dy. He drew some traces of His image upon this also, as much as a
spiritual substance could be pictured upon a corporeal. As for the
sect of the Anthropomorphites, who from hence ascribe to God the
figure of a man, eyes, hands, feet, and the like, they are too
ridiculous to deserve a confutation. They would seem to draw this
impiety from the letter of the Scripture sometimes speaking of God in
this manner. Absurdity! as if the mercy of Scripture expressions ought
to warrant the blasphemy of our opinions; and not rather to show us
that God condescends to us only to draw us to Himself; and clothes
Himself in our likeness only to win us to His own. The practise of
the papists is much of the same nature, in their absurd and impious
picturing of God Almighty; but the wonder in them is the less since
the image of a deity may be a proper object for that which is but
the image of a religion. But to the purpose: Adam was then no less
glorious in his externals; he had a beautiful body, as well as an
immortal soul. The whole compound was like a well-built temple,
stately without, and sacred within. The elements were at perfect union
and agreement in His body; and their contrary qualities served not for
the dissolution of the compound, but the variety of the composure.
Galen, who had no more divinity than what his physic taught him,
barely upon the consideration of this so exact frame of the body,
challenges any one, upon a hundred years' study, to find out how any
the least fiber, or most minute particle, might be more commodiously
placed, either for the advantage of use or comeliness. His stature
erect, and tending upward to his center; his countenance majestic
and comely, with the luster of a native beauty that scorned the poor
assistance of art or the attempts of imitation; His body of so much
quickness and agility that it did not only contain but also represent
the soul; for we might well suppose that where God did deposit so rich
a jewel He would suitably adorn the case. It was a fit workhouse for
sprightly, vivid faculties to exercise and exert themselves in; a
fit tabernacle for an immortal soul, not only to dwell in, but to
contemplate upon; where it might see the world without travel, it
being a lesser scheme of the creation, nature contracted a little
cosmography or map of the universe. Neither was the body then subject
to distempers, to die by piecemeal, and languish under coughs,
catarrhs, or consumptions. Adam knew no