V. However, we maintain that man was never created in a state of pure nature so called, nor do we think he could have been so created. The reasons are: (1) because man was made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26) and thus morally good and upright (Ecc. 7:29). For since that image (as it is afterwards said) consisted principally of original righteousness, he cannot be said to have been created in a state of pure nature who was adorned with this from the beginning. (2) He was made to glorify and worship God (Prov. 16:4; Rom. 11:36), duties he could not perform unless endowed with the necessary gifts (viz., wisdom and holiness).
VI. (3) Where two things immediately opposed belong to any subject, one or other of the two must necessarily be in it. Now righteousness and sin are predicated of man as their fit (dektikō) subject and are directly (amesōs) opposed to each other. Therefore one or the other must necessarily be in him; nor can there be a man who is not either righteous or a sinner. To no purpose is the example of infants brought forward, who can neither be called righteous (because they do not act justly), nor sinners (because they cannot sin). For although an infant cannot be called righteous or a sinner by actual righteousness or sin, still he can by habitual and congenital (as he is rightly called rational because he has reason in the first act [in actu primo], although not as yet having actually reasoned or being able to reason).
VII. (4) That state of pure nature is a sheer figment; it never was, nor could be. Not in man’s perfect state because in it he should be entire and innocent; not in the state of sin because he is born a child of wrath; not in the state of grace because he is born again a child of God; not in the state of glory because then his holiness and happiness will be consummated.
Francis Turretin | Institutes of Elenctic Theology ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger, vol. 1 (P&R Publishing, 1992–97), 5.9.5–7.
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