of the parents of the human race; and to thofe fucceffive events, whether in the extraordinary dealings of God with man, or in the civil hiftory of particular nations, which were evidently calculated to prepare the way for the advent of the great Redeemer.

God (a), faith the fcripture, created man in his own image. Wherein did this refemblance of man to his Maker confift? The anfwer to that queftion must be derived from the facred writings. The true explanation. of the counfels of God can be obtained only from the word of God. Some perfons, obferving that after the Almighty had faid, "Let us make man in our own image, after "our likeness," he immediately fubjoined; "and let them have 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 (b);" have concluded that the image of God impreffed upon man copfifted in the fovereign authority delegated to mankind over the whole inferior creation. This opinion may not be deftitute of truth. Yet it feems to overlook the principal circumftance indicated by the expreffion under confideration. The moft diftinguished character

(a) Gen. i. 27.
3

(b) Gen. i. 26.

iftic

iftic of the Supreme Being is holiness. And we have fcriptural grounds for inferring, that the primitive uprightness and purity of man was the feature in his foul, which conftituted his likeness to his Maker. St. Paul, exhorting the Ephefians to labour for that radical change of heart which Christianity requires in her followers; a change from the corrupt frame of mind natural to fallen man to one resembling the state of innocence and happiness in which Adam was created; uses these remarkable words: "Put on the new man, which after God" (that is, after the image of God)" is created in righteousness " and true holiness (c)." And when addressing his Coloffian converts on the fame fubject, "Ye," faith he, " have put on the new man, "which is renewed in knowledge," (the knowledge of righteoufnefs through Chrift,) "after the image of him that created him (d).” The resemblance therefore which man originally bore to God confifted chiefly if not entirely in holiness and righteousness, fimilar in kind, though infinitely inferior in degree, according to the distance between the Creator and the created, to the holiness and righteoufof his heavenly Father.

(c) Ephef. iv. 24.

B 2

(d) Coloff. iii, 10.

But

nuance.

But this bleffed ftate was of fhort contiEnfnared by the Devil, who is repeatedly denominated in the Scriptures" the "Old Serpent, Satan," (the Adversary,) “who "deceiveth the whole (e) world ;" and is exprefsly declared by our Saviour to have been a "murderer from the beginning, the father "of lies, who abode not in the truth, because "there is no truth in him (f);" our first parents concurred in breaking that single commandment, the obfervance of which God had enjoined as the teft of their obedience. They ate of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; that fruit which taught them the difference between good and evil, by rendering them acquainted with evil, which until that hour they never had known. Thus they annulled the covenant between them and their Maker. They forfeited all claim to every blefling which they had antecedently poffeffed. They ftripped themselves of all title to every favour, which their Creator had previously given them hopes of receiving from his bounty. For all was to depend on the ftedfaftness of their obedience to the original commandment.

(e) Rev. xii. 9. and xx. 2.

(ƒ) John, viii. 44. See alfo John, iii. 8.

They

They incurred the penalty of death; the penalty, which from the beginning had been announced to them as annexed to the breach of that commandment. They became obnoxious to whatever punishment, in addition to death, the loss of their existence, the unerring juftice of God fhould perceive to be merited by their tranfgreffions. They loft their uprightness and purity of heart, the image and likeness of Jehovah in which they were created: and thus were become more fimilar in the difpofition and frame of their fouls to the Author of evil to whom they had submitted, than to the glorious God of holiness whom they had difobeyed.

The Supreme Being, in pronouncing judgement on his guilty creatures, mercifully fufpended the execution of the penalty of death. Exclufive of the fentence uttered against the Serpent, the import of which will shortly be confidered; he impofed on Eve the pains of child-bearing, and entire fubmiffion to the authority of her husband. On Adam he devolved the laborious cultivation of the earth, now rendered above measure productive of plants troublesome to the husbandman, and noxious to the crop. And both he expelled from the Garden of Eden, left they should put forth their hand, " and take alfo of the