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النشر الإلكتروني

Preached before the University of Oxford,
at St. Mary's, Jan. 6, 1772, being the
Festival of the Epiphany.

DISCOURSE I.

THE CREATION OF MAN.

GENESIS I. 26.

And God faid, Let us make man in our 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.

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US DISC.
I.

URIOSITY naturally prompts to enquire into the records of the family, or society, to which we belong. Every little incident, that befel our anceftors, is collected with care, and remembered with pleasure. The relation it bears to us gives it consequence in our eyes, though, in the eyes of others, it may feem to have none. The mind, in it's progress, finds attention excited, as the velocity of a falling

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DISC. falling body is increased; nor can it repofe itself at ease on any account, which stops short of the original and first founder of the community.

Every motive of this fort conspires to animate our researches into the origination of mankind, and the history of our common progenitor. We cannot but earnestly and anxiously wish to be acquainted with the circumstances relative to the father of that family, of which all nations are parts; to discover and survey the root of that tree, whose branches have overspread the earth.

Nor can such investigation be deemed matter of curiosity only. To form proper ideas of man, it is necessary we should view him as he came from the hands of his Creator. We must know, in what state he was placed, what were the duties resulting from that state, and what the powers whereby he was enabled to perform them. We must learn, whether he be now in the same state, or whether an alteration in his state

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state may not have subjected him to new DISC. wants, and new obligations. Upon a knowlege of these particulars, every system of religion and morality must be constructed, which is designed for the use of men. system in which the confideration of these hath no place, is like a course of diet prescribed by a physician, unacquainted with his patient's constitution, and with the nature of the disease under which he has the misfortune to labour.

It is obvious to remark, that this knowlege of human nature, of what it was at the beginning, and what alterations have fince happened in it, is a knowlege to the attainment of which no strength of genius, no depth of reasoning, no fubtlety of metaphysical disquisition can ever lead us. It is a matter of fact, and must be ascertained, as matters of fact are, by evidence and teftimony. But he only, who made man, can inform us, how man was made; with what endowments, and for what purposes. If he hath not done it, the world is, of neceffity

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