This natural image of God was the foundation of that MORAL image by which also man was distinguished. Unless he had been a spiritual, knowing, and willing being, he would have been wholly incapable of _moral_ qualities. That he had such qualities eminently, and that in them consisted the image of God, as well as in the natural attributes just stated, we have also the express testimony of Scripture: “Lo this only have I found, that God made man UPRIGHT; but they have sought out many inventions.” There is also an express allusion to the moral image of God, in which man was at first created, in Colossians iii, 10: “And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that created him;” and in Ephesians iv, 24: “Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” In these passages the Apostle represents the change produced in true Christians by the Gospel, as a “renewal of the image of God in man; as a new or second creation in that image;” and he explicitly declares, that that image consists in “knowledge,” in “righteousness,” and in “true holiness.” This also may be finally argued from the satisfaction with which the historian of the creation represents the Creator as viewing the works of his hands as “_very good_,” which was pronounced with reference to each of them individually, as well as to the whole: “And God saw _every thing_ that he had made, and behold it was very good.” But, as to man, this goodness must necessarily imply moral as well as physical qualities. Without them he would have been imperfect as _man_; and had they, in their first exercises, been perverted and sinful, he must have been an exception, and could not have been pronounced “very good.” The goodness of man, as a rational being, must lie in devotedness and consecration to God; consequently, man was at first holy. A rational creature, as such, is capable of knowing, loving, serving, and living in communion with the Most Holy One. Adam, at first, did or did not exert this capacity; if he did not, he was not _very good_,--not good at all. 4. On the intellectual and moral endowments of the progenitor of the human race, erring views appear to have been taken on both sides. In knowledge, some have thought him little inferior to the angels; others, as furnished with but the simple elements of science and of language. The truth seems to be that, as to _capacity_, his intellect must have been vigorous beyond that of any of his fallen descendants; which itself gives us very high views of the strength of his understanding, although we should allow him to have been created “lower than the angels.” As to his _actual knowledge_, that would depend upon the time and opportunity he had for observing the nature and laws of the objects around him; and the degree in which he was favoured with revelations from God on moral and religious subjects.