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The dignity of man appears from his bearing the image of his Maker. God has, besides, enstamped a dignity upon man by giving him not only a rational, but an immortal existence. The soul, which is properly the man, shall survive the body and live for ever. The dignity of man also appears from the great attention and regard which God hath paid to him. God indeed takes care of all His creatures, and His tender mercies are over all His works: but man has always been the favourite child of Providence.

I. MAN HATH A CAPACITY FOR CONSTANT AND PERPETUAL PROGRESSION IN KNOWLEDGE.

II. MAN HATH A CAPACITY FOR HOLINESS AS WELL AS KNOWLEDGE. His rational and moral faculties both capacitate and oblige him to be holy. His perception and volition, in connection with his reason and conscience, enable him to discern and feel the right and wrong of actions, and the beauty and deformity of characters. This renders him capable of doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.

III. THAT MAN HATH A CAPACITY FOR HAPPINESS, EQUAL TO HIS CAPACITY FOR HOLINESS AND KNOWLEDGE. Knowledge and holiness are the grand pillars which support all true and substantial happiness; which invariably rises or falls, accordingly as these are either stronger or weaker. Knowledge and holiness in the Deity are the source of all his happiness. Angels rise in felicity as they rise in holiness and knowledge. And saints here below grow in happiness as they grow in grace, and in the knowledge of holy and Divine objects.

IV. THAT MAN HATH A CAPACITY FOR GREAT AND NOBLE ACTIONS.

1. We may justly infer from the nature and dignity of man, that we are under indispensable obligations to religion. Our moral obligations to religion are interwoven with the first principles of our nature. And, as man is formed for religion, so religion is the ornament and perfection of his nature. The man of religion is, in every supposable situation, the man of dignity. Pain, poverty, misfortune, sickness and death, may indeed veil, but they cannot destroy his dignity, which sometimes shines with more resplendent glory under all these ills and clouds of life.

2. This subject may help us to ascertain the only proper and immutable boundaries of human knowledge: such boundaries of our knowledge as arise from the frame and constitution of our nature, and not from any particular state or stage of our existence.

3. This subject gives us reason to suppose, that men, in the present state, may carry their researches into the works of nature, much farther than they have ever yet carried them. The fields of science, though they have been long traversed by strong and inquisitive minds, are so spacious, that many parts remain yet undiscovered.

4. The observations, which have been made upon the nobler powers and capacities of the human mind, may embolden the sons of science to aim to be originals. They are strong enough to go alone, if they only have sufficient courage and resolution. They have the same capacities, and the same original sources of knowledge, that the ancients enjoyed.

5. We are under indispensable obligations to cultivate and improve our minds in all the branches of human knowledge. All our natural powers are so many talents, which, in their own nature, lay us under moral obligations to improve them to the best advantage. Being men, we are obliged to act like men, and not like the horse or the mule which have no understanding.

(N. Emmons, D. D.)

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KJV: I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man;

WEB: "I am going the way of all the earth. You be strong therefore, and show yourself a man;