This Section teaches :

1st. That, last of all the inhabitants of this earth, man was created immediately by God.

2d. That God created one human pair, from whom the entire human race has descended by generation.

3d. That God created men in his own image, (a) as possessing reasonable and immortal souls, (6) as endued with knowledge, righteousness and true holiness, and holding dominion over the lower creation.

4th. Tliat God furnished Adam with sufficient knowledge for his guidance, a law written on his heart and a special external revelation of his will.

5th. That while creating Adam holy and capable of obedience, and subjecting him to a special test of that obedience in forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God also left him capable of falling.

1st. Man was created immediately by God, and last of the creatures. According to God's plan of successive creation, and of progressive advance in complexity and excellence of organization and endowment, man's true place is last in order as the immediate end and crown of this lower creation. The scientific advocates of the hypothesis of organic development have denied that man was created immediately by God, and have held that the higher and more complex living organisms were developed gradually and by successive stages from the lower and more simple as the physical condition of the world became gradually favourable to their existence, and that man at the proi)er time came last of all from

the last link in the order of being immediately below him. That man on the contrary was immediately created by God. his body out of earthly materials previously created and his soul out of nothing, is rendered certain by the following evidence:

(1.) The hypothesis of development is a mere dream of unsanctified reason, utterly unsupported by facts. Not one single individual specimen of an organized being passing in transition from a lower species to a higher has been found among the myriads of existing species, nor among the fossil remains of past species preserved in the record of the rocks. The hypothesis is also rejected by the highest scientific authorities, as Hugh Miller, Agassiz, Lyell, Owen, etc.

(2.) The Scriptures expressly affirm the fact of man's immediate creation. Gen. i. 26, 27 ; ii. 7.

(3.) This truth is rendered obvious, also, by the immense distance which separates man from the nearest of the lower animals ; from the incomparable superiority of man in kind as well as degree ; and from the revealed and experienced fact that " God is the Father of our spirits,'^ and that we are immortal, '^joint heirs with -Christ."

2d. That God created one human pair, from whom the entire race in all its varieties has descended by generation, is a iundamental truth of the Christian revelation.

One class of scientists, as Sir Charles Lyell, have concluded from the positions and associations in which human remains have been found, that man has existed upon the earth thousands of years before Adam, who is regarded as the ancestor only of a particular variety of

the race. All this weighs nothing against the positive teaching of the Scriptures, since the facts upon which the conclusion is based are not all certainly substantiated, and have not been thoroughly digested; and in any event can prove nothing as to the relation of Adam to the race, but only that he was created longer ago than we supposed.

Another class, of which the leader is Professor Agassiz, maintain that the differences between the different varieties of the human race are so great and so persistent that it is impossible that they could have been generated from the same parents, and that the progenitors of each variety were created separately, each in their appropriate geographical centre. This conclusion of science may be fairly balanced by the extreme opposite one above stated. If, in view of all the facts of the case, it is possible for one class of philosophers to conclude that men, monkeys and dogs, etc., have descended, under the modifying influence of different conditions, from like progenitors, surely it is folly for another class to affirm that it is impossible that all the varieties of men have sprung from the same parents. That the doctrine of this Section is true is proved —

(1.) The differences between the varieties of the human family are no greater than have been effected by differences of condition and training among individuals of some of the lower orders of animals of known common descent.

(2.) The human family form one and not different species, (a.) Because the races freely intermix and produce permanently fertile offspring. (6.) Because their mental, moral and spiritual natures are identical.

(3.) Archaeological, historical and philological investigations all indicate a common origin to all nations.

(4.) The Scriptnres directly assert this fact. Acts xvii. 26 ; Gen. x. And the scriptural doctrines of original sin and of redemption presuppose it as a fundamental and essential condition. 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22 ; Kom. V. 12-19.

3d. God created man in his own image. This proposition includes the following elements :

(1.) Man was created like God, as to the physical constitution of his nature — a rational, moral, free, personal spirit. This fact is the essential condition upon which our ability to know God, as well as our capacity to be subjects of moral government, depends. And in this respect the likeness is indestructible.

(2.) He was created like God as to the perfection and integrity of his nature. This includes (a) knowledge (Col. iii. 10), or a capacity for the right apprehension of spiritual things. This is restored when the sinner is regenerated in the grace of spiritual illumination.

(b.) Righteousness and true holiness (Eph. iv. 24), the perfect moral condition of the soul, and eminently of the character of the governing affections and will.

(3.) In respect to the dignity and authority delegated to him as the head of this department of creation. Gen. i. 28.

Pelagians have held that a created holiness is an absurdity; that, in order that a permanent disposition or habit of the soul should have a moral character, it must be self-decided — i e.y formed by a previous unbiassed choice of the will itself They therefore hold that God created xVlam simply a moral agent, with all

the constitutional faculties prerequisite for mora] action, and perfectly unbiassed by any tendency of his nature either to good or evil, and left him to form his own moral character — to determine his own tendencies by his own volition. But this view is not true, because — (1.) It is absurd. A state of moral indifference in an intelligent adult moral agent is an impossibility. Such indifference is itself sin. It is of the essence of moral good that it brings the will and all the affections of the soul under obligation.

(2.) If God did not endow man with a positive moral character, he could never have acquired a good one. The goodness of a volition arises wholly from the positive goodness of the disposition or motive which prompts it. But if Adam was created without a positive holy disposition of soul, his first volition must have either been sinful from defect of inherent goodness, or at best indifferent. But it is evident that neither a sinful nor an indifferent volition can give a holy moral character to whatever dispositions or habits may be consequent upon it.

(3.) The Scriptures teach that Adam was created " in righteousness and true holiness." (a.) God proclaimed all his works *' very good.'' But the "goodness" of a moral agent essentially involves a holy character.

(6.) Eccles. vii. 29: "God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions."

(c.) In Genesis it is declared that man was created in "the image of God." In Eph. iv. 24 and Col. iii. 10, men in regeneration are declared to be recreated in "the image of God." Regeneration is the restoration of human nature to its pristine condition, not a transmuta11 *

tion of that nature into a new form. The likeness to God which was lost by the fall must therefore be the same as that to which we are restored in the new birth. But the latter is said to consist in "knowledge, righteousness and true holiness.'^

(4.) Christ is the model man (1 Cor. xv. 45, 47), produced by immediate divine power in the womb of the Virgin, not only without sin, but positively predetermined to holiness. In his mother's womb he was called 'Hhat holy thing." Luke i. 35.

4th. That God should have furnished Adam with sufficient knowledge for his guidance is necessarily implied in the fact that Adam was a holy moral agent and God a righteous moral governor. Even his corrupt and degenerate descendants are declared to have in the law written upon the heart a light sufficient to leave them "without excuse." Rom. i. 20; ii. 14, 15. Adam moreover enjoyed special and direct revelation from God, and was particularly directed as to the divine will with respect to his use of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, concerning which we shall have occasion to speak more particularly under Chapter vi., § 1, and vii., § 2.

5th. That Adam, although created holy and capable of obedience, was at the same time capable of falling, is evident from the event. This appears to have been the moral condition in which both angels and men were created. It evidently was never intended to be the permanent condition of any creature. It is one, also, of the special elements of which we can have no knowledge, either from experience or observation. God, angels and saints in glory are free, but with natures certainly and

infallibly prompting them to holiness. Devils and fallen men are free, with natures infallibly prompting them to evil. The imperfectly sanctified Christian is the subject of two conflicting inherent tendencies, the law in the members and the law of the Spirit ; and his only security is that he is " kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.^' This point will come up again under Chapter vi., § 5.

Section II. — After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female,^ with reasonable and immortal souls/ endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image,° having the law of God written in their hearts,'' and power to fulfil it;*^ and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change-* Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; *° which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.^^

4 Gen. i. 27. I « Eccl. vii. 29.

^ Gen. ii. 7. Ecc. xii. 7. Luke ^ Gen. iii. 6. Eccl. vii. 29.

xxiii. 43. Matt. x. 28. | lo Gen. ii. 17 ; iii. 8-11, 23.

6 fien. i. 26. Col. iii. 10. Eph. iv.24. I n Gen. i. 26, 28.

7 Rom. ii. 14, 15. |

exp:)sition.

Man was formed after God had made all other creatures ; and this strongly marks the dignity of his character, and the exuberant bounty of his Creator. Before he was brought into existence, the earth, which was designed for his temporary residence, was completely prepared, and amply furnished for his reception. God created man, male and female, — one man and one woman, — man out of the dust of the ground, and woman out of a rib taken from man's side. It should seem that of the rest of the creatures God made many couples, but of man he made only one ; and from this Christ brings an argument against divorce. — Mai. ii. 15 ; Matt. xix. 4, 5. Man is a compound existence, made up of two great parts, a soul and a body. His body, though formed of mean materials, is apiece of exquisite workmanship ; but his soul is the noblest part of his nature. By his soul he is allied to God and angels ; by his body, to the beasts that perish, and to the dust under his feet.

Man was originally created after the image of God. This could not consist in a participation of the divine essence ; for that is incommunicable to any creature. Neither did it consist in his external form; for God, having no bodily parts, could not be represented by any material resemblance. The image of God consisted partly in the spirituality of the soul of man. God is a spirit, — an immaterial and immortal being. The soul of man also is a spirit, though infinitely inferior to

64> CONFESSION OF FAITU. [cHAP. IV.

; the Father of spirits. Thus, in immateriality and immortality the soul of man bears a resemblance to God. The image of God in man likewise consisted in the dominion .: assigned to him over the creatures, in respect of which he was the representative and vicegerent of God upon earth. God is the blessed and only potentate, and he gave to man a delegated sovereignty over the inferior creatures. He was constituted the ruler of this lower world, and all the creatures were inspired with respect for him, and submitted to his < government. But the image of God in man principally con- ^ I sisted in his conformity to the moral pei'fections of God, or '■ in the complete rectitude of his nature. From two passages in the New Testament, it appears that the image of God, after which man was at first created, and to which he is restored by the Holy Spirit, consists.in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. — Eph. iv. 24 ; Col. iii. 10. Man had knowledge in his understanding, righteousness in his will, and holiness in his affections. His imderstanding was illuminated with all necessary knowledge. He knew God and his will ; he knew himself, his relations to God, his duty to him, and his dependence upon him. That he had also an extensive and accurate knowledge of natural objects, may be inferred from his giving distinctive names to the inferior creatures when they passed in review before him. His will was in conformity to the will of God. As he knew his duty, so he was fully disposed to the performance of it. And his affections were holy and pure ; they were placed upon proper objects, and exercised in a regular manner. There was then no need that the moral law should be written on tables of stone, for it was engraven on the heart of man in fair and legible characters. He had likewise sufficient ability to fulfil it ; but his will was entirely free to act according to his original light and holy inclinations, or to turn aside to evil. Besides the natural law written on the hearts of our first parents, they received a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This prohibition, with the penalty annexed, will come imder our notice in a subsequent chapter ; and at present we only remark, that while our first parents retained their original integrity, and obeyed the positive command which God had imposed upon them, they were supremely happy. The garden in which they were placed furnished them with every external comfort ; they were called to engage in easy and delightful employments ; they were exempted from the least degree of languor and of j)ain ; they knew no guilt; they felt no shame; they were, strangers to fear ; and no angry passions disturbed their ^

OF PROVIDENCE.

souls. But their happiness chiefly consisted in the favour of God, and in the intimate fellowship with him to which they were admitted. "What an- illustrious creature was man when he came from the hand of his Maker ! but how sadly changed now ! " God made man upiight ; but they have sought out many inventions."