Adam was made upright: “holiness was the primitive, natural constitution of man, and was before sin, and is the perfection or health of nature, and the right employment or improvement of it, and tends to its happiness.” Baxter magnified the glory of man’s original righteousness, as Augustinian theologians have always done. Adam’s reason ruled his will and passions, he followed with all his heart after good and, therefore, after God, his natural inclination led him to cleave to his Maker, and he found supreme delight in so doing. But he was made in via, not in patria, not yet mature and confirmed in holy humanity, and therefore mutable. “We deny not but as to degrees, Adam’s nature was to grow up to more perfection; and that his natural holiness contained not a sufficient immediate aptitude and promptitude which might afterward be required of him; but this was to be obtained in the exercise of that holiness which he had.” God’s purpose was to crown his obedience, when his probation was over, by confirming him in the habit of love.