So much of the mystery of the adorable Trinity, as was necessary for a solid foundation to our faith and hope in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of the world, God hath been pleased to make known to us in the new testament, perhaps as fully as our faculties are capable of conceiving it. And, it ought to be a source of comfort and joy to us, to find the same divine mystery intimated, though in obscurer terms, to the servants of God, from the beginning. Man was made to bear the image of his Creator; and consequently to exhibit, as in a glass, the mystery of the adorable Trinity.

The faith of the christian church, that there is one God in three persons is, therefore, the original faith, and the foundation of all true religion. On it is grounded the whole mystery of our redemption, and the entire possibility of our salvation. Without this distinction in the Godhead, there would have been no Son of God to redeem us, no Holy Ghost to sanctify and renew us. Holding fast this faith, let us, with grateful hearts, acknowledge the goodness of God in revealing it from the beginning of the world, and in preserving the knowledge of it in his holy church, to be the ground of our hope and confidence in him.

It being determined in the divine council, that man should be made in the image of God, God first made his body of the dust of the ground.'

1. The first observation, which I have to make, relatesto the distinction there is between the human body and the bodies of the other animals: The elements brought them into being at the command of God; but the body of man was the immediate work of God himself. HE (id not command the earth to bring him forth; but HE • formed' him of the dust of the ground,' according to the determination of his own wisdom and goodness.

This should teach us the dignity and excellency of the human body above the bodies of the brute animals, and should lead us to esteem and reverence it accordingly. It is the immediate work of God, and not to be defiled and debased by the indulgence of enjoyments which make

no distinction between the man and the brute. In his present state, man has appetites and propensities common to him and brute animals-they are necessary to his subsistence. But the knowledge of the higher dignity of his own body ought to prevent his placing his happiness in the gratification of them; and to make him cautious lest, by indulging them to excess, he degrade himself to the level of the beasts that perish.

2. Man, being made of the dust of the ground, has his body from this world. It must, of course, partake of the nature of the elements; be subject to their changes; and be disordered by them, as well as receive impressions from them. It cannot, therefore, from its own nature, be here in a fixed, immutable condition. Revelation in. forms us, that most of the changes and decays to which the things of this world are liable, and actually do suffer, were brought on them by the fall of man, from the state of his creation, into sin and rebellion against his Maker. But that they were originally made liable to change and decay, appears from their actually having been changed.

The body of man, taken from the elements, must have been liable to change and decay with them; it could have no higher, or more durable nature, than the materials out of which it was formed.

Another reason which shews that Adam was not created incapable of decay is, 'the tree of life' which God caus. ed to grow in the midst of the garden of Eden, and of which he was directed to eat. Whether this tree had a natural quality to repair the decays of the human body, and preserve it in life and vigour, as some have supposed; or, whether it were sacramental, and intended to keep up in Adam a constant and lively sense of his dependence on his Creator, by giving him an assurance and pledge of life and immortality, while he preserved his dependence and obedience entire, as others have thought; it comes to the same thing. It was to him the appointed means of immortality. His body, therefore, was not immortal by nature; that is, it was not created in such a state, as to continue free from decay and dissolution by its own ener

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gy given to it by God, at its creation. For why should the means of immortality be provided for him, unless those means were necessary to continue him in life ? Immortality, therefore, belonged not to him by nature-it was the gift of God; and his continuance in life depended on his obedience, and use of the means of life which God had appointed for him.

3. It is to be observed, that Adam was not created in the garden of Eden, but was removed into it after his creation. There grew the tree of life, which was to be the support of his immortality. There, too, grew the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which was the test of his obedience. His residence in the garden was, therefore, in some degree, supernatural, and adds weight tó the opinion that when he had given sufficient proof of his obedience, and had confirmed his life by the use of the appointed tree, according to the good pleasure of God, he would have been removed from the garden to heaven, there to have enjoyed the presence of God, in life immortal and full of glory.

4. The consideration, that our bodies are taken from the earth, should teach us humility, and abate that vanity which places the perfection of our nature in beauty of person; and the chief happiness of life in adorning the body with rich and gay apparel, to attract the eye and admiration of beholders. Admire the beauty and symmetry of person, as we will ; adorn it as we please; its origin is from the earth; it is subject to all the vicissitudes of earthly things, to various accidents, to pining sickness, and loathsome disease; any of which may convert our beauty into deformity, and render ridiculous every attempt at ornament and finery.

5. When God had formed Adam's body of the dust of the ground, he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul.'

By the taking of his body from the ground, he became allied to the world, and partook of its earthly nature; and by his soul's being breathed into him by God, he became allied to him, and partook of his spiritual nature. The soul, therefore, cannot be a material substance. God is not matter; neither can the human soul which came from him be matter. Refine matter as we please, it will still be matter, and as distinct from spirit as ever.

6. It is remarkable, that though our translation reads, ' the breath of life,' in the singular number, the Hebrew word is plural, the breath of lives; and seems to imply that more than one life or soul, if I may so express myself, was breathed into Adam by God at his creation. What now appears in human nature, in its present debili. tated state, seems to strengthen such an opinion. That there is in man an animal soul or life, such as the brutes have, and by which they perceive; which is the foundation of their instincts and propensities, and which directs them in all their operations, must appear to every careful observer: and probably it would operate as uniformly, and as extensively in man, as it does in the other animals, was it not interrupted and restrained by a superior principle, his rational soul. From the mixed influence of these two principles, man becomes a rational animal, and fills the middle state between the animals of this world, who have only a sensitive, instinctive soul, and the order of angels, who are endued with perfect intellect, or pure

reason.

We have authority to say, that God made all things by his Word, or Logos. Without him was not any thing made that was made.'* The Word or Son of God was, therefore, the maker of man, as well as of the other crea-tures. From him man received his rational soul and all the powers of his understanding. In this sense, is he 'the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world;'t being the author of that reason and understand. ing which is in every man, and which makes him capable of distinguishing between good and evil, of understanding the will of God, and of the inspirations of his Spirit.

7. Hence it appears, that the old philosophy of the heathens, which taught that the body is no essential part of the man, but an adventitious covering of the soul, by

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which it is incumbered, and prevented from exerting its faculties with that energy and vigour which it will acquire in its unbodied state, is not founded in fact. The body is an essential, though the inferior part of the man. Neither the soul by itself, nor the body by itself, is the man, or human person; but the body and soul united. When God had formed the body, and had breathed into it the breath of life, man, consisting of body and spirit, became a living soul, a rational animal.

On this ground it was, that the old servants of God, before the Law of Moses, under that Law, and under the Gospel, paid such veneration to the human body, not only during its life, but after its death-bestowing on it decent and religious interment, and, when their circumstances would permit, that which was costly and sumptuouspreserving their burying-grounds from violence, defilements, and indecencies, knowing that the body by its original creation is an essential part of the man, and, equally with the soul, redeemed from death to the possibility and hope of a glorious and blessed immortality.