and decay of a mere material organization. Its moral assimilation to the Deity it has lost; while it retains this intellectual resemblance. The former was "the glory that excelleth," the latter is the glory that remains. Were the mass of men idiots, how should we venerate the few that were intelligent; or were there but one in a million known and distinguished for intellect, how should we venerate him, and approach him as a being of superior rank! Our first father deserves our homage, were it only for his high capacity of thought. This fair jewel is the inheritance of the race. And though it shone brighter on his unscathed and unfurrowed brow than it has since shone, it still belongs to man, and sparkles even in its degradation. If the most fine gold be changed, there is even in this casket of clay a gem which twinkles in borrowed rays from the "Father of lights."

The soul of man was also created moral and accountable. A moral and accountable being is one who possesses a character that has moral qualities, and capable of being judged by a moral law. Much as men are disposed to honor intellect, we all feel that no man ought to be measured by his intellect alone; they are his moral attributes which constitute his glory. The first man was created in the full possession of his intellectual and moral faculties; and was therefore created under moral obligation. He was capable of dis

tinguishing, not only between reality and fiction, truth and error, but between what is right and what is wrong. Once let the obligations of religion and morality be set before such a mind, and it feels the weight of them as certainly and as necessarily as his senses are affected by the objects of sense. This is a truth intuitively discerned: we can give no other account of it except that the Author of our being has so constituted us. The first man knew his relations to his Maker, and the biddings of his conscience told him that his Maker's will was law. He could not divest himself of the feeling that he was bound to do what God required, and to abstain from doing what God forbade. It was the obligation of rectitude, and he felt it. He could not throw it off, nor renounce nor resign this responsibility. There was a voice within him that enforced it, and a voice which nothing could silence. It was inwrought in his nature; it was concreated with his created soul, and formed a constituent element of his being. And it is common to all men; man everywhere recognizes the distinction between right and wrong. Even Hume confesses, that "the principles upon which men reason in morals are always the same. Let a man's insensibility be ever so great," says this infidel writer, "he must often be touched with the images of right and wrong; and let his prejudices be ever so obstinate, he must observe that others are sus

ceptible of like impressions."* Understanding and conscience constitute men moral and accountable wherever they are found. It was not a mere irresponsible sagacity with which the first man was invested; the brutes had these, but they were not accountable. The light did its Maker's bidding; and so did the sea and the dry land, and so did every herb of the field; but none of these were moral and accountable. The physical and the animal creation were subject to law, but it was not a moral law. God gave man a law commanding what is right and forbidding what is wrong; this law was the rule of his duty and of his accountableness.*

There were greater things in the created universe; but there was no created existence so important as man, on account of his moral and responsible nature. The sun and the stars of heaven could accomplish that to which his arm was incompetent; but be their action ever so useful or injurious, it could not be either approved or condemned. Man possessed a nature capable of doing good or evil; and in this, a nature capable of setting in motion a train of causes whose influence should be felt to the utmost verge of the divine empire. His character and conduct were allied to the most magnificent and glorious interests in the universe. He was free to do right or

* Hume's Essays: Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Sect. i

wrong; to honor or dishonor the God that made him; to obey or disobey; to increase the aggregate of virtue and happiness in the universe, or to open the sluices of wickedness, and swell the tide of vice and wretchedness. He was capable of holiness and happiness, and he was capable of sin and misery, and of making continual progress in both. The foundations of this responsibility are laid deep; too deep ever to be disturbed without annihilating the soul of man itself.

Not only was this first man created moral and accountable, but he was created holy. As he came from the hands of his Creator, he was bright and pure. The earth was fair and beautiful; the heavens were decked with lights which single and alone, or in clustered galaxy, declared the glory of God. And when he created man to inhabit this beautiful earth, he formed him fitted for his select abode and high destiny. He was formed in the image of his Maker, not because he was a partaker of the divine intelligence only, and not simply in that, like his Maker, he was a spiritual and moral existence; but because he was a partaker of the divine holiness. The statement that he was made in the image of God, implies that all his intellectual and moral powers were in a state of perfection; and that, in the excellency of his disposition and character, he was every way a finished and perfected existence, and fit to be the adornment of the new

created world. Metaphysical theologians of the Arminian school profess to see insurmountable difficulties in the doctrine of created holiness. They affirm that holiness is the act of the creature, and because the creatures act, must be caused by the creature. But even upon the hypothesis that holiness is the act of the creature, and nothing but his act, it does not follow that it is not caused by the Creator. The soul of man itself is a created thing, and like all other created things, is constantly dependent on the will of God for its continuance in being. The soul of Adam was not sufficient of itself to think anything of itself; it lived, and moved, and had its being in God. It was an acting existence, but it was a dependent existence, and dependent for its activity. All its springs were in God. If God had not created him holy, or made him holy after his creation, he never would have been holy. Nor does the idea of created holiness at all interfere with the idea that it is the creature's act. We challenge philosophy to show that the acts of a holy creature cannot be caused by the Creator, or that they are the less voluntary because they are the effects of divine power. The Scriptures teach us that the gracious affections in the heart of the Christian are an effect of God's power; nor are they on this account, any the less the acts of the Christian's mind. His love to God is his own act; he himself performs it, but it is