of life breathed into him on this occasion, by which he was to hold a spiritual communion with his Divine Maker; even that life which, to make use of the words of an old writer*, comprehended in it all those Divine good things, in which the similitude of the Divine nature consisted. The circumstance of God's breathing into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, being considered by many of the early fathers as referring to that infusion of the Spirit, which was lost by the Fall. For man thus distinguished from the lower parts of the creation, by having a divine Spirit breathed into him, a body or frame formed out of the dust of the earth had been prepared. Thus circumstanced, this compound creature man, this epitome, as it were, of Heaven and earth, placed between the natural and spiritual world, and partaking of both; with an animal frame, frail, and perishable from the quality of its component materials, and a soul breathed into him from on high; was placed in Para dise, as the appointed scene of his trial.

In the brief description of this garden of Paradise, the historian has pointed out two trees to particular notice; namely, "the tree of life;" and "the tree of

knowledge of good and evil." These two trees, we read, were placed in the midst of the garden; probably in some conspicuous situation, and in the neighbourhood of each other. Whilst the object of their being thus conspicuously placed, seems to have been, in conformity with their emblematic design; that they might become a standing test of the faith and obedience of our first parents.

"The first man," says St. Paul, speaking of Adam, "is of the earth, earthy." The animal frame of man then, to which the Apostle here refers, could not in itself possess an existence more durable than the materials of which it was composed. It was "of the earth, earthy." At the same time we are informed by the author of the Book of Wisdom, which, though apocryphal, is yet of venerable antiquity, and was always held in esteem by Christians; that "God made not death, "neither hath he pleasure in the destruc

lation, which appears designed to bring to an uniform conclusion the scene originally opened in Paradise;" they that do his "commandments, may have a right to "the tree of life, and may enter in through "the gates of the city." Reo. xxii. 14.

"God created man in his own image." As God is a spiritual Being, by "his own

image," in which he was pleased to create the first man, must be understood something of a spiritual nature; for in nothing else could any resemblance between man and his Divine Maker consist. By the image of God then we understand that spiritualized state of perfection, by which God was pleased to dignify and exalt his favourite creature man, as an intellectual and moral agent above all other parts of his creation. Holiness and righte ousness are two prominent distinctions in the nature of the Divine Being; in confor mity to which, man's resemblance to his Maker must originally have consisted. This resemblance being lost by the Fall, it became necessary that it should be so far recovered, as to restore man to a capacity for the divine favour. The renovation

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of things is the restoring them to their pri mitive state. The Apostle, therefore, in describing man's restoration under the co venant of grace from the effect of the Fall, speaks with a marked reference to this his original creation. Seeing," says he to his Christian disciples, "that ye “have put on the new man, which is re"newed in knowledge after the image of "Him that created him." And in what this Divine image consisted, the same Apostle elsewhere particularly informs us; where he expressly describes the new man, i. e. man recovered by grace from the effect of the Fall, and, " renewed in the spirit of his mind, as again created after "God, or in the image of God, in righte ousness and true holiness." Eph. iv.

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14.

Whence it follows, that man, according to his original creation, so far at least as God was pleased to communicate his perfections to him, was designed to be the representative of his Creator here below, in those essential attributes of the Deity, righteousness and true holiness.

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tion of the living. For he created all things, that they might have their being; " and the generations of the world were "healthful, and there is no poison of de"struction in them, nor the kingdom of "death upon the earth." And again, "God created man to be immortal, and "made him the image of his own eter"nity;" or, as it should rather be rendered, "the image of his own propriety; "or of his own proper self." Adam then was made not only to live long, as he actually did, but to have outlived time itself, without growing old as that doth. So that the body his soul was cloathed upon, he might have worn without putting it off till that day in which, after a proper time of probation, he, like Enoch, might have been translated into a better Paradise. All this might have been, because this was placed within the compass of Adam's power, and depended on the free exercise of his own will. "God," says the son of Sirach, "made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel, to keep his command"ments, and to perform acceptable faith"fulness.