testifies in another place of the same Epistle; "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ "Jesus unto good works, which God hath before "ordained that we should walk in them "." Again, in writing to the Colossians he speaks about "the new man,” which is "renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created So much for the qualities of knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. And if it be not quite as sure that truth, and purity, and love, and mercy are other features of the same image, how are we to interpret, or how indeed to understand, such texts and precepts of the Scripture as the following, compared honestly together? With respect to truth, for instance ; "God is "not a man that he should lief."-" God is "trues."-"Lie not then, brethren, one to an"other, seeing that ye have put off the old man "with his deeds "." Again, with regard to purity; Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it "doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we "know that, when he shall appear, we shall be "like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth d Eph. ii. 10. 2 Cor. i. 18. e Col. iii. 10. Col. iii. 9. 'Numb. xxiii. 19. "himself, even as he is pure." Again, with respect to love; "God is love."-" Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." And with regard to mercy; Be ye therefore merciful, as your (heavenly) "Father is also merciful'." I shall not take up time with shewing how it is undeniably to be inferred from these precepts that all these several qualities were parts of that divine image, in which our first parents were created. The texts produced, which are but a few plain and simple ones from among very many, may well be left to speak for themselves. Let it be enough at present briefly to repeat these several particulars, which Scripture warrants us in saying must have belonged unto that image of God in which man was formed in the beginning; namely, knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, truth, purity, love, mercy. These may suffice to give us a conception of what that rich and fair inheritance once was, and ought still to have been, which we have naturally lost. II. This thought has brought us to our second i 1 John iii. 2, 3. k 1 John iv. 8, 16, 7. point; which is, to take a survey of man's fallen state. For, as we all too surely know and feel, very different is that condition (or rather, very different are those propensities and dispositions) in and with which we are now born, from even that faint outline which has just been sketched of man's original righteousness! We cannot but be well aware how the lamentable change took place, and how and when the loss which has so marred our nature happened. It happened through our first father's disobedience to the single restriction and command imposed on him in Paradise. Then entered sin into "the world, and death by sin"." Sin, and death, and misery took up the places of innocence, and righteousness, and true holiness. We need not (as already said) distract ourselves with vain disputes about the measure of this melancholy fall. Assuredly it brought with it a depravation of our nature both in body and soul, and that sufficient to render us averse from GOD and from his ways; (which ways unto the upright and the pure in heart would form their only true delight ;) enough, by consequence, to indispose and to unfit us for the enjoyment of his presence: Rom. v. assuredly, sufficient to expose us to his just displeasure, in whose favour alone is life; and so to cast us out for ever from all hope of happiness, without some special restoration. Do we doubt this, Christians?-Not, if we ever commune worthily with our own hearts! But even with the most unthinking it must be an easy thing to understand the truth, which meets us in so many ways, that our present is a fallen state. For, as to those effects and consequences of the fall of Adam which take place upon our bodies as the bringing in of sickness, frailty, and death-it cannot be accounted any subject of a Christian faith to believe and be assured of these. These are, in truth, matters of experience, of sight, of certainty. "What man is he that now liveth, that shall not see death?" We cannot doubt that "death has passed upon "all men." As little can we doubt those further truths, which tell us of our present weakness, and liability to trouble. Man is born to trouble :" aye, as surely "as the sparks fly upwards." Who is there that escapes through life without his sorrows and his sore perplexities?—This, again, is matter of such positive experience, that neither is there any faith in owning and confessing truths like these. But is that great corruption and unsoundness of our souls so sure and true? Must we be obliged to bring down all our proud thoughts, and to confess equally-that "there is none righteous, no, "not one";" that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked";" that "we are "not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as " of ourselves";" that "in the sight of God shall no man living be justified"?" All these are things which Scripture tells us of. I beg of you to consider what an evidence the corresponding witness of our own hearts here supplies to us, that holy Scripture comes from one who knows our very inmost nature; and thereby yields at least a strong presumption that it is, and must be, true. But do not let us take such things on trust, without some reasonable grounds of satisfaction. Are we thus evidently lost and fallen creatures ? fallen from that holy image in the likeness of which the first man was created, and corrupted in our very spirit ?-If it were not so, reflect what we might naturally look to see in a con n Rom. iii. 10. P 2 Cor. iii. 5. • Jer. xvii. 9. 9 Ps. cxliii. 2. |