all his will. In short, either the new created man loved God supremely, or not: If he did not, he was not innocent, since the law and light of nature requires such a supreme love to God. If he did love God supremely, then he stood disposed and ready for every act of adoration and obedience; and this is true holiness of heart. And, indeed, without this how could a God of holiness love the work of his own hands?

There must also in this creature be found a regular subjection of the inferior powers to the superior; sense and appetite and passion must be subject to reason, that is, the mind and conscience must have a power and readiness to govern these lower faculties, and keep them in due obedience, that he might not offend against the law of his creation, and his will must be inclined to it*. He must also have his heart inlaid with love and good-will to the creatures, and especially those of his own species, if he should be placed among them; and he must be endued with a principle of honesty and truth in dealing with them. And if many of these creatures were made at once, there should be no domineering pride, no malice, no envy, no falsehood, no brawls or contentions among them; but all harmony and love, each seeking the welfare and happiness of his fellow-creatures as well as his own.

This principle of universal righteousness and holiness, I take to be the noblest part of that image of God, that is, his moral image, in which Moses the Jewish historian represents man to be at first created, and which I think was due to his nature from a God of equity and goodness. And the same writer assures us, when God surveyed all his works, at the end of his creation, he pronounced them all very good. And Solomon the wisest of men, in his book of Ecclesiastes, assures us, that God made man upright; Eccl. vii. 29. It is granted that the natural image of God in which man was created, consisted partly in his spiritual, intelligent and immortal nature, and the various faculties thereof; and his political image, if I may so express it, consisted in his being made lord and governor over all the lower creation: But when we speak of this part of the divine image which is moral, we are assured by Paul, that it was the rectitude of his nature, or his conformity to the will and law of God. Paul was once a Jewish pharisee, and well understood the sense of Moses, and in his epistle to the Ephesians, iv. 24. he says, that the image of God, into which man is to be

Surely if the soul or will of this new made creature had not a real propensity to love and obey God who is a spirit, but was merely formed with a natural capacity or power to do so, in a state of indifference to good or evil; then his being put into such a union with flesh and blood among a thousand animal temptations, would have been an over balance on the side of sensuality and vice: But our reason can never suppose that God the wise, just and good, would have placed a new made creature in such an original situation.

renewed, and consequently in which he was first made, consists in righteousness and true holiness, as well as in knowledge; Col. iii. 10*.

II. From the justice and goodness of God, we may also reasonably infer, that though man might be made with a perfect freedom of will, and with a power to chuse evil as well as good, that he might be put into a state of probation; yet it seems necessary that he should not only have a superior propensity to what was good wrought at first into his nature, but he must also have a full sufficiency of power to preserve himself in this state of obedience and love to his Creator, and to guard himself from every temptation and sin, if his faculties were rightly employed. He must therefore have a sufficient knowledge of God and himself and his duty, so far as was necessary to practise it: He must have his Maker's law written in his heart, that is, he must have such light of reason and conscience as, if carefully employed, would always lead him to judge aright concerning his duty; and he must have a ready and proximate ability to practise and fulfil it. Surely he must be furnished with powers of self-preservation in his state of innocency, and sufficient to guard him from offending his Creator, and losing his happiness. This the justice and the goodness of God seem to require. His natural powers in themselves must have a full sufficiency for his own security from sin, if he used those natural powers in the best manner he was capable of; otherwise he would be exposed to unavoidable sin and misery, and certainly fall into it, if he were not able to preserve his innocence and virtue: He would as it were be made for his Maker's anger, if he were not able to preserve himself in his love.

III. It is highly probable from the goodness of God, that such a creature would be made immortal, that is, he would have had no principles of decay or death in him. It is true, the great God, considered merely as an absolute Lord and sovereign of his creatures, might take away all that he had given him at pleasure; but it is hardly to be supposed, that if his creature stood obedient to all his Maker's will, his wisdom and goodness would have destroyed an intelligent creature who had continued to serve and please him. Whatsoever had been done to his body, yet still we would suppose, God would not divest his soul of his natural immortality, but rather have advanced it to some better vehicle, or dwelling-place in some upper world. It is likely

Notwithstanding all the cavils which have been raised against these words, yet if these two texts are considered together, their most obvious meaning and the plainest sense of them abides still confirmed, and will strike an honest and unbiassed reader. The new man, or the principle of true religion in the heart, is Greated by God after his moral image, wherein he created man at first, that is, with a holy temper of mind and disposition, to the ready practice of all rightusness as fast as occasions ant opportunities arise.

also that God would have endowed his soul with powers to arrive at higher degrees of excellency and happiness, than those in which he was at first formed: And hereby there was great encourage ment given both to his watchfulness against every danger of sinning against God, and hurting himself, as well as to his zeal and diligence both in improving his natural powers, and in performing eminent services for his Maker and converse with him. This would be the way for him to improve in the likeness, and in the love of that almighty Being who made him, as well as more firmly to secure his own immortality and happiness.

IV. I think we may be able to add also, that the habitation, in which a God of infinite goodness would place such a holy and innocent creature, should be a very beautiful and magnificent building, furnished with all manner of necessaries, and conveniences of life, and prepared not only for his safety and support, but also for his delight. Our reason seems to say this: And Moses writing concerning the first created pair of mankind, tells us, that when they were brought into this world they were placed in Eden, or a garden of pleasure, and had a right given them to all the excellent fruits and delights of such a garden, and were made lords of all the creatures round about them, both in the vegetative and animal world. And as the dwelling of such an innocent and holy creature should be delightful and convenient, so neither should there be any thing noxious or destructive found in this habitation, but what this excellent creature man should have sufficient notice of, and should be endowed with sufficient power to oppose it, or to avoid it. Or if we should suppose that this creature was placed in such a state of trial by his Maker, as that he should be capable of receiving some unavoidable injuries from any noxious thing that was near him, it seems reasonable that he should have a proximate and immediate ability, by the right use of his understanding and his will, and his other powers, to relieve himself, and to turn every such injury to his own superior advantage, and to balance every pain by equal or supe rior pleasure.

V. And if this creature had power to propagate its own kind, the child should be innocent and holy, and capable of maintaining its duty and happiness as well as the parent. Now if these are the qualifications with which such a new made greature should be endued, and these the circumstances in which our reason would judge from the wisdom, justice, and goodness of God that he ought to be situated; then by a careful survey of what mankind now is, and a comparison thereof with what reason would tell us he ought to be, we may be able to arrive at some determination, whether mankind is at present such a creature as the great and bless d God made him at first: Which is the subject of the ensuing enquiry.

QUEST. I.-IS Man in his present Circumstances such a Creature as he came out of the hands of God his Creator? Or, is he depraved and ruined by some Universal Degeneracy of his Nature?

I hope we may derive some evident and complete answer to this enquiry from the following considerations :

1. This earth, which was designed for the habitation of man, carries with it some evident tokens of ruin and desolation, and does not seem to be ordained, in its present form and circumstances, for the habitation of innocent beings; but is more apparently fitted for the dwelling place of creatures who are degenerate and fallen from God. It is granted, that the beauty and order of this lower world, even in its present constitution, and the wonderful texture, composition and harmony of the several parts of it, both in air, earth and sea, are most happily suited to the various purposes of that almighty Being who made it: They give a constant and illustrious display of the power, wisdom and goodness of their Creator. Yet it must be confessed also, there are some glaring and uncontested proofs of the terrors of his justice, and the executions of his vengeance both past and future. Is not the form or shape of our earth, in the present divisions and boundaries of seas and shores, continents and islands, very rude and irregular, abrupt and horrid? Does it look like the regular and beautiful product of a God of wisdom and order? Survey a map of the world, and say, does the form of it strike our eyes with any natural beauty or harmony? Has it the appearance of a lovely and well adjusted piece of workmanship? Or rather, does it not bear strongly on our sight the ideas of ruin and confusion? Travel over the countries of this globe, or visit some of the wilder parts of our own British islands, and make just remarks on them all. What various appearances of a ruined world? What vast broken mountains hang frightfully over the heads of travellers? What stupendous cliffs and promontories rise high and hideous to behold? What dreadful precipices, which make our nature giddy to look down, and are ready to betray our feet into downfals and destructions? What immense extents of waste and barren ground in some countries? What hideous and unpassable deserts? What broad and faithless morasses, which are made at once both deaths and graves to travellers who venture upon them? What huge ruinous caverns of frightful aspect, deep and wide, big enough to bury whole cities?

Notwithstanding all these appearances of ruin and desolalation on this earth, yet it is granted, that the great God may have made use of these ragged cliffs and promontories, these dismal caverns, deserts and morasses, &c. to serve various purposes of his providence for the good of mankind, while they dwell here, as well as sometimes for their punishment. His

wisdom can bring good out of evil, and extract conveniences and comforts out of the most hideous and desolate aspect of things. And thus his wisdom and goodness are glorified in the midst of these formidable scenes. And there remain still sufficient evidences of the perfections and glory of the Creator in this earth, notwithstanding the many appearances of judgment and ruin which are found here, as in Rom. i. 20.

But let us proceed into this melancholy spectacle. What resistless deluges of water in a season of great rains come rolling down the hills, bear down all things in their course, and threaten spacious desolation? What roaring and tremendous water-falls in some parts of the globe? What burning mountains, in whose caverns are lakes of glowing metal, or of liquid fire, ready to overflow and burst upon the lower lands; or their bowels are consumed within; and they are turned into a mere shell of earth, covering prodigious cavities of smoke, and furnaces of flame? And they seem to wait only for a divine command to break inward, and bury towns and provinces in fiery ruin. What unknown and active treasures of air or wind, are pent up in the bowels of the earth by the rarefractions produced from subterraneous ferments and fires, all prepared to break out into wide and surprising mischief? What huge torrents of water rush and roar through the hollows of the globe we tread? What dreadful sounds and threatening appearances from the region of meteors in the air? What clouds charged with flame and thunder, which are ready to burst on the earth, and discompose and terrify all nature for many miles round, and to make dreadful havoc of mankind?

When I seriously take a survey of some such scenes as these, I am very ready to say within myself, Surely this earth of ours, in these rude and broken appearances, this unsettled and dangerous state of it, was designed as a dwelling for some unhappy inhabitants, who did or would transgress the law of their Maker, and deeply merit desolation from his hand, and he has here stored up his magazines of divine artillery and death against the day of punishment.

But to take one step further, how often have the terrible occurrences of nature in the air, earth and sea, and the calamitous incidents in divine providence in several countries, how often have they given an actual confirmation to this sentiment? What sweeping and destrucctive storms have we and our fathers seen by land and sea, even in this temperate island of Great Britain? What particular floods of water and violent explosions of fire we do read of in the histories of the world? What shocking convulsions of the globe stretching far and wide under the affrighted nations for three or four thousand miles, and spreading terror through every heart? What sudden and huge diruptions of the