HUMAN PERFECTION:

OR ADAM IN PARADISE.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.

ANALYSIS OF THE SERMON.

1. The mind.

The Understanding.

The Will.

The Passions.

2. The Body.

PERFECTION IN GENERAL.

The image of God in man is That universal rectitude of all the faculties of the soul, by which they stand apt and disposed to their respective offices and operations.

PERFECTION OF UNDERSTANDING.

And first for its noblest faculty, the understanding: it was then sublime, clear, and aspiring, and, as it were, the soul's upper region, lofty and serene, free from the vapours and disturbances of the inferior affections. It was the leading, controlling faculty; all the passions wore the colours of reason; it did not so much persuade, as command; it was not consul but dictator. Discourse was then almost as quick as intuition; it was nimble

in proposing, firm in concluding; it could sooner determine than now it can dispute. Like the sun it had both light and agility; it knew no rest but in motion; no quiet but in activity. It did not so properly apprehend as irradiate the object; not so much find, as make things intelligible. It did arbitrate upon the several reports of sense, and all the varieties of imagination; not like a drousy judge, only hearing, but also directing their verdict. In sum, it was vegete, quick, and lively; open as the day, untainted as the morning, full of the innocence and sprightliness of youth; it gave the soul a bright and a full view into all things.

SPECULATIVE UNDERSTANDING*,

For the understanding speculative, there are some general maxims and notions in the mind of man, which are the rules of discourse, and the basis of all philosophy. Now it was Adam's happiness in the state of innocence to have these clear and unsullied. He came into the world a philosopher. He could see consequents yet dormant in their

* That understanding is in a perfect state for the acquisition of knowledge, which is capable, at any time, to acquire any sort of knowledge. The defects therefore are either, 1st. An inability at particular times to acquire knowledge or 2ndly. An inability to acquire particular sorts of knowledge.

principles, and effects yet unborn and in the womb of their causes: his understanding could almost pierce into future contingents; his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the certainties of prediction; till his fall it was ignorant of nothing but of sin; or at least it rested in the notion without the smart of the experiment. Could any difficulty have been proposed, the resolution would have been as early as the proposal; it could not have had time to settle into doubt. Like a better Archimedes, the issue of all his enquiries was an eυpŋxa an Euрnna, the offspring of his brain without the sweat of his brow. There was then no poring, no struggling with memory, no straining for invention. His faculties were quick and expedite; they answered without knocking, they were ready upon the first summons, there was freedom, and firmness in all their operations. I confess 'tis as difficult for us who date our ignorance from our first being, and were still bred up with the same infirmities about us with which we were born, to raise our thoughts and imagination to those intellectual perfections that attended our nature in the time of innocence, as it is for a peasant bred up in the obscurities of a cottage, to fancy in his mind the unseen splendours of a court. But by rating positives by their privatives, and other arts of reason, by which dis

course supplies the want of the reports of sense, we may collect the excellency of the understanding then, by the glorious remainders of it now, and guess at the stateliness of the building by the magnificence of its ruins. And certainly that must needs have been very glorious, the decays of which are so admirable. He that is comely, when old and decrepit, surely was very beautiful, when he was young. An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of paradise.

PRACTICAL UNDERSTANDING.

The image of God was no less resplendent in that which we call man's practical understanding; namely, that store-house of the soul, in which are treasured up the rules of action, and the seeds of morality. Now of this sort are these maxims, "That God is to be worshipped." "That parents are to be honoured." "That a man's word is to be kept." It was the privilege of Adam innocent to have these notions also firm and untainted, to carry his monitor in his bosom, his law in his heart. His own mind taught him a due dependance upon God, and chalked out to him the just proportions, and measures of behaviour to his fellow-creatures. Reason was his tutor, and first

principles his magna moralia. The decalogue of Moses was but a transcript, not an original. All the laws of nations and wise decrees of state, the statutes of Solon, and the twelve tables, were but a paraphrase upon this standing rectitude of nature, this fruitful principle of Justice, that was ready to run out and enlarge itself into suitable determinations upon all emergent objects and occasions. Justice then was neither blind to discern nor lame to execute. It was not subject to be imposed upon by a deluded fancy, nor yet to be bribed by a glozing appetite, for an utile or jucundum to turn the balance to a false or dishonest sentence. In all its directions of the inferior faculties it conveyed its suggestions with clearness and enjoined them with power; it had the passions in perfect subjection; and though its command over them was but suasive and political, yet it had the force of coaction and despotical. It was not then, as it is now, where the conscience has only power to disapprove and to protest against the exorbitances of the passions, and rather to wish, than make them otherwise. The voice of conscience now is low and weak, chastising the passions, as old Eli did his lustful domineering, sons: "Not so, my sons, not so;" but the voice of conscience then was not, "This should,