"The Grossness, Impurity, Sickness, Pain, and Corruption of Our Bodies...
"The grossness, impurity, sickness, pain, and corruption of our bodies, is brought upon us by ourselves, in the same manner as the hideous, serpentine, form of the devils are brought upon them. How absurd, and even blasphemous would it be, to say with the scripture and the church, "that we are children of wrath, and born in sin," if we had that nature, which God at first gave us? What a reproach upon God, to say, that this world is a valley of misery, a shadow of death, full of disorders, snares, evils, and temptations, if this was an original creation, or that state of things for which God created us? Is it not as consistent with the goodness and perfection of God, to speak of the misery and disorder that unfallen holy angels find above, and of the vanity, emptiness, and sorrow of their heavenly state, as to speak of the misery of men, and the sorrows of this world, if men and the world were in that order, in which God at first had placed them? If God could make any place poor and vain, and create any beings into a state of vanity and vexation of spirit, he might do so in all places, and to all beings."* {*Serious Answer to Dr.Trapp on the Sin. of being Righteous overmuch, p.35.}

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