A FAMILIAR SURVEY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. SUMMARY CHAP. I. VIEW OF THE STATE OF MANKIND FROM THE CREATION OF ABRAHAM. THE eftablishment of Christianity was the great object, to which the feveral dif penfations of Divine Providence, intervening between the creation of the world and the birth of Chrift, were defigned to be fubfervient. If therefore we are folicitous clearly to comprehend the nature of the Christian Religion, and fully to perceive the magnitude of the bleffings which it offers > to every person who fincerely embraces and faithfully obeys it: our attention ought in the first place to be directed to the original fituation of the parents of the human race; and to thofe fucceffive events, whether in the extraordinary dealings of God with man, or in the civil hiftory of particular nations, which were evidently calculated to prepare the way for the advent of the great Redeemer. 3 God (a), faith the fcripture, created man in his own image. Wherein did this refemblance of man to his maker confift? The answer to that queftion must be derived from the facred writings. The true explanation of the counfels of God can be obtained only from the word of God.. Some perfons, obferving that after the Almighty had faid, "Let us make man in "our own image, after our likeness," he immediately fubjoined;" and let them "have dominion over the fish of the fea, " and over the fowl of the air, and over "the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon "the earth (b);" have concluded that the image of God impreffed upon man confisted in the fovereign authority delegated to mankind over the whole inferior creation. This opinion may not be deftitute of truth. Yet it feems to overlook the principal circumftance indicated by the expreffion under confideration. The moft diftinguishing characteristic of the Supreme Being is holiness. And we have fcriptural grounds for inferring, that the primitive uprightness and purity of man was the feature in his foul, which conftituted his likeness to his Maker. St. Paul, exhorting the Ephefians to labour for that radical change of heart which Christianity requires in her followers; a change from the corrupt frame of mind natural to fallen man to one refembling the state of innocence and happiness in which Adam was created; uses these remarkable words: "Put on the new man, "which after God" (that is, after the image (b) Gen. i. 26. |