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THEOLOGY.

because it appears from other scriptures, that worlds of intelligentcreatures existed, and even that some angels had fallen from a stateof happiness prior to the sera of the Mosaic cosmogony. That thesun and the other planets revolving round him were formed at thesame time with the earth, cannot indeed be questioned; for it isnot only extremely probable in itself from the known laws ofnature, but is expressly affirmed by the sacred historian, who re-lates the formation of the sun and moon in the order in which ittook place. See Creation , and Angels. How strongly dothe works of creation impress upon our minds a conviction of theinfinite power of their Author? “ He spoke and the universestarted into being; he commanded, and it stood fast. All nationsbefore him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less thannothing, and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God, or whatlikeness will ye compare unto him >” As the works of creationare the effects of God’s power, they likewise in the most eminentmanner display his wisdom. This was so apparent to Cicero, evenfrom the partial and very imperfect knowledge in astronomy whichhis time afforded, that he declared those who could assert the con-trary void of all understanding. But if that great master of rea-son had been acquainted with the modern discoveries in astronomy,which exhibit numberless worlds scattered through space; andeach of immense magnitude; had he known that the sun is placedin the centre of our system, and that to diversify the seasons theplanets move round him with exquisite regularity; could he haveconceived that the distinction between liglrt and darkness is pro-duced by the diurnal rotation of the earth on its own axis, insteadof that disproportionate whirling of the whole heavens, which theancient astronomers were forced to suppose ; had he known of thewonderful motions of the comets, and considered how such ec-centric bodies have been preserved from falling upon some of theplanets in the same system, and the several systems from fallingupon each other; had he taken into the account that there are yetgreater things than these, and that we have seen but a few of God’sworks;—that virtuous Pagan would have been ready to exclaim inthe words of the Psalmist, “ O Lord , how manifold are thy works !In wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches.”That the creation is equally the offspring of unmixed goodness,has been already shew n with sufficient evidence, and from the vastnumber of creatures on our earth endowed with life and sense, anda capability of happiness, and the infinitely greater number whichprobably inhabit the planets of this and other systems, we may in-fer that "the goodness of God is as boundless as his power. Surelythe Author of so much happiness must be essential goodness ; andwe must conclude, with St. John, that “ God is love.” Theseattributes of power, wisdom, and goodness, so conspicuously dis-played in the works of creation, belong in the same supreme de-gree to each Person in the blessed Trinity ; for Moses declares thatthe heaven and the earth were created, not by one Person, but bythe Elohim. The AOrOx indeed, or Second Person, appears to havebeen the immediate Creator: for St.John assures us, that “allthings were made by him, and that without him was not any thingmade that was made.” St. Paul expressly affirms that, by theSecond Person in the blessed Trinity , “ were all things createdthat are in the heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or pow-ers; all things were created by him and for him ; and he is beforeall things, and by bimall things consist.” Coloss. iv. 17. Indeedthe Hebrew Scriptures in more places titan one expressly declarethat this earth, and of course the whole solar system, was formedas well as created, not by any inferior being, but by the true God,even Jehovah alone. (See Isa. xl. 12. xliv. 24. Jer. x. 10—13.)

Of the Original State of Man, and the First Covenantof Eternal Life, which God Vouchsafed to Make withhim.

In the Mosaic account of the creation, every attentive readermust he struck with the manner in which the Supreme Being isrepresented as making man. See Gen. i, 26—31, and ii. 1, 2, 3,which is a very remarkable passage, and contains much importantinformation. It indicates a plurality of Persons in the Godhead,describes the nature of man as he came at first from the hands ofhis Creator, anil furnishes data from which we may infer what werethe duties required of him in that primeval state", and what were

the rewards to which obedience would entitle him. We proceedto inquire into the specific nature of the first man. This must beimplied in the image of God. Now this image or likeness couldnot be in his body, for the infinite and omnipotent God is withoutbody, parts, or passions, and therefore such as nothing corporealcan resemble. Some have contended, that man is the only crea-ture on this earth who is animated by a principle essentially dif-ferent from matter; and hence he is said to have been formed inthe Divine image, on account of the immateriality of that vitalprinciple which was infused into his body when the “ Lord Godbreathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a livingsoul ” That this account of the animation of the body of man in-dicates a superiority of the human soul to the vital principle of allother animals, cannot, we think, be questioned. But the powerof sensation, attended with individual consciousness, as it appearsto be in all the higher species of animals, cannot result from any orga-nical structure, or be the quality of a compound extended being. Thevital principle in such animals therefore must be immaterial as wellas the human soul, hut as the word immaterial denotes only a nega-tive notion, the souls of men and brutes, though both immaterial,may yet be substances essentially different. 1 l his being the case,it is plain that the Divine image in which man was formed, and bywhich he is distinguished from the brutes, cannot consist in themere circumstance of his mind being a substance different frommatter, but in some positive quality which distinguishes him fromevery other creature on this globe. About this characteristicquality various opinions have been formed. But it is obvious, thatwhatever may be meant by the image of God in which man wasmade, the phrase undoubtedly comprehends all those powers andqualities by which he is enabled to maintain his authority over theinferior creation. Among these the faculty of reason is confessedlythe most important; for it is by it that man is capable of beingmade acquainted with the Author of his being, the relation whichsubsists between them, and the duties implied in the relation fromthe creature to the Creator. That the first man however, was notleft to discover these things by the mere efforts of his unassistedreason is evident by the portion of revelation before us. The in-spired historian says, tlfat “God blessed the seventh day and sanc-tified it, because that in it he had rested from all his works whichhe created and madebut Adam could not have understoodwhat was meant by the sanctification of a particular day, or of anything else, unless he had previously received some religious in-struction. There cannot therefore be a doubt, but that as soon asman was made, his Creator communicated to him the grand truthsof religion, with the precept to keep holy the Sabbath-day, andset it apart for the purposes of contemplation and worship. SeeSabbath. Man, therefore, in his natural and original state was arational and religious being, bound to do “justice, to love mercy,to walk humbly with his God, and to keep holy the Sabbath-day.”in his original state man was under the discipline of what we havecalled natural religion, entitled to happiness while he should per-form the duties required of him, and liable to punishment whenhe should neglect those duties, or transgress the law of his natureas a rational and moral agent. This being the case, it is a matterof some importance, and what will enable us to perceive moreclearly the prerogatives of Christianity , to ascertain, if we can, whatthe rewards and punishments are which natural religion holds outto her votaries. That under every dispensation of religion thepious and virtuous man shall, during the whole of his existence,enjoy more happiness than misery; and that the incorrigiblywicked shall have a greater portion of misery than happiness, aretruths which cannot he controverted by any one who admits, thatthe Almighty governor of the universe is a Being of wisdom, good'ness, and justice. But respecting the rewards of virtue and thepunishment of vice, more than these general truths seems not tobe taught by natural religion. Moses tells us that the Lord Clodcommanded the man, saying, “ Of every tree of the garden thoumayest freely eat; hut of the tree of the knowledge of good andevil thou shall not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof,thou shalt surely die.” The only law peculiar to his paradisaicalstate was the command not to cat of the fruit of the tree of tb eknowledge of good and evil. This was a positive precept, n0 *founded in the nature of man, but very proper to be the test ofh> sobedience to tiie will of his Creator. This was sanctioned by d ,cpenalty of death denounced against disobedience; and the subject*of that law must have understood somewhat of. the nature of d 11 ®

penalty;