dwindle into insignificance. Listen then, my brethren, while, following the word of God, we present to you the life of the first created man.

The world had already been formed by the great Creator; it displayed his perfections, and was replenished with every thing necessary for the benefit or felicity of man. But there was yet no rational being that inhabited it to contemplate these works, and trace in them, with adoring wonder, the wisdom, the goodness, and the power of him who made them. The sun, the moon, and the stars, declared in their courses the glory of God; but they did not perceive this glory. The earth with its productions showed that its Maker was divine; but unendued with intelligence, it could not recognise the divinity. Man then was formed, to behold this glory, to see these traces of the Godhead; and on earth to respond to the heavenly host, among whom "the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy," at the view of the new creation. In order to manifest his superior dignity at his creation, there was, as it were, a solemn consultation of the sacred Trinity; for the holy volume plainly intimates a concurrence in counsel of the three persons for the formation as well as redemption of man. When other things were to be produced, God spake, and they appeared. He said, Let them be, and they were. But at the creation of man, he said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." His body was formed of the dust of the earth, and lay, like it, inanimate, till a nobler and immortal principle was infused in him immediately by God: "The Lord breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul." Being formed in the image

of God, he was called Adam, from a Hebrew word signifying likeness.*

Springing immediately from the hands of his Creator, he was doubtless endued with a perfection of body and soul, of which we can form but a feeble conception. In the plenitude of his powers he came into being. When the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, appeared to repair the ruins of the fall, he, in compassion to us, and to encourage all of every age to apply to him with confidence, became the babe of Bethlehem, and the youth that dwelt at Nazareth; but our progenitor appeared at once in his maturity, and knew nothing of the feebleness of infancy and childhood, of the dangers and inexperience of youth. "He was made a little lower than the angels." His body was probably surrounded by a splendour like that of Moses, when he descended from the mount; like that of Jesus when he was transfigured upon Tabor. The divine image which he bore, and in which, alas! the most eminent believers in this life are but very partially renewed, consisted, as we judge from some expressions of St. Paul, (Col. iii. 10. Eph. iv. 24.) in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. His mind, not yet darkened by sin, was free from error and prejudice, and inspired with all natural, and especially moral knowledge, necessary for his state: his soul had no vicious propensity; his will was conformed to the will of God; his heart, filled with love to God, flamed with the fervours of devotion and gratitude by night and by day. Full dominion was given him over all the creatures; and he enjoyed an intimate communion with his Almighty Friend, and fellowship with the

*See Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon.

holy angels It is this communion and intercourse with God, which forms the felicity of heaven: must it not have given inexpressible delight to Adam upon earth? He was placed in the most beautiful part of a world, all of which was beautiful. This spot is called the garden of Eden, or of delight; its exact situation cannot, with precision, be ascertained; neither is it necessary that it should: "I do not," says good bishop Hall, "seek where that Paradise was which we lost; I know where that Paradise is, which we must study to seek, and hope to find. As man was the image of God, so was that earthly Paradise an image of heaven; both the images are lost; both the first patterns are eternal.” In this favoured spot were collected all that was useful or pleasant; every variety of the animal or vegetable creation; all that could gratify the senses, the imagination, or the heart; and among the rest, two symbolical and sacramental trees; the one, the tree of life, the seal of that life and felicity which would have resulted from obedience, and, " by divine institution, a visible, familiar, and permanent lesson, by which man was not only admonished of the eternal distinction between good and evil, but put upon his guard as to the quarter from which alone evil could assail him."* The other, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the seal of that death, which was threatened upon disobedience.

Here God was pleased to enter into a covenant with man. Though as our Creator, we are bound to obey him, yet he will not claim this obedience solely from his absolute sovereignty; but condescends to form a covenant of friendship, in which he vouchsafes to engage to recompense this obedience. He *Vitringa, Obs. Sac.

permits man to eat of all except one tree, which he is prohibited to taste, under the most awful threatening: "Of every tree in the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Thus he was placed between life and death; the symbols of both grew nigh each other, and were constantly exhibited to him, and he left to choose between them, after he had received proper instruction from God.

But there was still a void in the heart of Adam; he still needed some one of the same nature and powers with himself: formed for social intercourse, he needed some heart that would unite with his in celebrating the author of all good; some being, not like the angels elevated above him, but of the same rank with himself, with whom he might form the tenderest ties. He had looked through the inferior creation and found no helpmeet for him, and he sighed for one with whom to share the happiness which he enjoyed. How long he remained solitary we are not informed; long enough however to be taught a language by God, and to receive much information from him, and to survey every animal of the land and the air, and bestow upon them significant names. Feeling his want, disposed to seek this blessing from God, and to receive it with gratitude, it was not long withheld from him. In order that his partner might be more endeared to him, God was pleased to make her not only like him, but also of his very substance, and then conduct her as his gift to man. Who can conceive the happiness of this blessed pair? Surrounded by every thing that they could desire, rich in the most cordial love to each other, and united in the warmest love to their God; igno

rant of those vices and passions which embitter life, and of that misery which is the fruit and the effect of sin; enjoying the visits of God and his angels, what more did they need? How sweet was the interchange of affection between them; how perfect the communion of thoughts, of sentiments, and good wishes! What new gratitude swelled the bosom of Adam, and with what transport, as one expresses it, "did he change the solitary, My Father and my God, into the social, Our Father and our God!" It is a state on which the imagination rests with delight: the mind, pained with the sins, the follies, and the woes which now infest the world, loves to wander back to the holy groves of Paradise, and to linger by the peaceful streams of Eden.

How long this happy state continued we know not; the scriptures, our only source of information, do not inform us ;* but after some time they fell; fell into that abyss of wo in which we yet lie. This sun which had risen with so much splendour and darted forth such cheering and animating beams, was soon obscured by rising clouds.

From the brevity of the scripture account of this event, it is not surprising that we meet with some difficulties in it. Yet what if there were more; should we therefore be authorized to reject this relation? Little have we observed either nature or providence, if we have not learned that though righteousness and judgment are the habitation of God's

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* Some persons, from the consideration that almost every great trial mentioned in the scriptures was limited to forty days, as appears from the history of Moses, of Elijah, of Nineveh, and especially of that Redeemer of whom Adam was the type, and who came to vanquish the seducer of the first man, have concluded that the trial of our first parents lasted for this time.