Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE FIRST AND THE SECOND MAN.ut this social naturewas to have been to himthe means of the greatest good. As by his naturaldescent from Adam unfallen would havecome the grace of sonship, so the whole brotherhoodof those who shared that gift would havehelped and supported each in the maintenance * ofit. The human family would have had a beautyand a unity of its own as such ; an order anda lustre would have rested on the whole body,confirming each member in the possession of hisown particular gift. The concatenation of evil inthe corrupt society is the most striking contrastto the fellowship of good in the upright; andwhile it is distinct from that 2'uilt which descendsto man as the sin of his nature, yet springs like itfrom the original constitution of that nature asa race. It is the invasion of evil upon good carriedto its utmost point, wherein we discern mostplainly " the prince of this world" wielding thatupower of darkness'7 by which the Apostle describedthe whole state of the world, out of whichthese nations, which made the empire of Augustus,were a part.We have thus contemplated four distinct pictures.The first of these was human nature bareand naked by itself, a merely ideal view of man,as a being compounded of soul and bod, eachpossessing only the faculties which belong to themas spiritual and corporeal natures, the result ofwhich is a substantial union, because the spiritual