since there are more worlds, he hath told us so, and hath let us know it. To be limited, in our spirits, to this one world, this present world, is to run counter to the design of our Lord's dying; "He gave himself for our sins, to deliver us from this present evil world." He gave himself for our sins: what doth that signify, in conjunction with the latter words? but that they are our sins that chain us in our present dungeon. And by how much the more we can be released from these chains of our sins, so much the more shall we get out of this confinement, and get above this present evil world. O! if we have many things that we dislike in this world, let us bless God that we know of more worlds. And in the last place,

11. We may further learn, that our faith concerning the creation and being of this world, should very much facilitate our faith concerning the end of it. If we can believe, that these worlds were made by the word of God, we may easily believe what he hath told us concerning the unmaking of them. And particularly, the unmaking of this, the dissolution of it as to its present frame. We may argue from the one to the other, that since the one hath been, the other is not harder to be if one be a thing to be believed, the other is as believ able as that, when we are told it will be so.

It is very true, indeed, that believing is not formally arguing; but as faith doth rest upon the strongest argument in all the world, so it may supply matter of further arguing, though it be not in itself formal arguing, it rests upon the strongest argument that ever was; that is, that because there is a Being infinitely perfect, therefore, he cannot but be true, therefore, it is impossible for him to lie; therefore, it is inconsistent with his nature to impose upon his creatures: heaven and earth cannot have a surer foundation than this which my faith hath upon this matter, and upon this ground. And then, resting upon the strongest argument imaginable, it can easily supply matter of further argument; that is, if my faith hath once believed this, that these worlds were made by the word of God, because God hath told us so, if also, he hath told us he will put an end to the present world, and how he will put an end to it, as he hath told us how it began; if I can believe the one, I can believe the other, too, with the same faith and so am to live in the suitable expectation of such a time, when these visible heavens "shall be rolled up as a scroll, and pass away with a great noise, and the elements melt with fervent heat, and the earth and all that is therein, be consumed and burnt up."

And, if I believe this, then how entertaining must the be

lief be! How pleasant the belief of the other world (as was said before) that is to come afterwards, that pure, and peaceful, and orderly, and blissful world! that lasting, permanent, and everlasting world! that when this world and all the lusts thereof are past away and gone, shall abide for ever, and all they that do the will of God: as that expression is 1 John 2. 17. "The world passeth away and all the lusts thereof." Love it not, nor the things of it. If you love it, the love of the Father is not in you and it is passing away. God is not so unkind to you as to place your love upon vanishing things, upon shadows. This world, I tell you, and all the lusts thereof, are vanishing, passing away; will shortly be gone; the shew will be over but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever in that blissful world, which it is his will and pleasure shall abide for ever.

LECTURE XVI.*

Gen. 1. 27.

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

We have discoursed to you, more generally, concerning the creation. We now come, (as we are more especially concerned,) to consider the creation of man. It is true, that there is a nobler order of creatures, that were before him in dignity and excellency (at least) in the creation. But because that, of their creation we have not so particular an account; and because our concernment lies less there, I shall immediately fall upon the consideration of what this text puts under our notice, to wit, our own creation, the creation of that creature, called man.

The connexed particle here, that refers these words to what goes before. "So God created man," invites us to call back our eye a little. It is said in the 26 verse, "And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." And then, the text tells us, "So God created man in his own image." This connexion shews us, that (as you have heard at large,) God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. So

* Preached December 23, 1693.

he did particularly this great work according to forelaid counsels. "Let us do so; let us make man, and make him such a one, even like God." And so accordingly he did. This may be understood as an allusion to human methods; that is, that men, intending this or that work, they do use somewhat of self-excitation; in order thereunto, they do accingere se, they do apply themselves to the action which they intend, and, as it were, recollect their strength, that is now to be exerted and put forth. So is God introduced speaking-" Come now let us go to work afresh, and make that creature man, even the resemblance of ourselves."

And it may also be understood to carry with it, an intimation of that great mysterious doctrine of the Trinity. "Let us make man;" that conjunction of the pronoun of the plural number, with a verb singular, (as we have formerly noted to you,) being probably enough to give some intimation of the glorious subsistencies of the Deity: and who (as you have formerly had noted to you) are to be considered jointly under the notion of Creator.

And it speaks the perfect spontaniety of this work, or (if that may import any thing higher) the perfect intellective liberty wherewith it was done. "Let us make man;" there being no foreign inducement before the creation, there could be nothing extra Deum, nothing without God himself, but proprio motu, from the inward propension of his own mind, and that vast and boundless abyss of goodness, the fulness whereof was in him, now flowing forth, by free choice and consent, into a creation; and into the creation of such a creature as this. "Let us now

make man; it is our mere pleasure to do so:" according to that in Rev. 4. 11. "For his pleasure all things are and were created." He only pleased himself and took a delight in such an effusion of his own glorious power and goodness, breaking forth into such a creation.

In the words themselves, we have two things distinctly to be considered, the work itself, of God's making man-" God made man ;" and-the norma or the pattern according to which he made him-" he made him after his own image," made him the designed representation of himself: we shall consider these severally.

I. Consider the work itself, or the making of man-" God made man.” And therein, we are yet more distinctly to consider the product-man; and-the productive act-God made him.

1. For the former of these, the creature now made, and signifed by that name of " Man," that we are to consider and con

template awhile; that is, that we are to turn our eyes inward, and contemplate ourselves, and consider what sort of creatures we are. We hear it often, that man is a microcosm, this whole world in little, an epitome of the universe; he two great classes of being meeting in him; viz. mind and matter, the invisible world, and the visible, touching one another, and having (as it were) a nexus with one another in his nature. He hath a mind belonging to the invisible world; and a matter belonging to the visible, in his composition and frame. And so is set a middle creature between the angels and brutes, having the intelligent nature with the one, and the sensitive and inferior nature with the other.

We need to be put in mind of what is so obvious to us; for of all things in the world that we are so prone to overlook and forget, we are most of all apt to forget ourselves: though it were a precept of so high and great importance, and so obvious to a reasonable mind, that it did proceed from the mouth of a Pagan Nosce teipsum, first know thyself, yet it was reckoned too great and important a thing, to be primarily attributed to such a one. And therefore, it was said of it, e caelo descendit; surely it came down from heaven: no mortal could assume to himself the honour to be the author of so great a saying as this. But though it be a matter of so great an importance, and the obligation thereunto, men perpetual lie, and do lie under; and though it be so obvious to a reasonable mind, yet, generally, look upon all the world, and you may say, "Men are the least part or study to themselves, they least of all consider themselves, to know their own natures, and what sort of creatures they are."

But that we may a little more distinctly consider this subject, plain it is, that man is a twofold creature; he hath a double nature in him; he is a man and a man: or there belongs to his constitution and frame, an inner and an outward man: as the apostle elegantly enough distinguishes them, in 2 Cor. 4. 16. "An outward man," that is a perishable and perishing thing; and "an inward man," which, while that outward man is perishing, is yet capable of being "renewed day by day,” as he there speaks.

Indeed, while we turn our eyes upon ourselves, we are least of all apt to consider what is most considerable in our own frame. A people related to God of old, and even the strictest sort, or sect of them, (the pharisees themselves) our Saviour justly upbraids them with this stupidity, this piece of inconsideration he speaks to them as a company of besotted fools: "Ye fools, hath not he that made the outward, made the inward