1.

mortality, and worshipped as gods. It may DISC. now be farther observed, that to the foul of man, confidered as a portion of these elements, was attributed the fame divinity and immortality; and thus things natural were fubftituted in the place of things fpiritual, a proper notion of which could not then be attained, for want of that inftruction from above, which directs us how to transfer our ideas from one to the other, and to believe in the latter, as conceived through the medium of the former. So difficult has it ever been found, for the human mind, to pass the bounds of matter, and to explore the invifible wonders of the fpiritual world. And whoever obferves the progrefs of that fcheme, which is once more fet up against Revelation by some, in our own and a neighbouring nation, who affect the title of philofophers, in oppofition to that of Chriftians, and whofe abilities one cannot but lament to fee employed in this manner, will perceive it's tendency to introduce materialism, and to carry us back again to that state of darkness, from which

DISC. it pleased the Father of lights, in mer

I.

cy, to deliver us by the Gospel of his

Son.

But to return to the Mofaic account of man, of whose distinguishing excellencies we are taught to entertain the most exalted fentiments, when we are told, that he was made" in the image and likeness of God." For what more can be faid of a creature, than that he is made after the fimilitude of his Creator?

As "God is a Spirit," the fimilitude here spoken of must be a spiritual fimilitude, and the subject to which it relates must be the spiritual part of man, his ra

tional and immortal foul.

To discover wherein fuch image and likeness confifted, what better method can we take, than to enquire, wherein confift that divine image and likeness, which, as the Scriptures of the New Teftament inform us, were restored in human nature,

through

I.

through the redemption and grace of DISC. Chrift, who was manifefted for that purpofe? The image reftored was the image loft; and the image loft was that in which Adam was created.

The expreffions employed by the penmen of the New Testament plainly point out to us this method of proceeding. We read of the new man "which after God is "created";" and of man being "renewed "after the image of him that created "him";" and the like. The use of the term created naturally refers us to man's firft creation, and leads us to parallel that with his renovation, or new creation, by which he re-obtained thofe excellencies poffeffed at the beginning, but afterwards unhappily forfeited.

knowlege, after the image of him that "created him- Put on the new man,

m Ephef. iv. 24.

n Coloff. iii. 10.

" which

B 3

DISC. " which after God is created in righteouf

I.

nefs and true holinefs, οσιότητι της αληθείας, "the bolinefs of, or according to truth."

The divine image, then, is to be found in the understanding, and the will; in the understanding which knows the truth, and in the will which loves it. For when the understanding judges that to be true which with God is true, the man is " renewed in

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knowlege after the image of him that "created him;" when the will loves the truth, and all it's affections move in the pursuit and practice of it, the man is "new "created after God in righteousness and ho"liness." This divine image is restored in human nature by the word of Chrift enlightening the understanding, and the grace of Chrift rectifying the will. These are, in the end, to render man what he was at first created, according to that paffage in the writings of King Solomon, which is the shortest and best comment upon the words of Mofes―" God made man upright"-the original word fignifies straight, direct;

ישר

there

I.

there was no error in his understanding, no DISC. obliquity in his will. He who fays this, says every thing. It is a full and comprehenfive account of man in his original state; nothing can be added to it, or taken from it.

Such, then, was Adam, in the day when God crowned him king in Eden, and invested him with fovereignty over the works of his hands, giving him " dominion over "the fish of the fea, and over the fowl of "the air, and over the cattle, and over all "the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

It appears to have been the order of Providence, that while the flesh continued in subjection to the fpirit, and man to God, fo long the creatures fhould continue in subjection to man, as fervants are fubject to their lord and mafter. This original subjection we must suppose to have been universal and abfolute. From the creatures man has much to learn, but nothing to