first moulding of him.
And if ye would know what these are particularly, the apostle expresses
them, "in knowledge," (Col. iii. 10) "in righteousness and true holiness,"
Eph. iv. 21. This is the "image of him who created him," which the Creator
stamped on man, that he might seek him, and set him apart for himself to
keep communion with him, and to bless him. There is a spirit given to man
with a capacity to know and to will, and here is a draught and lineament
of God's face which is not engraven on any sensitive creature. It is one
of the most noble and excellent operations of life, in which a man is most
above beasts, to reflect upon himself and to know himself and his Creator.
There are natural instincts given to other things, natural propensions to
those things that are convenient to their own nature, but none of them
have so much as a capacity to know what they are, or what they have. They
cannot frame a notion of him who gave them a being but are only
proportionate to the discerning of some sensible things, and can reach no
further. He hath limited the eye within colours and light, he hath set a
bound to the ear that it cannot act without sounds, and so to every sense
he hath assigned its own proper stanse, in which it moves. But he teaches
man knowledge, and he enlarges the sphere of his understanding beyond
visible or sensible things to things invisible,--to spirits. And this
capacity he has put in the soul,--to know all things, and itself among the
rest. The eye discerns light, but sees not itself, but he gives a spirit
to man to know himself and his God. And then there is a willing power in
the soul, by which it diffuses itself towards any thing that is conceived
as good, the understanding directing, and the will commanding according to
its direction, and then the whole faculties and senses obeying such
commands, which makes up an excellent draught of the image of God. There
was a sweet proportion and harmony in Adam, all was in due place and
subordination. The motions of immortal man did begin within. The lamp of
reason did shine and give light to it, and till that went before, there
was no stirring, no choosing, no refusing, and when reason--which was one
sparkle of the divine nature, or a ray of God's light reflected into the
soul of man,--when once that did appear to the discerning of good and evil
this power was in the soul, to apply the whole man accordingly, to choose
the good and refuse the evil. It had no