They began with the first
subject of inquiry, WHAT IS THE IMAGE OF GOD, AND WHAT THE LIKENESS OF
GOD, INTO WHICH MAN WAS CREATED? But before they proceeded, these words
were read in the presence of them all out of the book of creation, "_God
said, Let us make man into OUR IMAGE, according to OUR LIKENESS: and God
created man into HIS IMAGE; into the IMAGE OF GOD created he him_," Gen.
i. 26, 27. "_In the day that God created man, into the LIKENESS OF GOD
made he him_," Gen. v. 1. Those who sat on the north spoke first,
saying, "The image of God and the likeness of God are the two lives
breathed into man by God, which are the life of the understanding; for
it is written, '_Jehovah God breathed into Adam's nostril the soul of
LIVES; and man became a living soul_,' Gen. ii. 7; into the nostrils
denotes into the perception, that the will of good and the understanding
of truth, and thereby the soul of lives, was in him; and since life from
God was breathed into him, the image and likeness of God signify
integrity derived from wisdom and love, and from justice and judgment in
him." These sentiments were favored by those who sat to the west; only
they added, that the state of integrity then breathed in from God is
continually breathed into every man since; but that it is a man as in a
receptacle; and a man, as he is a receptacle, is an image and likeness
of God.
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