Image of God

Such was the image of God in which man was made, and on which God looked with complacency after his formation, as a mother does on the lineaments of a father in the countenance of a child, and as a father traces a mother's sweetness in its temper and dispositions. Let us think how his image has been defaced, how wise men are now to do evil, while to do good they have no knowledge, how we are all as an unclean thing, how our righteousness es are as filthy rags, and how the creatures groan under the folly and the oppression of man. Man has become the stain of creation which he once adorned, and the curse of nature which was blessed for him. Gloomy as the contemplation is, it is humbling ; and blessed be God it is not hopeless. There is a great Moral Restorer who can put on us the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. May God enable us to place ourselves under his renovating hand, and may Christ be formed in us, even that mind and those dispositions which were in him, which constitute the noblest character of his disciples, the brightest glory of his religion, and the only preparation for heaven. Henry Belfrage

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