By this you will be kept from the vmdue bias of fleshly wisdom, and from consulting with flesh and blood ; by this you will be enabled to maintain your conversation in the world with " sim- plicity and godly sincerity." Cultivate this, and the path of duty will be clear : cultivate this, and you will never lose the promised reward.]
man's original and present state.
Eccl. vii. 29. Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man tipriglit ; hut they have sought out many inventions.
THE whole scope of this book is, to shew the vanity of the world, and all things in it. As in the earth itself there is a visible proof that some great convulsion has taken place ; so, in every thing that is passing upon the earth, there is the clearest evidence imaginable that some great moral change has been effected : for it cannot possibly be, that the world, which still bears such innumerable traces of wisdom and goodness in its first creation, should have pro- ceeded from its Maker's hands in such a state as it now appears. In fact, the whole world is out of course. The very elements are, on many occasions, hostile to man ; and man, in ten thousand instances, is an enemy to himself, to his species, and to his God. And " what is thus crooked, who can make straight""?" Who can ward off the effects of all this disorder from his own person or estate ? A monarch is the victim of it, no less than the meanest of his subjects ; and the saint, no less than the contemner of all true religion. To what, then, or to whom, shall we ascribe this state of things ? The wisest philosophers of Greece and Rome were unable to account for it. But the Holy Scriptures inform us, that the whole creation, as originally formed, was perfect ; but sin, entering into the world, effected both a natural and a moral change upon it : so that the man who looks into the Holy Scriptures can solve every difficulty at once, by saying, " Lo, this have I found, that God made man upright ; but they have sought out many inventions," and
» ver. 13.
837. j man's original and present state. 371
thereby reduced the world, and every thing in it, to the state of disorganization in which it now appears. In ilhistration of my text, I shall be led to notice both the primitive and the present state of man, and to shew,
I. His uprightness, as formed by God —
We are expressly told, that '^ God created man after his own image ''." When, therefore, man came from his Creator's hands, he was perfect,
1. In his intellectual faculties — [His mind was light : and in him was no darkness at all, in reference to any thing which he was concerned to know. He had a clear knowledge of God, and of his perfections, so far as those perfections were stamped upon the visible creation. The wisdom, the goodness, the power of God, were all appre- hended by him, and duly appreciated. He was acquainted also with his own nature, and his obligations to God ; seeing the full extent of his duty towards him, as well as all the motives and inducements which he had for the performance of it. More- over, he saw all these things intuitively, and not by long consi- deration or rational deduction. They were all stamped upon his very soul, and constantly before his eyes : and he had the same consciousness of them as he had of his own existence.]
2. In his moral dispositions — [The Law of God was written upon his heart, that he might know it : and, at the same time, the love of it also was engraven there, so that he had not the slightest inclination to violate it in any one particular. It was no difficulty to him to love God with all his heart and mind and soul and strength: it was the very element in which he breathed : the bent of his soul was wholly towards it. Flame did not more naturally ascend in the atmosphere than did his soul, with all its powers, ascend to God. Dear as Eve was to him, she did not rival God in his affections. Every thing was subordinated to his Maker ; nor was even a thought entertained in his mind, which had not a direct and immediate tendency to honour him. In a word, he was to God as the i.mpression to the seal : nor was there found one lineament upon his heart which had not been stamped there by God himself]