15. The Endowments of Adam

 
I. The works of God are perfect for their purposes, and so too must have been the crowning work for the sake of which all else had been made. Man is wonderful compared with the rest of beings; especially wonderful are the great heroes of humanity. We see man now under the influence of the great calamity, and of thousands of years of accumulated corruption. Unfallen man would be vastly superior to the best as known to us. Further, God fits everything for its providential duties. The first of men held a unique position as founder of the race, as first legislator and prophet, who had to mould his progeny and equip them with truth and principles of conduct, who was to set his mark upon them to last for ever. He required more brilliant endowments than any other great men who have influenced their race, like Abraham, Moses, the Apostles, great conquerors and philosophers and artists. In his first state he must have been a man of power and grandeur unequalled, inferior only to Him who carried out the frustrated task as the “Second Adam,” and to His ever blessed and immaculate Mother. Therefore “God clothed him with strength according to Himself. … He created in them the science of the spirit, He filled their hearts with wisdom” (Eccli. xvii. 2, 6). God has assigned great spiritual duties of some kind to you, and has equipped you accordingly. See that you do not fall from that grace, and prove unfaithful to your vocation.

II. As to his bodily endowments Adam must have been perfect and complete. As the object of God’s special care, and the work of His hand more directly than the rest of creatures, as the likeness and manifestation of God to the world and to the angels, as the king and ruler over God’s earthly kingdom, we must expect him to have been perfect in beauty, in strength, in health, in all bodily capacities, as he proceeded from the hand of the Creator. Besides his natural gifts he possessed an additional bodily gift beyond what he was entitled to. As being material and compounded, his body was transient, subject to decay, and mortal, like all other creatures. But this body, in order that it might be in harmony with the soul divinely breathed into it and raised to the supernatural life, was endowed with the gift of immortality, and immunity from disease and suffering. This was communicated through the soul, and depended on the maintenance of its supernatural efficiency. With us, too, the restored supernatural life of the soul has a strange, strong influence on our bodies, and on the whole course of our life as individuals and as a society.

III. In his mind, too, Adam must have been magnificently endowed. As yet he was not clouded, blinded, corrupted by sin; there was no antagonism to truth in him, no prejudice. Whatever was wanting to him in the way of observation and accumulation of knowledge, was supplied by his continual converse with God, face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Over all, there was the perfection which comes from sanctifying grace and the presence of God in the soul. Adam was in the state of innocence and of original justice, and had the infused habits of faith, hope, charity and all other virtues. His faculties and powers were so balanced that they did not conflict with one another, but worked together in harmony. No antagonism of impulses arose from the association of the material flesh with the reasonable soul. Grace guided reason, reason ruled the senses and appetites, and the whole being was subject to the divine will. Here were all the conditions of peace, progress, virtue and happiness. If you subordinate yourself to God, if you subdue the body and regulate the mind, you will escape from many of the consequences of original sin and enjoy an anticipated beatitude.