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but also another life communicated with it, and represented by it; in a word, that man consisteth of a body so organized as to be sustained in life by the action of the material elements upon it, and a rational immortal soul, supported, in a similar manner, by the influence of a superior and spiritual agency.

4. Of man's distinguishing excellencies, we are taught to entertain the most exalted sentiments, when we are told, that he was made in the image and likeness of God.' For what more can be said of a creature, than that he is made after the similitude of his Creator?

To discover wherein such image and likeness consisted, what better method can we take, than to enquire, wherein consist that divine image and likeness, which, as the Scriptures of the New Testament inform us, were restored in human nature, through the redemption and grace of Christ, who was manifested for that purpose? The image restored was the image lost; and the image lost was that in which Adam was created. The expressions, 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;' [Ephes. iv. 24.] and of man being renewed after the image of him that created him;' [Coloss. iii. 10.] and the like. The use of the term 'created' naturally refers us to man's first creation, and leads us to parallel that with his renovation, or new creation, by which he re-obtained those excellencies possessed at the beginning, but afterwards unhappily forfeited.

And what are these?- Renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him-Put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness' (or the holiness 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 knowledge after the image of him;' when the will loves the truth, and all its affections move in the pursuit and practice of it, the man is new created after God in righteousness and holiness.' This divine image is restored in human nature by the word of Christ enlightening the understanding, and the grace of Christ rectifying the will: these are, in the end, to render man what he was at first created.

5. Such, then, was Adam, in the day when God crowned him king in Eden, and invested him with sovereignty over the works of his hands, giving him dominion over the fish of the sea, 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 spirit, and man to God, so long the creatures should continue in subjection to man, as servants are subject to their lord and master. But when he rebelled against his God, the creatures renounced their allegiance to him, and became, in the hands of their common Creator, instruments of his punishment.-Yet, in consequence of the new covenant and promise to redeem man and the world, we find it said after the flood-' The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon the fishes of the sea.' [Gen. ix. 2.] So far is the superiority of the human species still preserved, that every kind of beasts and of birds, and of serpents, and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed, of mankind.' [James iii. 7.] In some cases, for the sake of eminently holy persons favoured by Heaven on that account, the instincts of the most savage and ravenous have been suspended; as when some of every kind assembled and lodged together in the ark; and when the mouths of the lions were stopped in the den of Babylon, while the righteous and greatly beloved Daniel was there. The Redeemer of the world endued his disciples with the original privilege-Behold I give you power to tread on serpents, and on scorpions; and nothing shall by any means hurt you.' [Luke x. 19.] And, agreeably to such promise, St. Paul shook off the viper into the fire, and felt no harm.' [Acts xxviii.] The eighth Psalm is a beautiful representation of the extent of this privilege, as it was possessed at the beginning, by the first Adam, and as it hath been since restored to the second. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works

of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!'

Let us indulge a few reflections on the foregoing particulars. The imagination naturally endeavours to form some idea of the sensations that must have arisen in the mind of the first man, when, awaking into existence, with all his senses and faculties perfect, he beheld the glory and beauty of the newcreated world. Faded as we must suppose its glory and its beauty now to be, enough still remains, to excite continual wonder, praise, and adoration. Yet it is represented in the Scriptures of truth, as lying under a curse, as groaning and travailing in pain, and as little better than a prison, from which all, who are truly sensible of its condition and their own, wish and pray to be delivered, into the liberty of the children of God. But if such be our prison, what notions are we led to form of those mansions, which our Lord is gone before to prepare for us, in his Father's house? The heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein, shall die in like manner:' [Isai. li. 6.]

But we, according to his promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.' [2 Peter iii. 13.] When the new creation shall be finished and prepared, an act of omnipotence will be exerted, similar to that which passed at the formation of Adam. The Lord God will again 'form man out of the dust of the ground, and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life.' From his long sleep in the chamber of the grave, he will awake to behold the never-fading glories of a world, which will have no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the Lord God and the Lamb,' those brighter and inextinguishable luminaries, shall enlighten it for ever. [Rev. xxi. 23.] The Almighty shall again with complacency survey the works of his hands, and pronounce every thing he has made, to be very good;' he shall again rest, on the seventh day; the children of the resurrection shall enter into his rest, and keep an eternal sabbath.

A view of the different materials of which man is composed, may teach us to form a proper estimate of him. He stands between the two worlds, the natural and the spiritual, and par

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takes of both. His body is material, but its inhabitant descends from another system. His soul, like the world from which it comes, is immortal; but his body, like the world to which it belongs, is frail and perishable. From its birth it contains in it the seeds and principles of dissolution, towards which it tends every day and hour by the very means that nourish and maintain it, and which no art can protract beyond a certain term. In spite of precaution and medicine, the evil days will come, and the years draw nigh, when he shall say, I have no pleasure in them. Pains and sorrows will succeed each other, as the clouds return after the rain,' blackening the face of heaven, and darkening the sources of light and joy.― When this highly finished piece of mechanism shall be disjointed and dissolved, then shall the dust,' of which it was framed, return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.' Learn we from hence, to bestow on each part of our composition, that proportion of time and attention, which, upon a due consideration of its nature and importance, it shall appear to claim at our hands.

To stamp on man his own image, was the design of God in creating him; to restore that image, when lost, was the design of God in redeeming him. Could greater honour have been done to human nature? Never may the guilt be ours of debasing our nature and obliterating this image and superscription;' a species surely of treason against the majesty of heaven. Sloth will obscure the fair impression; its attendants, ignorance and vice, will destroy it. Let diligence therefore be appointed to watch over it, and to retouch, from time to time, the lines that are faded; till, the whole standing confessed in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, men may glorify our father which is in heaven, while they behold his resemblance upon earth. So shall we answer the ends of our creation and redemption, and serve our generation in the most effectual manner. And though, when this is done, we must close our eyes in death, and sleep with our fathers; yet the hour cometh, in which we shall open them again, to behold thy face, O God, in righteousness; we shall be satisfied, when we awake with thy likeness.' [Ps. xvii. 15.]

Was Adam invested with sovereignty over the creatures? Observe we from hence, that man was made to rule. Majestic in his form, he was ordained to trample upon earth, and aspire

to heaven, which, without putting a force upon nature, he cannot but behold, and regard. In the original subjection of the creatures we see what ought to be that of every desire and appetite, terrestrial and animal, to the ruling principle within us. The subtlety of some creatures, and the fierceness of others, now exhibit to us the difficulty of subduing and governing the passions, broken loose, like them, from the dominion of their master; insomuch, that the apostle who asserts, that every creature may be, and has been, tamed of man, yet says of one part of man, the tongue, it is a deadly evil, which no man can tame,' meaning by his own powers. Through the redemp tion and grace which are by Christ Jesus, this dominion, as well as the other, is restored, not only over our own passions, but over still more formidable opponents, the evil spirits in arms against us. For thus our Lord gave his disciples power not only over the natural serpents and scorpions,' but over some, whose venom is of a more malignant and fatal kind; over all the power of the enemy.' The apostles returned, accordingly, crying out, Lord, the very devils are subject unto us, through thy name!' And we have a general promise, that, in our combats with them, God will give us victory, and bruise their leader, Satan himself, under our feet. Our Redeemer is exalted above the heavens, and human nature in the second Adam, restored to dominion over all the earth. And though, at present, the apostle's lot may be ours, to 'fight with beasts,' with evil men, evil passions, and evil spirits, yet through God we shall do great acts: it is he that shall tread down those that rise up against us; till finally triumphant over the last enemy, and exalted to the eternal throne, we shall view the earth beneath us, and the sun and stars shall be dust under our feet.

[BISHOP HORNE.]

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