2. The manner in which the creation of Adam is narrated indicates something peculiar and eminent in the being to be formed. Among the heavenly bodies the earth, and above all the various productions of its surface, vegetable and animal, however perfect in their kinds, and beautiful and excellent in their respective natures, not one being was found to whom the rest could minister instruction; inspire with moral delight; or lead up to the Creator himself. There was, properly speaking, no intellectual being; none to whom the whole frame and furniture of material nature could minister knowledge; no one who could employ upon them the generalizing faculty, and make them the basis of inductive knowledge. If, then, it was not wholly for himself that the world was created by God; and if angels were not so immediately connected with this system, as to lead us to suppose that it was made for them; a rational inhabitant was obviously still wanting to complete the work, and to constitute a perfect whole. The formation of such a being was marked, therefore, by a manner of proceeding which serves to impress us with a sense of the greatness of the work. Not that it could be a matter of more difficulty to Omnipotence to create man than any thing beside; but principally, it is probable, because he was to be the lord of the whole and therefore himself accountable to the original proprietor; and was to be the subject of another species of government, a moral administration; and to be constituted an image of the intellectual and moral perfections, and of the immortality, of the common Maker. Every thing therefore, as to man’s creation, is given in a solemn and deliberative form, and contains also an intimation of a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, all equally possessed of _creative_ power, and therefore _Divine_, to each of whom man was to stand in relations the most sacred and intimate:--“And God said, Let US make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion,” &c.
3. It may be next inquired in what that image of God in which man was made consists.
It is manifest from the history of Moses, that human nature has two essential constituent parts, the BODY formed out of preëxisting matter, the earth; and a LIVING SOUL, breathed into the body by an _inspiration_ from God. “And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils (or _face_) the breath of life, (_lives_,) and man became a living soul.” Whatever was thus imparted to the body of man, already “_formed_,” and perfectly finished in all its parts, was the only cause of life; and the whole tenor of Scripture shows that this was the rational spirit itself, which, by a law of its Creator, was incapable of death, even after the body had fallen under that penalty.