I.

Spiritual effences and operations come DISC. not under the cognizance of those fenfes, which, during the present state of probation, God has been pleased to make the inlets of our ideas. They must therefore be represented and described to us, in the way of comparison and analogy, by fuch language as is commonly styled figurative, or metaphorical. Of animal life, begun and continued by refpiration, we have a proper and fufficient knowlege. From a contemplation of that life, and the manner in which it is supported by the air, we are directed to frame our notions of an higher life, maintained by the influence of an higher principle. For this purpose, the terms which denote the former are borrowed to express the latter; and we find the words, tranflated Spirit, and breath, fometimes used for one, and sometimes for the other.

But when we confider, that man, as other Scriptures do teftify, has within him a rational foul, an immortal spirit, which, on the diffolution of the body, returns to

VOL. I.

B

God

DISC. God who gave it; that, in this original defcription of his formation, we may reafonably expect to find both parts of his compofition mentioned; and that a personal act of the Deity, that of inspiring the breath of life, is recorded with regard to him, which is not said of the other creatures; we can hardly do otherwise than conclude, that the words were intended to denote not the animal life only, but also another life communicated with it, and represented by it; in a word, that man confifteth of a body so organized as to be suftained in life by the action of the material elements upon it, and a rational immortal foul fupported, in a fimilar manner, by the influence of a fuperior and spiritual agency.

We had occafion to observe above, that when the knowlege of the Creator, furnished at the beginning by Revelation, had been loft in the heathen world, men paid to the works of his hands that adoration which was due to him. The material elements were invefted with divinity and immortality,

i.

mortality, and worshipped as gods. It may DISC. now be farther obferved, that to the foul of man, confidered as a portion of these elements, was attributed the fame divinity and immortality; and thus things natural were fubftituted in the place of things fpiritual, a proper notion of which could not then be attained, for want of that inftruction from above, which directs us how to transfer our ideas from one to the other, and to believe in the latter, as conceived through the medium of the former. So difficult has it ever been found, for the human mind, to pass the bounds of matter, and to explore the invifible wonders of the fpiritual world. And whoever observes the progress of that fcheme, which is once more fet up against Revelation by fome, in our own and a neighbouring nation, who affect the title of philofophers, in oppofition to that of Chriftians, and whofe abilities one cannot but lament to fee employed in this manner, will perceive it's tendency to introduce materialism, and to carry us back again to that ftate of darkness, from which

DISC. it pleased the Father of lights, in mer

I.

cy, to deliver us by the Gospel of his

Son.

But to return to the Mofaic account of man, of whose distinguishing excellencies we are taught to entertain the most exalted fentiments, when we are told, that he was made" in the image and likeness of God." For what more can be faid of a creature, than that he is made after the fimilitude of his Creator?

As "God is a Spirit," the fimilitude here spoken of must be a spiritual fimilitude, and the subject to which it relates must be the spiritual part of man, his rational and immortal foul.

To discover wherein fuch image and likeness confifted, what better method can we take, than to enquire, wherein confift that divine image and likeness, which, as the Scriptures of the New Testament inform us, were restored in human nature,

through

through the redemption and grace of DISC. Christ, who was manifefted for that pur

pose? The image restored was the image

loft; and the image loft was that in which Adam was created.

The expreffions 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";" and of man being "renewed "after the image of him that created "him";" 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 thofe excellencies poffeffed at the beginning, but afterwards unhappily forfeited.

And what are these ? "Renewed in

knowlege, after the image of him that "created him- Put on the new man,

I.