II. By the state of innocence, we mean the first condition of man created after the image of God in internal goodness and external happiness. As it abounded in all goods (of the body as well as of the soul) necessary for obtaining true happiness in that state, so it experienced the most holy and agreeable government of God. Hence it consists principally of two parts: the happy condition of man and the federal government of God around him. His happiness arose from the image of God in which he was created. It consisted especially in original righteousness and the immortality and dominion consequent upon it (of which we have spoken before in the Topic on Creation). To it also belonged his liberty, the subject of this question.

Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger, vol. 1 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992–97), 8.1.2 (p. 569).

Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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