Wesley Corpus

The mind must have a power to govern these lower faculties, that he might not offend against the law of his creation. “He must also have his heart inlaid with love to the crea tures, especially those of his own species, if he should be placed among them; and with a principle of honesty and truth in dealing with them; and if many of these creatures were made at once, there would be no pride, malice, or envy, no falsehood, no brawls or contentions among them, but all harmony and love.” (Page 6.) “This universal righteousness, which is the moral image of God, is far the noblest part of that image in which Moses represents man to have been originally created. The same writer assures us, that when God surveyed all his works, he pronounced them ‘very good?’ agreeably to what Solomon assures us, that God “made man upright.’” (Page 7.) “It is true, the natural image of God in which man was created, consisted in his spiritual, intelligent, and immortal mature; and his political image, (if I may so speak,) in his being lord of this lower creation. But the chief, the moral, part of his image, we learn from St. Paul, to have been the rectitude of man's nature; who, in his Epistle to the Ephe. sians, (iv. 24) says, that the image of God in which man is to be renewed, and, consequently, in which he was made, consists “in righteousness and true holiness.’ “2. From the justice and goodness of God we may infer, that though man was made free, with a power to choose either evil or good, that he might be put into a state of pro bation, yet he had a full sufficiency of power to preserve him self in love and obedience to his Creator, and to guard him self against every temptation.” (Page 8.) “3.