oint out the excellency that God did stamp upon man in his creation
beyond the rest of the creatures, as the apostle shows the excellency of
Christ above angels, "To which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art
my son?" Heb. i. 5. So we may say, of which of the creatures said he at
any time, "Come, let us make them in our image after our likeness?" O how
should this make us listen to hear, earnest to know what man once was, how
magnified of God, and set above the works of his hands? There is a great
desire in men to search into their original, and to trace backward the
dark footsteps of antiquity, especially if they be put in expectation of
attaining any honourable or memorable extraction? How will men love to
hear of the worth of their ancestors? But what a stupidity doth possess
the most part, in relation to the high fountain and head of all, that they
do not aim so high as Adam, to know the very estate of human nature? Hence
it is that the most part of people lie still astonished, or rather stupid
and senseless, after this great fall of man, because they never look
upward to the place and dignity from whence man did fall. It is certain,
you will never rightly understand yourselves or what you are, till ye know
first what man was made. You cannot imagine what your present misery is,
till you once know what that felicity was in which man was made,--"let us
make man in our image." Some have called man {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} "a little world,"
a compend of the world, because he hath heaven and earth as it were
married together in him--two most remote and distant natures, the dust of
the earth, and the immortal spirit, which is called the breath of God,
sweetly linked and conjoined together, with a disposition and inclination
one to another. The Lord was in this piece of workmanship as it were to
give a narrow and short compend of all his works, and so did associate in
one piece with marvellous wisdom, being, living, moving, sense and reason,
which are scattered abroad in the other creatures, so that a man carries
these wonders about with him, which he admires without him. At his bare
and simple word, this huge frame of the world started out