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see the mountains and the woods and the flashing streams, and that I may do the work by which I live. For me the rain falls and the dews silently distil — to cherish the corn which grows for my food, to soften the air I breathe, and to keep the beauty of the world fresh and bright on which I rejoice to look. The music of the birds is for me, and the perfume of flowers. For me it was that forests grew in ancient times and have since been hardened into coal ; for me there are veins of iron and of silver penetrating the solid earth ; and for me there are rivers whose sands are gold. The beasts of the earth were meant to do my work ; sheep and oxen are given me for food. Fire and hail and the stormy wind were meant to serve me. I have authority to compel the lightning to be the messenger of my thought, and the servant of my will. Man is placed over the works of God's hands ; for those works were meant to minister to man's life, man's culture, and man's happiness.*
(2) Man hears "the image of God." — In the creation which surrounds us, there are marvellous manifestations of the Divine attributes. A power to which we can give no other name than omnipotence, a knowledge which we cannot but call infinite, a wisdom whose depths are unfathomable, and an inexhaustible goodness, are revealed in the heavens above and in the earth beneath. But in man, God has given existence to a creature in whom we recognize not merely the operations of the Divine attributes, but the attributes themselves, though in a less noble form and an inferior degree. There is the manifestation of wisdom, of power, and of love, in the other works of God ; but in man there is wisdom itself, love itself.
^ The preparation of the Declaratory Act, to remove difficulties and scruples felt by some in reference to the declaration of belief required from persons who receive office or are admitted to office in the Free Church, was undertaken with great care. At the Assembly of 1891, Principal Eainy was able to bring up the document which the Committee proposed to be adopted. The fourth section read as follows: "That in holding and teaching, according to the Confession of Faith, the corruption of man's whole nature as fallen, this Church also maintains that there remain tokens of his greatness as created in the image of God ; that he possesses a knowledge of God and of duty ; that he is re- sponsible for compliance with the moral law and with the Gospel ; and that, although unable without the aid of the Holy Spirit to
^ E. W. Dale, The Jewish Tcm^jle and the Christian Church, 49.
292 THE CROWNED CHRIST
return to God, he is yet capable of affections and actions which in themselves are virtuous and praiseworthy." ^
(3) Man is endowed with freedom. — He is like God in this, that he possesses freedom to choose the objects of his life, and the means by which he will secure them. Let the iron hand of necessity control all things besides, — the eagle in her daring flight, the tumult of the ocean, the dance of the spray, the rush of the winds, the fury of the storm, — the will of man stands erect, con- fronting and defying all authority and all power. No outward force can compel it; no inward necessity bind it. The founda- tions of that throne on which the human will has been placed by the hand of the Creator cannot be shaken by the tremendous energies which rend asunder the everlasting hills. A solitary man can stand against a million ; they may torture his physical frame till he cries aloud in his agony, but the whole force of a great empire has been met and mastered by the will of a quiet scholar and of a feeble woman. God has given to the human will the power of refusing to bow before His own greatness, and of disobeying His own commands. This imperial faculty it is, beyond all others, which stamps man as the rightful master of the world. He alone has this indispensable attribute of sovereignty. All creatures besides are in bondage to irresistible law ; he alone has received the gift of freedom. " Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things under his feet."
But it exceeds man's thought to think how high God hath raised man, since God a man became ;
The angels do admire this mystery.
And are astonished when they view the same.
Nor hath he given these blessings for a day, Nor made them on the body's life depend.
The soul, though made in time, survives for aye ; And though it hath beginning, sees no end.^
2. Man's sovereignty, conferred on him originally by the appointment of his Creator, has not been fully realized. How
^ P. C. Simiison, The Life of Principal Rainy, ii. 125. ' Sir John Davies.
HEBREWS II. 8, 9 293
miserably he has come short of it has been shown by the con- dition of all nations and of all ages. His freedom has been manifested in his violation of the most solemn and imperative obligations. The image of God has been so defaced that it has almost disappeared. The intellect of man has sunk into a chaos of ignorance and error, and, instead of rightly understanding the universe, he has constructed a thousand monstrous theories con- cerning its origin, concerning the very structure of material things, concerning his own nature and destiny. The commonest laws of the external world remained hidden from him for thousands of years, and remain hidden even now from the immense majority of his race. Instead of being the master of the inferior creation, he has been — and to a large extent, con- tinues still — its unhappy victim. His life is destroyed by the poison of reptiles, and by the brute strength of beasts of prey. The vineyards he has laboriously cultivated he cannot protect from blight. The harvests he is ready to reap are wasted by destructive rains. On the land, his cities perish by earthquakes : on the sea, his ships go down in the storm. His health is ruined and his moral nature corrupted by the strong temptations of the outward world, which betray him into sensual excesses. He has come to be so humiliated and degraded that he has looked up to the moon and stars which were made to serve him, and has called them his gods ; he has placed four-footed beasts and creep- ing things in the shrine of his temples, and has implored them to avert the calamities he dreaded, and to bestow on him the bless- ings for which he longed. The traces of his kingship have not disappeared ; slowly and painfully in one province of his do- minions after another, especially since Christ came, and in the lands of Christendom, he has been winning back the authority he had lost ; but his hand is too feeble to hold the sceptre, and on all sides the subject creation is in open revolt — revolt which he seems often unable even to check, and is quite unable to subdue. " We see not yet all things put under him."