affections, and leading and impelling his people to do such things as are in accordance with God's holy will; so that whilst the liberty of the agent is not taken away, but he is freed from his previous bondage to corruption and sin, and, by the exercise of his natural faculties, "worketh out his own salvation with fear and trembling," on the other hand, as to the real efficiency and power, "it is God which worketh in him both to will and to do of his good pleasure."-Phil. ii. 12, 13. It is to this, especially, that the apostle James refers, when, denying that we are tempted of God, but of our own corruptions, he, on the contrary, adds that "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights."-James i. 17.

6. Beside these modes of operation in the ordinary providence of God, who shall forbid, that in many ways, untraceable by us, but adoringly witnessed by blessed spirits, the immediate power of God should interpose in human affairs? We are persuaded that the whole analogy of his government, and the tone of the entire Scriptures, lead directly to this conclusion. We are confident that we express but the common experience and the common sentiment of his people,—of those with whom is "the secret of the Lord,"—in declaring our conviction that in multitudes of instances they are indebted to the fatherly care of an almighty hand, which, concealed from carnal observation, but recognised by faith, dispenses blessings which the natural action of second causes would never have conveyed.

sion.

The government of God, thus variously administered, is universal in its dominion, and constant in its exercise; it has re11. Conclu- spect to the most minute, as well as the greatest results; and is absolute in its sway. It is not a mere influence, but a power. Omnipotent to arrest the sun in its course, to loose the fountains of waters, or to command the sea back to its appointed place,—it with equal sovereignty rules the wills of men, angels and devils. To assert the will to be of such a nature as to be necessarily independent of God, is to say that he, in making it for his own purposes, placed it beyond his own power. To say that it cannot be subject to an effectual control, without destroying its moral agency, is to pretend to

have fathomed all its depths, and measured the whole extent and nature of its relations to the creative hand. It is to assume that there cannot be in the soul any susceptibilities, accessible even to the power of its Maker, outside the sphere of its selfconscious activity;—which is most absurd. To deny that God can rule the creature he has made, as it is, endowed with attributes bestowed by him, is to imagine the delegated power of God which resides in the creature to be superior to that which is in the Creator himself; which is a contradiction in terms. It is to limit God; which is atheism.

In short, the universe was framed specifically to reveal the very truth concerning the nature of that God who is everywhere and ever present, the sovereign of all, essentially active, and infinitely wise and good. This it does, not by presenting him, once active in creation, and then forever quiescent, once sovereign, in decreeing the order of creation, and the events of providence; and then forever an inactive spectator;—once present with his creatures, in giving them existence and attributes; and then forever withdrawn within himself;-once, in the beginning, exhausting the stores of his beneficence; and then forever ceasing to bestow. Such is not the God of the Bible,—the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,—the glorious worker whom nature proclaims. The creatures, as we have already seen, were formed with two designs;-to be objects in whom the glory of the perfections of God should have exercise and display; and to be made happy in apprehending that glory. As finite, they could not apprehend the glory of God, or perceive his activity, except as displayed upon finite things. Hence, in this aspect of it, the creation itself;-presenting, on the one hand, an expanse vast enough, alike in physical and moral dimensions, to exhaust the loftiest created powers; and on the other, in its details, stooping to the reach of the meanest capacity. Again, in but two ways could our infirmity trace the working, and in it, the glory, of God,-in the universe thus created; as he works through the creatures; that is, by the mediation of second causes; and as he acts upon them, by his own immediate power. The uniformity and mediate action of

the one mode of operation is requisite alike to the free agency and happiness of the creatures and the revelation of the wisdom and unchangeableness of the Creator. The speciality of the other, is as necessary and important, alike to the creatures, and to the revelation of the living God. By this means is it made known that it is God, and not nature, that ruleth; and that everywhere and in all things he is, the ever present, ever active, ever sovereign and gracious God. Said the Saviour, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."-John v. 17. The attempt to ignore his immediate agency in the orderings of special providences, out of respect to the orderly working of the laws of nature, is as unphilosophical and unscriptural as is the denial of second causes, and the reference of all things to God as not only the first, but the only, cause. "God in his ordinary providence maketh use of means; yet is free to work without, above and against them, at his pleasure."* In all the modes of dispensation it is the same God. In all he works with equal and absolute sovereignty. In all he is most holy and good. In all there is the most perfect harmony, and concurrence to the wise and holy designs. In the interpositions of his own hand he does no violence to the laws and order of nature, which he himself ordained. In the procession of second causes and ordinary providence he does not preclude, but anticipates and provides for, the immediate exertions of his power. In each alike are unfolded the harmonious elements of the perfect plan, which, formed in the beginning, and infallibly accomplished in all its details, shall be displayed in the amazing glory of the whole result, at the consummation of all things; to the unspeakable blessedness of his saints, and the infinite honour of their wonderful God.

* Westminster Confession, ch. v. 3.

CHAPTER IV.

ADAM THE LIKENESS OF GOD.

"Now heaven in all her glory shone, and rolled

Her motions, as the first great Mover's hand
First wheeled their course; earth in her rich attire
Consummate lovely smiled; air, water, earth,

By fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swam, was walked
Frequent; and of the sixth day yet remained,
There wanted yet the master work, the end
Of all yet done; a creature who, not prone
And brute, as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason, might erect
His stature, and upright, with front serene,
Govern the rest; self-knowing, and from thence
Magnanimous, to correspond with heaven;
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends; thither with heart and voice and eyes
Directed in devotion, to adore

And worship God supreme, who made him, chief
Of all his works."-PARADISE LOST, Book vii.

It is the morning of creation. The world has been, by the almighty Word of God, made of nothing. Light has been shed

likeness.

1. Adam upon the formless mass; the waters gathered tothe image and gether; the dry land exposed and planted with grass, herbs and trees; the heavenly hosts have been marshalled to their stations and services; the waters peopled with fish; the forests and plains with the inferior animals, and the air with the feathered tribes. Thus far the narrative of Moses flows without interruption, and the scenes of the creation pass continuously before us. But here occurs a pause in the story. A council of the Triune Creator sits; and from it issues a decree for the creation of man:-"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the

fish of the sea, 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. So God created man in his own image: in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."-Gen. i. 26, 27.

It is scarcely necessary to insist that the creation here announced is not merely of the first man, but of the species. This is involved in all which follows, and is announced in the decree itself:-"Let us make man, and let them have dominion." It is, D-not, w,man, and not, a man. So, too, in the Septuagint and Vulgate, the generic, and not the individual designation, is used. It is, ǎv0ρшлоs and homo,—not dvǹp nor vir.

Great prominence is given to Adam's likeness to God. Twice mentioned in the decree of his creation, it is twice re-stated in the account of the work. There are some facts which would seem to give plausibility to the supposition that the same idea is couched in his name,-that it is derived from, 7, dam, meaning, likeness. Adam was not made of earth, (77), adamah, but of dust, (), haphar. In the following places the word, (), dust, is used to describe the material of man's body:Gen. ii. 7, iii. 19; Job vii. 21, x. 9, xvii. 16, xxi. 26, xxxiv. 15, xl. 13; Psalm xxii. 29, xxx. 9, ciii. 14, civ. 29; Eccl. iii. 20, xii. 7; Dan. xii. 2. In no instance, is the word, (77), earth, or ground, so employed. Further, the material of his corporeal frame is neither mentioned in the original narrative of his creation and the giving of his name, in Gen. i. 26, 27, nor in the subsequent rehearsal of the same facts, in Gen. v. 1, 2; but is introduced in another place, (Gen. ii. 7,) in an incidental manner, unaccompanied withi any allusion to the giving of his name; whilst in both of the places where his naming is mentioned, it is in pointed connection with the assertion of his likeness to God.-"And God said, Let us make Adam (the likeness) in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created Adam in his own image."-Gen. i. 26, 27. "In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness of God made he him, male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, (the likeness,) in the day when they were created."-Gen. v. 1, 2. Thus, too, the