On the degree of moral excellence also in the first man, much license has been given to a warm imagination, and to rhetorical embellishment; and Adam’s perfection has sometimes been fixed at an elevation which renders it exceedingly difficult to conceive how he could fall into sin at all. On the other hand, those who either deny or hold very slightly the doctrine of our hereditary depravity, delight to represent Adam as little superior in moral perfection and capability to his descendants. But, if we attend to the passages of holy writ above quoted, we shall be able, on this subject, to ascertain, if not the exact degree of his moral endowments, yet that there is a certain standard below which they cannot be placed.--Generally, he was made in the _image_ of God, which, we have already proved, is to be understood _morally_ as well as _naturally_. Now, however the image of any thing may be limited in extent, it must still be an accurate representation as far as it goes. Every thing good in the creation must always be a miniature representation of the excellence of the Creator; but, in this case, the “goodness,” that is, the perfection, of every creature, according to the part it was designed to act in the general assemblage of beings collected into our system, wholly forbids us to suppose that the image of God’s moral perfections in man was a blurred and dim representation. To whatever _extent_ it went, it necessarily excluded all that from man which did not resemble God; it was a likeness to God in “righteousness and true holiness,” whatever the degree of each might be, and excluded all admixture of unrighteousness and unholiness. Man, therefore, in his original state, was _sinless_, both in act and in principle. Hence it is said that “God made man UPRIGHT.” That this signifies moral rectitude cannot be doubted; but the import of the word is very extensive. It expresses, by an easy figure, the _exactness_ of truth, justice, and obedience; and it comprehends the state and habit both of the heart and the life. Such, then, was the condition of primitive man; there was no obliquity in his moral principles, his mind, or affections; none in his conduct. He was perfectly sincere and exactly just, rendering from the heart all that was due to God and to the creature. Tried by the exactest _plummet_, he was _upright_; by the most perfect rule, he was _straight_.