the Creator for his own glory was pleased to make in original perfection; and in whose continuance in that state all his

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posterity were concerned. God," as Moses hath informed us, "created man "in his own image." These words are few, but comprehensive. They lead to a subject of important enquiry; furnishing matter for contemplation of the most exalted and spiritual kind. And though we can know no more on this generally interesting subject than God has thought fit to reveal; and though the detail of the Divine proceeding on this memorable occasion, as it is to be met with in the chapter immediately before us, is in itself too short to furnish particular information upon it; there are still important reasons to be given, why every degree of knowledge to be acquired upon it should have strong claim to Christian attention. For it is in proportion only as we know what we might have been, had Adam preserved This original condition, that we shall become duly sensible what we are; and till we are duly sensible what we are, we shall not know how to appreciate the import

ance of that Divine work, by which it has been rendered possible for us to reco ver our lost hope.

That fatal event which deprived our first parents of their innocence in Paradise, constitutes the foundation on which the redemption of Jesus Christ is built. A right understanding, therefore, of the particulars which belong to that event, by shewing how sin came into the world; the fatal consequences of it, together with the remedy which Divine Grace has provided against them, opens to us the true state of man's present condition under the Gospel; and must consequently be a subject for primary consideration with every descendant from fallen Adam.

It was an observation of an ancient and pious Father of the Church*, that we must learn to know ourselves, before we can attain unto the true and perfect knowledge of God; and certainly there cannot be a more convincing way of knowing Christ in his peculiar character as our Lord and Redeemer, than by knowing or

"Ut Deum agnoscas, teipsum priùs cognosce."

CYPRIAN.

under

understanding ourselves to be bond-servants, and wherein that bondage consists, from which we have been redeemed.

But this true knowledge of ourselves, it is to be observed, hath necessarily a double aspect; it looks backward and forward; back to that state from which man is falien, and forward to that in which, in consequence of the Fall, man is actually to be found. And it is for want of seeing man in this double point of view, namely, in his originally perfect, and comparatively fallen and condemned state, that the doctrine of atonement for sin by the blood of Christ, and the consequent salvation of sinners through his merits, are doctrines, which at different times have been so confidently rejected. It is because those heretics, to whom we allude, do not possess, unhappily for themselves, that self-knowledge necessary to dispose them for the grateful reception of the Gospel plan of salvation; because they do not see themselves, in their individual character as sinners, obnoxious to the sentence of Divine wrath; nor in their general relation to a transgressing proge

nitor, as the corrupt descendants of fallen Adam; that they confidently reject that consolatory doctrine of atonement by the blood of a crucified Redeemer, of which, as all-sufficient moralists, they feel themselves standing in no need *. In this mind, placing themselves under the first covenant of works, as privileged claimants they boldly put forth their hands to the fruit of that tree, from the use of which Adam, in consequence of transgression, was excluded; instead of seeking, in the character of fallen sinners, to return to it, " by that new and living way which Christ has consecrated for "them."

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Having formed no adequate notion of that eminent distinction by which man was originally raised above other creatures here below, to which the words in the text immediately direct our attention, it has not been made a subject of consideration with them, in what manner sin first found entrance into the world; how it hath been propagated through all man

See References at the end, Letter A.

kind, and what are the special properties, effects, and power of it. Without the knowledge, it should rather be said, without the serious consideration of these important points, it is impossible for any man to make a true, much less a full or competent estimate either of Christ's sufferings on the cross, of the power of his resurrection, of the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit, and the eventual benefits graciously intended to be derived from them.

The reply made by our blessed Saviour to the Jews on a certain occasion, is strikingly descriptive of man's actual condition subsequent to the Fall. "Jesus

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answered them, Verily, verily, I say

unto you, whosoever committeth sin is "the servant of sin. And the servant "abideth not in the house for ever; but "the Son abideth for ever. If the Son, "therefore, shall make you free, then "shall ye be free indeed." John viii. 34.

The foregoing answer directs our attention to that fundamental doctrine, on which the foot of the cross may be said to be placed; namely, man's natural bondage