adam's body; and as there can be no sin without free-will, the sin of the whole nature included in Adam as its Root and Head, which sinned by Adam's abuse of his free-will.
Let us try to determine as accurately as we can the position into which Adam and his race fell.
Did, then, Adam simply lose with the forfeiture of sanctifying grace the gift of sonship, the supernatural inheritance, all which God had bestowed on him beyond that ideal state of pure nature which we described in the first instance? God, we said, might have created man originally in this condition, and man so created, that is, in virtue of this creation, would not have been under any sin, nor exposed to the anger of God. Did man, by Adam's sin, fall back into it? Not so. His state after his fall differed from such a state of pure nature in that he had upon him the guilt of lost adoption, of adoption lost by the first Adam's fault, and in proportion to the greatness of the loss, and the gratuitousness of the gift originally bestowed, was the anger with which, on the donor's part, the loss was regarded. How would a king, a man like ourselves, regard one whom he had raised out of the dust to be his adopted child, and who had been unfaithful to the parent who had so chosen him with more than natural affection? Such an anger we can indeed understand when felt against the person sinning; but we fail to enter into it as resting on the race, because the secret tie which binds the head and the race into one is not discerned by us; because too the greatness of the divine majesty, the awfulness of His sovereignty, and the wrath of that majesty slighted, are feebly appreciated by us. But this image may at least give us some notion of the nature of that divine anger which pressed upon Adam and his race after the fall. Not only, therefore, was the gift of sonship and the prerogatives attending it withdrawn, but this withdrawal was a punishment, which their absence in the presumed case of an original state of simple nature would not have been. Thus death was a punishment to Adam and his race; the body's weakness and disease, the soul's sorrows and pains, the disobedience of the inferior appetites to the reason, the resistance of the reason to the law of God, were all punishments, and a remarkable point of the punishment is to be seen in this. Adam, as the head of his race, was in virtue of natural propagation to have bestowed on the children of his flesh, the members of his body, his own supernatural inheritance. Thus a singular honour was conferred on the fathership of Adam. But now when, in virtue of this natural propagation, he, continuing to be the head of his race, transmitted to it the guilt of adoption lost instead of the blessing of adoption conferred, a peculiar shame was set by God upon this fathership of Adam, and upon all the circumstances attending it: so that henceforth in the disinherited race the bride veiled her head, and the act of being a father became an act of shame.
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