LECTURE VII.

THE ORIGINAL AND PRESENT STATE OF MAN..

ECCLESIASTES vii. 29.

Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

We have only to look candidly at the nature and condition of man, to be convinced that he was not always what he now is. At present, his natural condition is sufficiently unhappy. All around him you find a world filled with tokens of some signal calamity. The earth yawns in caverns and impenitrable wastes: the heavens are filled with tempests and disease: his own body is the seat of consuming decay: fierce passions discompose his soul; and, unbridled in the hands of power and ambition, spread want, and oppression, and cruelty throughout the world. Now, if there be any such thing as a presiding Providence, and you would not impeach the justice or the wisdom of that Provi

dence, it is natural to regard this state of things as the punishment of guilt. There are many natural intimations, accordingly, that such was not always the condition of this world. Rocks must have been entire before they could have been rent-and trees, and swamps, and barren soils, must have been thrifty and fruitful before they became the subjects of decay.

You have similar intimations in the constitution of man. His occasional flashes of genius-intimate the ruins of fallen intellect : his aspiring desires and his delicate social affections, without implying any qualities that partake of holiness, do, nevertheless, seem to remind us of what he once was-a being of nobler powers, and made for a better state of existence.

Why is it, moreover, if this supposition be not correct, that the philosophy of heathenism has so universally supposed a primitive state of innocence and happiness? It may be that the sentiment was borrowed from tradition but the fact is unquestionable. In their writings they allude to an age of brass, in opposition to what they call the present or age of iron farther back than that, they tell of an age of silver; and finally, of an age of

gold, when the earth was free from every evil, and men were innocent and happy.

So many intimations, pointing to the same result, assure us that the moral and natural condition of man was once different, with as much certainty as the existence of seashells on the tops of mountains assures the naturalist that all these mountains were once the bed of the ocean.

Opening now the pages of revelation, what was before obscure is made clear. All our suppositions on this subject are confirmed. Such a primitive condition of innocence and happiness is authoritatively asserted the causes of change are explained, and the present state of man, morally and naturally considered, is also taught us.

These are the truths then, to which I shall ́now direct your attention. And

I. OF THE ORIGINAL CONDITION OF MAN. The scriptural account of this is very simple and yet expressive. them male and female, in the created He them. (Gen. i. 27.)

God made image of God

are undoubtedly to understand was a resemblance in all the

By this, we

that there

moral attri

butes of man to those of his Maker; and what higher description than this can you have of perfect holiness? Man was like

God in every possible perfection, as far as a created can be like an uncreated being. His mind was pure, elastic and aspiring-his affections, all warmed with gratitude and love, were fixed on their proper object-his will, conformed to the Divine will, knew no tendencies to leave the track of duty. Every faculty of the creature was perfectly hallowed and harmonious with other faculties, and a raised, improving, and heavenly tendency was constantly given to the whole.

And as man was holy, so was he happy. Many of the properties we have mentioned did indeed, of themselves, partake of happiness; but it was thus ordered also, as the reward of virtue. God so placed man as to secure happiness. Our simple, but expressive description of holy writ, is, that it was in a garden, where the Lord God caused "to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life, also, in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." (Gen. ii. 9.) This description implies much more than it expresses. It tells us that man, in innocence, was altogether free from every natural evil, as well as in possession of every temporal good; and then, since many of these objects in the garden are known to be