THE NATURE OF MAN A LITTLE LOWER THAN THAT OF THE The other graces of the state of original justice, viz., the subjection of the reason to God, and the obedience of the lower appetites of nature which exist in man, in common with the brute creatures, to the control of reason, the gifts of wisdom and light to the understanding, and of rectitude to the will, seem, by a natural fitness, to belong to the intelligent being which the Lord and Maker of all was pleased to honour with His own friendship and intimacy. The favoured creature with whom His Creator deigns to be familiar, receives in this familiarity the assured possession of every good gift, by which his nature could be ennobled, and raised to a state suited to the intimacy with God. Hence the inspired Psalmist exclaims: “What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour, and hast set him over the works of thy hands; Thou hast subjected all things under his feet.”—(Ps. viii.) That a creature thus raised to a supernatural glory and dignity, above the condition of his nature, should be subject to the humiliation of death, could not be fitting, and God therefore, in the fruit of the tree of life, gave to Adam and Eve the gift of immortality. Yet, nothwithstanding the gift of immortality, and B THE GLORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL STATE THROWN AWAY BY AN ACT OF ADAM'S CHOICE. notwithstanding all the honour and glory with which He had crowned them, in order to render them fit for familiarity with Himself, and forgetting all the good things which He had given to them, Adam and Eve listened to the serpent and broke their friendship with God, lost their honour and glory, were banished from Paradise, and became subject to death. Thus the glory and honour which they lost for themselves and their children, has come to be merited for us by the second Adam, through whose perfect obedience and all-sufficient sacrifice, greater glory has been restored, than that which was originally lost. "O, happy fault of Adam," sings the Church, "which has merited to obtain such and so great a Redeemer.” The Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness. They who were bitten looked upon it and were healed.-Numbers, xxi. 9. HELPLESSNESS OF MAN TO RECOVER WHAT HE HAD THROWN AWAY. CHAPTER III. THE CROSS OF CHRIST, OR, The Purchase of our Redemption. THE SUPERNATURAL STATE OF GRACE RESTORED, THROUGH THE SACRIFICE AND BLOOD OF THE DIVINE HIGH PRIEST. THE supernatural state of "original justice" had been once given to Adam, without his having had any possible claim to it from the royal bounty of his Loving Creator, and it had been once for all cast away and trampled upon by Adam himself, after he had received it, through his wilfully breaking the law of his Maker. It had been the gift of God, and Adam threw it away. What could he do to recover it? "Would the Lord be appeased with thousands of rams or he-goats?" as Balak said, "or should he give his first-born for his wickedness, the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul?" It was God who had given, and Adam, and in him all his children, who had thrown away the gift. How could they get |