absurd opinions, making GOD corporeal, and like created beings.2 Such were- 2. The Moshabbehites, or Assimilators; who allowed a resemblance between GOD and his creatures,3 supposing him to be a figure composed of members or parts, either spiritual or corporeal, and capable of local motion, of ascent and descent, &c.1 Some of this sect inclined to the opinion of the Holûlians, who believed that the divine nature might be united with the human in the same person; for they granted it possible that GOD might appear in a human form, as Gabriel did: and to confirm their opinion they allege Mohammed's words, that he saw his LORD in a most beautiful form, and Moses talking with GOD face to face.2 And 3. The Kerâmians, or followers of Mohammed Ebn Kerâm, called also Mojassemians, or Corporalists; who not only admitted a resemblance between GOD and created beings, but declared GOD to be corporeal.3 The more sober among them, indeed, when they applied the word body to GOD, would be understood to mean, that he is a self-subsisting being, which with them is the definition of body: but yet some of them affirmed him to be finite, and circumscribed, either on all sides, or on some only (as beneath, for example), according to different opinions;4 and others allowed that he might be felt by the hand, and seen by the eye. Nay, one David al Jawâri went so far as to say, that his deity was body composed of flesh and blood, and that he had members, as hands, feet, a head, a tongue, eyes, and ears; but that he was a body, however, not like other bodies, neither was he like to any created being: he is also said farther to have affirmed that from the crown of the head to the breast he was hollow, and from the breast downward solid, and that he had black curled hair.5 These most blasphemous and monstrous notions were the consequence of the literal acceptation of those passages in the Korân which figuratively attribute corporeal actions to GOD, and of the words of Mohammed, when he said, that GOD created man in his own image, and that himself had felt the fingers of GOD, which he laid on his back, to be cold: besides which, this sect are charged with fathering on their prophet a great number of spurious and forged traditions to support their opinion, the greater part whereof they borrowed from the Jews, who are accused as naturally prone to assimilate GOD to men, so that they describe him as weeping for Noah's flood till his eyes were sore.6 and, indeed, though we grant the Jews may have imposed on Mohammed and his followers in many instances, and told them as solemn truths things which themselves believed not or had invented, yet many expressions of this kind are to be found in their writings; as when they introduce GOD roaring like a lion at every watch of the night, and crying, "Alas! that I have laid waste my house, and suffered my temple to be burnt, and sent my children into banishment among the heathen," &c.1 4.