and their disposition, brought Galen upon his knees, in adoration of the wisdom with which the whole is contrived; and incited him to challenge any one, upon an hundred years' study, to tell how any the least fibre or particle could have been more commodiously placed, either for use or beauty. While the world shall last, genius and diligence will be producing fresh proofs that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made;" that "marvellous are the works,” and, above all, this capital work, of the Almighty; and that the hand which made it must needs be verily and indeed divine..

Into the body of man, thus constructed, we learn from Moses, that God "breathed the breath of life, "and man became a living soul." The question here will be, Whether these words are intended to denote the rational and immortal soul, or the sensitive and animal life?

They are certainly sometimes used in the lower of these acceptations. "Cease ye from man whose "breath is in his nostrils. All creatures in whose "nostrils was the breath of life died by the flood." By these texts it appears, that the terms spirit and breath are used to signify that animal life, which is supported, mechanically, by respiration through the nostrils.

h

But they are likewise used for the rational and immortal soul; witness those words of the Psalmist, adopted by our Lord when expiring on the cross; "Into thy hands I commend my spirit." So again

גשמה f גשמת רוה היים 8 .נשמה and רוה h .גרוהי1

k

"The spirit shall return to God who gave it." And "The spirit of man' is the candle of the "Lord."

Spiritual essences and operations come not under the cognizance of those senses, 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 such language as is commonly styled figurative, or metaphorical. Of animal life, begun and continued by respiration, we have a proper and sufficient knowledge. 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 a higher life, maintained by the influence of a higher principle. For this purpose, the terms which denote the former are borrowed to express the latter; and we find the words translated spirit and breath, sometimes used for one, and sometimes for the other.

But when we consider that man, as other Scriptures do testify, has within him a rational soul, an immortal spirit, which, on the dissolution of the body, returns to God who gave it; that, in this original description of his formation, we may reasonably expect to find both parts of his composition 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 consisteth of a body so organized as to be sustained in life by the action of the material elements upon it, and a rational, immortal soul, supported, in a similar manner, by the influence of a superior and spiritual agency.

We had occasion to observe above, that when the knowledge of the Creator, furnished at the beginning by revelation, had been lost in the Heathen world, men paid to the works of his hands that adoration which was due to him. The material elements were invested with divinity and immortality, and worshipped as gods. It may now be farther observed, that to the soul of man, considered as a portion of these elements, was attributed the same divinity and immortality; and thus things natural were substituted in the place of things spiritual, a proper notion of which could not then be attained, for want of that instruction 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 invisible wonders of the spiritual world. And whoever observes the progress of that scheme which is once more set up against revelation, by some, in our own and a neighbouring nation, who affect the title of philosophers in opposition to that of Christians, and whose abilities one cannot but lament to see employed in this manner, will perceive

its tendency to introduce materialism, and to carry us back again to that state of darkness, from which it pleased the Father of lights in mercy to deliver us by the Gospel of his Son.

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

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

To discover wherein such image and likeness consisted, what better method can we take than to inquire, wherein consist that divine image and likeness, which, as the Scriptures of the New Testament inform us, were restored in human nature, through the redemption and grace of Christ, who was manifested for that purpose? The image restored was the image lost; and the image lost was that in which Adam was created.

The expressions 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 "re"newed after the image of him that created him ";" and the like. The use of the term created, naturally

m Ephes. iv. 24.

n Coloss. iii. 10.

refers us to man's first creation, and leads us to parallel that with his renovation, or new creation, by which he re-obtained those excellences possessed at the beginning, but afterwards unhappily forfeited.

And what are these?" Renewed in knowledge, "after the image of him that created him—Put on "the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness, οσιότητι της αλήθειας, the "holiness of, or according to, truth." The divine image, then, is to be found in the understanding and the will; in the understanding which knows the truth, and in the will which loves it. For when the understanding judges that to be true which with God is true, the man is "renewed in knowledge after the image of him;" when the will loves the truth, and all its affections move in the pursuit and practice of it, the man is "new created, after God, in righteous"ness and holiness." This divine image is restored in human nature by the word of Christ enlightening the understanding, and the grace of Christ rectifying the will. These are, in the end, to render man what he was at first created, according to that passage in the writings of king Solomon, which is the shortest and best comment upon the words of Moses-"God made man upright"-the original word signifies straight, direct; there was no error in his understanding, no obliquity in his will. He who says this, says every thing. It is a full and comprehensive account of man in his original state; nothing can be added to it, or taken from it.

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