SERMON III.

GEN. i. 27.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him.

WE have already seen how absolutely. necessary it is, in order to form correct ideas of Religion, that we should have proper notions of that Supreme Being to whom religious service is due it is in the next place of great importance to understand the nature of man, by whom that

a Since writing this Discourse, I have had an opportunity of consulting the learned Bishop Bull's Treatise on the State of Man before the Fall. The reader will of course find there much valuable matter, with the opinions of the ancient Fathers, laboriously collected; but I cannot help thinking that the excellent author has admitted some distinctions suited rather to our present than our original condition. Where all was from God, and not yet impaired by man's sin, it seems difficult to understand the difference between natural and supernatural.

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service is to be paid; to know, with as much precision as can be attained, what are his propensities and capacities, what are his relations, what the end of his being, and how he is fitted to answer that end. For as the duty of every creature must be suited to the capacities and propensities with which it has been really endowed by its Maker, so those capacities being known will materially assist us in ascertaining the duty. And to comprehend this in any satisfactory degree, it is requisite that we should be informed of his origin. For that only is the true nature of man, as of every other being, with which he was originally invested by the hand of Him, who bestowed his existence upon him. If in any thing that nature has been corrupted or depraved; if it has been in any degree weakened in its powers, or darkened in its perceptions, if its propensities have been perverted, or its affections debased, the change thus unhappily produced, though it unfits man for the performance of his duty, can by no means be allowed to contract the extent of that duty,

or diminish the obligation to its discharge. The duty which God imposed, because He had given man powers commensurate to its performance, cannot be lessened merely because man has by his own fault lost those powers. And therefore all reasoning from capacities so weakened, and propensities so perverted, will infallibly lead into error, or stop short of the truth. For the true measure of man's duty being that which is commensurate to his real nature, and his real nature being that alone with which he was impressed at his original creation, any delineation of his duty, which is formed from a view of his impaired powers and debased affections, must come far short of a just representation of what he is required to do, that he may answer the end of his being. And hence we may see clearly the reason why some modern writers on ethics,

b Conybeare's Defence of Revealed Religion, p. 248, &c. where the learned Bishop shows the defectiveness and obscurity of the scheme of moral duties which he is considering. But I must take leave to observe, that, defective and obscure as it may be, it clearly discovers the source from which all that is valuable in it was derived. For it lays a clear foundation of morals in reli

who have been willing to set aside the authority of Scripture, and to deduce the rule

gion; a thing which none of the philosophers, much less the common herd of mankind, were able to do before the promulgation of Christianity. That is most true, which the learned Calmet has remarked in his preface to the Book of Wisdom, that "in the writings "of the heathen philosophers it has but little concern or connection with religion and the practice of real "virtue." "Plato," says Lactantius," multa de uno "Deo locutus est, a quo ait constitutum esse mundum, "sed nihil de religione." And how did it happen, that this author did that, and represented it as so easy to be done, which that prince of philosophers could not do? Common sense and common honesty, and a very small share of modesty, would have compelled him to own, that he owed his better success in the delineation of man's duty to the better instructions he had received. He had been catechised in the Christian religion, however much he might affect to despise it, and there he had learnt that piety was the basis of morals; there he had learnt to make that threefold division of human duty which the Apostle had plainly explained to the disciples of Christ, but which no mere master of philosophy had ever presumed to attempt. It was only when ἡ χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ σωτήριος ἐπεφάνη πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, that the σωφρόνως καὶ δικαίως καὶ εὐσεβῶς ζήσωμεν ἐν τῷ νῦν αἰῶνι was clearly established as the rule of human life. Now that it is revealed, it is no doubt level to the comprehension of the meanest understanding amongst us; but we may safely say, that the highest would never have discovered it because, in fact, after the knowledge of the true God was lost, and with it the knowledge of