Communion III. This Communion is twofold Doctrinal and Spiritual 1. Doctrinal As they do communicate in one and the same Faith or Profession of one and the same Religion So all Protestant Churches hold Communion in one and the same Doctrine of Faith and in regard of that Disunion with the Church of Rome Holland and We tho' so disunited in regard of civil Converse yet we are at Communion as Christians in the Profession of the same Religion But this is not the Communion the Article means It speaks of Communion of Saints Now every prophane carnal Protestant may hold such Communion in outward Profession of the same Religion Thousands of prophane Persons in England hold Communion thus even with the preciousest Saints viz. That they acknowledge the same Articles of Religion and yet are far from the Communion of Saints here spoken of Therefore the Communion of Saints is II. Spiritual A hidden Manna a Communion that the World knows not a Spiritual Interest and Communicating which they only partake of and which they only are sensible of Which we may discern the better by observing these things 1. That there is one and the same Spirit in every true Saint of God in the World 1 Cor. xii 4 There are Diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit True there are Diversities of Degrees of Grace and of Operations but one and the same Spirit that worketh all in all As Kinsmen have Communion in Kindred because the same Blood runs in all their Veins so Saints have Spiritual Communion because the same Spirit dwells in them all As in that Comparison that they are Members of the same Body because the same Spirit of Life is in every one of the Members It was the Custom with the Jews to enter into Communion by eating of the same Bread To which the Apostle alludes 1 Cor. x. 17 For we being many are one Bread and one Body for we are all Partakers of that one Bread And hereupon they might not eat with those with whom they might not have Communion So Christ feasts all his with the same Spirit 1 Cor. xii 13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one Spirit That it is that that gives their Souls Life and Growth because they are all fed with the same Spirit This is the Hunger and Thirst of a Child of God to be filled and refresh'd with his Spirit And this is the feeding and refreshing God affords them John vi 55 63. For my Flesh is Meat indeed and my Blood is Drink indeed It is the Spirit that quickeneth the Flesh profiteth nothing The Words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life And John vii 37 39. If any Man thirst let him come unto me and drink But this spake he of the SPIRIT which they that believe on him should receive This was David's Hunger and Thirst when his Soul was almost starved by his great Fall Psal. li. 11 12. Cast me not away from thy Presence and take not thine Holy Spirit from me Restore unto me the Joy of thy Salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit And this is a Trial whether a Soul be alive and healthy and whether a Person be a Saint or no by his longing and hungring for the Spirit of God Examine your Stomach what craves it Lord give me Corn and Cattel After these things the Gentiles seek not the Saints of God But Lord give me thy Spirit fill me with thy Grace support my fainting Soul with the Spirit of Grace This is a blessed hungring and thirsting which shall be blessedly satisfied Matth. v. 6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after Righteousness for they shall be filled Thus in the first place Saints have all Communion in the same Spirit of Christ drink of the same Fountain eat and feed upon the same Manna 2. Thus all communicating of the same Spirit of God they have by that Spirit Communion with God himself 1 John i. 3 And truly our Fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. A high Saying blessed Apostle Fellowship with God and Christ Let Haman brag of his great Friendship with Ahashuerosh Let Men bâ—â—st of their accompanying with this and that great Man their Friendship and Acquaintance with this or that noble Person it is enough if I can say I am acquainted with God I have Friendship and Fellowship with God and his Son Jesus Christ. Acquainted with God Communion with Christ Brave Company That Man can never be alone never want excellent Company Ah! poor Paul how dost thou do for Company in a dark lonely Prison Daniel how solitary art thou in a Den of Lions when thou hast no Company but those cruel Creatures Oh! nunquam minus solus quam cum solus I have God and Christ with me they keep me Company and I can have no better And so God himself hath promised When thou goest thro' the Waters I will be with thee Observe that Promise Matth. xxviii ult I will be with you always even unto the end of the World Alas we shall be in Prisons in Stocks Ay but then ye shall not be alone for I will be with you to the end of the World What mean such Expressions but that God is present near to his own People in an extraordinary manner different from common Providence That Expression Walking with God doth hint special Intercourse and Converse 'twixt God and the Saint as 'twixt two Friends walking together Observe a feeling Exposition of it Psal. lxxiii 23 24 c. Nevertheless I am continually with thee thou hast holden me by thy Right Hand Thou shalt guide me with thy Counsel and afterward receive me to Glory Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth I desire besides thee Here let us stay and we may stand amazed that poor sinful Men may have the Honour and Happiness of Communion with God Will God dwell upon Earth It was Solomon's Wonder So may we wonder at this that God should Converse be in Fellowship and in Familiarity with Men. If God should take Advantage of that Be not unequally yoked how far may this speak contrary to such Communion For what infinite Inequality is thâ—â—e 'twixt God and Man Creator and Creature Dust and Glory An Expression of this Communion you have Rev. iii. 20 If any Man hear my Voice and open the Door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me And another Es. lxvi 1 2. Thus saith the Lord The Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is my Footstool Where is the House that ye build unto me And where is the Place of my Rest For all those things hath mine Hand made and all those things have been saith the Lord. But to this Man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite
Subscription to the Orders of the Church which a great many of them had refused But Lightfoot honestly said that this was the Question betwixt our Saviour and the Woman of Samaria And if she had directly asked him whether the Church of the Jews were the true Church he would doubtless directly have answered it was For otherwise God had no Church in the World And yet was the Church of the Jews at that time in a worse Condition than any of them could think the Church of England then was 2. He was no Innovator He sat indeed in the Assembly of Divines called together by the Parliament to consult upon Matters of Religion and he came thither in the simplicity of his Heart contributing his Service towards the Correcting of supposed Abuses in Religion But still he had a respect to the good Laws of the Church and disliked and declared against many Propositions brought in for Reformation and opposed several things attempted to be introduced not only by Independents and Antinomians but such as were for transcribing the Model of the Scotch and Geneva Discipline In their settling a Set Form for Religious Worship the Parliament having laid aside the Common-Prayer-Book Lightfoot had an Eye to former Rubricks and Canons To give one Instance hereof When in the Directory for Baptism the giving Ministers warning when any Children were to be Baptized was omitted he moved that that might be taken order for seeing that in our old Rubrick said he it is enjoyned that warning should be given the Night before And now he shewed there was more need since the Minister by the Directory was to make an Exhortation and to give some Instructions concerning Baptism Whereupon this Clause was added Warning being given to the Ministers the Day before Again he utterly disliked the bringing in a Rank of Women for Officers in the Church viz. Widows Which some had urged grounding themselves upon that of the Apostle Let not a Widow be taken into the number under Sixty Years old Where Lightfoot shewed that for that very thing he could not be of that Opinion For that it was contrary to the Old Testament where the Officers of the Temple were to be dismist at Fifty Years Old And when Goodwin answered that the Priests indeed were discharged of their Service at those Years because of the Burthen of their Service As particularly carrying of the Ark and the Labour of Sacrificing Lightfoot replied that the Ark was fixed after Solomon's time So that there was no more Occasion to carry that Neither were the Sacrifices any such Burthen the Courses of the Priests were so full as that no less than Eighty opposed Vzziah And he shewed it from Josephus and that there were Five Thousand apiece at least in each Course and that their Service was but one Week in half a Year And therefore they could not be overladen with Work Nevertheless when after much Debate it was brought to the Vote whether Widows were Church Officers it was voted in the affirmative Yet only by one Voice Lightfoot being then absent which he calls in his Journal His Misfortune and adds that the Proposition was utterly against his Mind and far different from his Judgment 3. He set himself especially against such as made use of Religion to supersede the Duties of Morality and who upon pretence of higher Attainments in Christianity overlookt Truth Honestly and Righteousness He could not bear such as made Religion a Pander to Sin And such Sects there were that shewed their Faces in his Time There were some that had refined Religion to that Degree that they went all upon Illuminations Revelations and Spiritual Raptures and talked of nothing but of their being acted by the Spirit of God and doing all by some mighty Influences of that Spirit Poring so much upon these Fancies that they measured their own and others Religion according as they were endued with these Enthusiastical Flights In the mean time made little or no account of Moral Duties and were much addicted to Unpeaceableness Covetousness Fraud Lying Deceiving Slandering and such like There was one considerable Sect that then appeared and got much ground which was known and distinguished by this Doctrine That Christians were not obliged by the Moral Law Against this Party great complaints were at length brought into the Assembly of Divines many of whom among which was our Divine saw well to what a Decay all true Religion would soon come if Men of this Opinion were tolerated For to shew them a little to the present Age these were Doctrines contained in the Books or Speeches of three of them collected by Dr. Temple and offered to the Assembly as I find them in Lightfoot's Journal 1. That the Moral Law is of no use at all to Believers No Rule to walk by nor to examine their Lives by And that Believers are freed from the Mandatory Power of it 2. That it is as possible for Christ to Sin as for a Child of God 3. That a Child of God needs not nay ought not to ask Pardon for Sin and that it is no less than Blasphemy to ask Pardon for our Sin And one of them being told that David asked Forgiveness of Sins it was answered it was his Weakness 4. That God doth not chastise any of his for Sin Let Believers Sin as fast as they can there is a Fountain open for them to wash in That not for the Sin of God's People but for Swearers and Drunkards the Land is punisht 5. That there ought to be no Fasting Days under the Gospel and Men ought not to afflict their Souls no not in a Day of Humiliation And it being asked one of them whether he Fasted in obedience to the Civil Command he answered That were to be the Servants of Men. 6. That this Doctrine is false If you Fast and Pray and Humble your selves unto God then God will turn away his Judgments Yea if you Pray by the Spirit you are not hereupon to expect deliverance from Judgments 7. That when Abraham in outward appearance seemed to Lye in his Distrust Lying Dissembling and Equivocating even then truly all his Thoughts Words and Deeds were perfectly Holy and Righteous from all Spot of Sin in the sight of God 8. That if a Man by the Spirit know himself to be in a State of Grace though he commit Murder or Drunkenness yet God doth see no Sin in him Lightfoot with divers others of the soberer sort in the Assembly were hugely concerned at these Men and their Doctrines Because they well saw and urged to the rest how these Opinions opened a Gap to all manner of Licentiousness struck at the very obedience due to the Civil Magistrate horribly scandalized all the Doctrine of Free-Grace and Justification endeavoured to blast all Faithful Ministers calling them Legal Preachers And that this Sect was the more dangerous because their Preachers crept into the Favour of the Souldiers And it was observable that when the Definition
Sept. 28. It appeared at Sun-rise and said Thou told'st Mr. Crompton the Town where Anne Harrison lived was Redstone but I told thee Barnstone Sept. 29. At Eight a Clock it appear'd and the Woman said In the Name of the Father c. How camest thou to be so long down and not to appear It answered she said certain Prayers over me when they struck down the Stake that I could not appear Upon Thursday about Sun-rise it appeared Isabel asked what became of his Horse It answered My Horse was sold on Midsummer-day at Beverly to one Mr. Weldbread that liveth in the South for 5 l. Octob. 4. It appeared to several of the Town of Driffield But Isabel was not at home and did not see it It appear'd in White all the time like one of Eighteen Years old Some Gentlemen bade Isabel ask it where he should abide after Seven Years were expired It said I must enjoy the happy Eternity and in the mean time the Lord is my Governour Signed Thomas Blackwell It is pity the Relation went no further For one would have been glad to have known to what Issue this Business came and whether this Woman accused by the Spirit ever came to her Trial. The Credit of this Story depended not upon Isabel alone for it appears the Spectre was seen also by others and the Circumstances were such as did mightily confirm Evidence of her to whom it chiefly reveal'd it self and its Cause And it appears that Crompton the Justice a Person as it seems of Sobriety and good Judgment slighted her not but advised her to put divers material Demands to it And the Story seems also to have found good Credit with our Divine as well as others in that he thought fit to transcribe the whole Relation which I have here exemplified And so I leave it I have one Demonstration more of his Piety to God that he continued as long as he lived constant and painful in the Word and Doctrine And as he was an assiduous and excellent Preacher so his Sermons ran very much upon a Strain of urging Holiness and a pure and good Life upon his Auditors in a plain but nervous Stile teaching them substantial Virtue and Goodness seldom meddling with Controversies unless they were such as tended to obstruct the Necessity of a Holy Life or to undermine the Purity and Humility required in the Gospel or enticed to a Revolt from the Protestant Religion Thus he shewed them that it was no such easie Matter to be a Christian but that it required long Pains and Diligence A Change from Sin to God is a continued Act and requires Space and Time to accomplish it Our Fall was in a Moment that Change from our Happiness to our Sinfulness and Misery was in an Instant but our changing back again requires time A Man may fall off from an high Tower in a Moment but to recover his Bruise and to climb up thither again is not so soon done And because many were apt to defer their Repentance by the Example of the good Thief hoping to have their great Work done in an Instant and to find such Success as he did therefore Dr. Lightfoot added That in all the Bible we have but one Example of a short Change and that was the Thief on the Cross who had his Work of renewing done in an Hour or thereabouts But it was at such a time as never was before and never will be again When the Son of God was undergoing his great CHANGE from Life to Death and was purchasing the CHANGE of his People from Death to Life If thou canst light on such a nick of Time which is impossible then thou mightest expect it possible that this Change should be wrought suddenly Otherwise expect it will take up no little time We must distinguish of the first working of Grace and of the Growth and Encreasing from thenceforward That first Work of Grace doth indeed translate the Person from one Condition to another but Succession of Time and Growing in Grace is required to transform him thorowly from one Temper to another Again the first Work of Grace doth indeed make a Man capable of Heaven but more is required to make him fit for Heaven He puzzled not his People with propounding to them nice and critical Signs to know whether they were in a State of Grace but shewed the plain way to be satisfied therein Who is there but if he will well examine himself may easily tell whether he be in the Ways of God or no Let him but try his Heart and Actions whether God in his Word hath commanded or allowed such an Heart and such Actions as he carries and acts or whether he hath forbade and cried out against them Who but his own Heart will easily tell him that God never commanded or allowed him to Lye and Deceive to be Cross and Contentious to be Proud and Scornful to be Wanton and Luxurious to be Envious and Revengeful to be Worldly and Covetous And therefore if he carry such an Heart and if he practice such Practices as these he must needs conclude that he is under God's Blaming and Complaint He checked those that tho' they were none of the best yet entertained a Confidence that they should do well and bolstered out themselves with good Hopes of their own Condition using these Words to such That Man that hath ever gone in a sinful worldly Way never minding any thing but to satisfie his own Mind and Lust and yet will not be driven out of Hope that he shall be saved as well as the best This is not Hope but Drunkenness As you may perswade a drunken Man to very strange Hopes This is Raving rather than solid Hoping For true and right Hope wheresoever it comes creeps out of Fear as poor Israel did out of their Caves and Dens when the Fear and Danger of the Enemy was past and over And again Hope never comes but where Fear hath been before As the still Voice to Elias came not but after Fire Earthquake and Tempest The Soul that will breed and bring forth a lively Hope must like Rebecca bring forth the rough rugged Esau of Fear before it bring forth the smooth Jacob of Hope There is first the Spirit of Bondage unto Fear before there comes the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father A Conscience that was never troubled startled or molested but blith debonair and fearless is not Peace of Conscience the Gift of God but Deadness and Stupidity of Conscience the Spirit of Slumber He gave Men this wholsome Admonition concerning the Exercises of Religious Worship Prayer confessing of Sin attending upon God's Service these are Sacrifices that God requires and they are Sacrifices with which God is well pleased if they be well done But there is one thing more that God requires and without which these are nothing and that is that which the Apostle speaks of Rom. xii at the beginning for a Man to
to Particulars Eden The Fourth Day The Sun Moon and Stars created The inferiour Hemisphere first sees the Sun Or else the Moon was made before the Sun The Fifth Day Fowl and Fish made The Whale particularly named to shew that even the greatest Creature could not make it self The Sixth Day Beasts and Cattel created and Man Lord of the Creatures on Earth Who come to acknowledge their Homage to Man when they come for their Names Which Adam giveth them GEN. II. Begin to read this Chapter at ver 4. This Chapter is a particularizing upon some Generals of the Chapter preceding at their first Sight according to their Natures He seeth not amongst them all a Mate for himself God provides one for him of his own Flesh marries them together puts them into the Garden gives them the Moral Law in few Words and to shew to them their intire Dominion as well over themselves as over the Creature he leaves them to their own free Will with Power either to stand or fall He gives his Angels charge over them to be ministring Spirits for their Good Some Angels despise this Office and for that Pride are cast from their first Estate of Happiness and are reserved in the Chains of God's Providence under the Darkness of his Displeasure unto the Judgment of the great Day No Comfort they have left them but to have Company of the same Misery and to bring Man into the same Perdition GEN. III. This they soon enterprize and having first obtained Leave of God they assail the Woman by three Temptations to the Lust of the Flesh Lust of the Eye and Pride of Life as 1 Joh. ii 16 she being overcome bringeth the Man into the same Transgression About Three Hours after their Fall God cometh to censure them but first he promiseth Christ a Redeemer Which Promise Adam layeth hold on and for that calleth his Wife's Name Eve or Life God seeth his Faith and teacheth him to Sacrifice clean Beasts as a Seal of his Faith in him who should be sacrificed for him With the Skins of which Beasts he cloatheth Adam and his Wife and driveth them out of Eden even on the Day of their Creation The Seventh Day After the end of Gen. iii. take in the three first Verses of Chap. ii That Adam fell on the day of his Creation were there no other Evidence Gen. v. 2. were sufficient The next Day God by his own Example ordaineth as a Day of Rest for Adam and his Posterity to meditate upon these things Evil Concupiscence generated in Adam by his Fall doth readily forward Adam upon the present Necessity of Generation of Children GEN. IV. He hath two born at a Birth First that which was Natural and after him that which was Spiritual Their Mother upon the Birth of the first of them shews her Apprehension of the Promise and calls his Name Cain a Possession or Purchase †The Original Words may well if not best bear this Sense For saith â—he I have obtained the Lord to become Man But the Purchase or Possession of the Propagation of Original Sin did most shew it self in the Nature of Cain Because his Brother's bloody Sacrifice which properly signified that of Chrisâ— was visibly fired from Heaven and his dry Sheaves of Corn the likelier Materials to burn are not he falls into a desperate Discontent which tho' God himself from Heaven would remove with †The common Gloss upon ver 7. Sin lies at the Door That is the Punishment for Sin is ready to seize on thee is that contrary to the Sense of the Verse going before and the latter end of that Verse God comes not there to deject but comfort him The Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated Sin signifies the Sacrifice for Sin all along Leviticus which was brought to the Tabernacle Door comfortable Words yet sticketh it fast even to the Death of his Brother For which he is made a Runnagate and hedged in that he cannot die as Job iii. 21 tho' he begged of the Lord Let any one that findeth me kill me God gives him a Token that no one should kill him Upon which he grows resolutely wicked as appears in the Discipline of his Children One of which Lamech the seventh from Adam in this Line is notoriously wicked and bringeth in height of Wickedness by his double Marriage This Chapter undertaking to set down the Wickedness of Cain's Brood runs on with the holy Line till it stop at Enosh In whose time that Wickedness began to be notorious See 2 Pet. ii 5 Which Enoch the seventh from Adam in the other Line prophesieth against Jud. ver 12. Yet Lamech boasteth in his Villany and even undervalues his great Grandâ—ire Cain His Children give their Minds to Trades that may further Luxury and Vanity as fatting Cattel Imagery and Music. Thus is Cain's Generation scattered and shall be utterly rooted out by the Flood But these are the Generations of Adam that should hold out and not fail GEN. V. This Chapter is a a Chronicle of 1656 Years from the Creation to Methuselah's Death This time is called Early in the Mâ—â—ning or the dawning of the Day Mat. xx 1 This Chapter cast into a Chronological Table giveth much Light to what went before to what follows and to it self In the Day that God made Adam he created him in his own Image even both the Male and Female he made in this Image and blessed them with Power of begetting Children in the same Image also but they fell on the Day of their Creation so that God names them Earthly Adam the Day that they were created And when Adam was an Hundred and Thirty Years old compleat he begat a Son in his own Image sinful like himself and called his Name Seth. And all the Days of Adam were Nine Hundred and Thirty Years a Thousand within Seventy But now Seventy Years are a Man 's whole Age Psal. xc 10 In this long time Adam saw his Children's Children to the Ninth Generation Enoch the Seventh from Adam is dedicated to God as the Seventh Day and God took him away that he should not see Death when he had lived as many Years as be Days in a Year Enoch before he was translated prophesied against the Wickedness of the World and foretold of the Flood Which those that feared God believed and therefore kept themselves long unmarried because they would not beget many Children for the Waters For Methuselah lived an Hundred Eighty-seven Years and begat Lamech and Lamech lived an Hundred Eighty-two and begat a Son and foresaw that to him should be given Liberty for all the World to eat Flesh whereby they should be much eased of the Toyl which they endured in Tillage of the Ground when hitherto they ate nothing but the Fruits thereof and he called his Name Noah And when Noah was Five Hundred Years old That Sem was Noah's second Son collect from Gen. v.
spared not the Angels that sinned Upon their Sin and Fall and Punishment how many useful Thoughts and Meditations may be taken up partly of Speculation partly for Practice Let us but take a Taste of two or three I. When you read of Michael or Christ and his Angels and the Devil and his Angels Revel xii and to the like Tenor tho' not in the same Terms otherwhere you cannot but fairly conjecture these two things 1. That there was an Head of those that fell as Christ was the Head of those that stood 2. That doubtless the Head of those that fell was created a most noble Creature indeed that was set parallel to Christ in this respect that he was the Head of the one Company as Christ was of the other And I see neither Absurdity nor Danger if we should conceive that he was created the noblest of all Creatures and only Christ who was no Creature was above him And I see no reason why not to conceive that the Angels that fell with him were of as noble a Frame and Perfection by Creation as they that stood This then may raise this Question and Meditation what might make the Difference that some of the Angels fell while the other stood and some stood while the other fell The Resolution of which I know not where to lodge so properly as in this viz. That they that stood were under Christ's Headship and they that fell only left to their created Perfection Which like a Glass was shining and resplendent but brittle and soon broken But II. It is very considerable that these Spirits that were in Heaven could not keep there and yet the Spirits of just Men made perfect being once gotten thither cannot fall thence That Angels in Heaven should not stand and that Saints got to Heaven cannot fall Nay further that Angels that were in Heaven could not keep there and that a poor sinful Creature should get from hence thither and to keep there for ever There was a vast Difference between the Case and Condition of Adam and these Angels and both their Falls They in Heaven already he but just setting out for it They tempted themselves or they had no Tempter He tempted by them or he had not fallen They upon their Fall are cast from Heaven and must never more come there again He upon his Fall recovered for Heaven and in Despight of all their Power and Malice geteth thither Such is the blessed Privilege of being in the State of Grace and having â—â—terest in Christ. Both which these wâ—nted being bottomed only upon the Perfection of their own Nature in which they were created It might seem strange that Adam in the State of Innocency when he had Power of perfect Obedience and of standing in his Innocency in his own Hand should be shaken with the very first Temptation and lose all And yet when he was fallen and became sinful he should break through a Thousand Temptations and recover Heaven which he had lost when Innocent But Grace and Interest in Christ made the Difference For where before he had no Support but barely himself and the Perfection of his created Nature now he is supported by Christ and the Spirit and Grace of God But III. We may see by this Dealing of God with the very Angels his own Courtiers of Heaven how dreadful and terrible God is in his Severity against Sin and Ungodliness The dreadful Severity of God towards these Rebels you may observe in these three Things Of which the Words of S. Peter give some Intimation I. That he not only cast them into Hell and damned them but that he dealt thus with them for one Disobedience and Violation of his one Command The Angels that SINNED he cast into Hell That is for the very first Sin and suffered them not to strike a second Stroke on this side Hell II. That which follows necessarily to be observed upon this viz. That he gave them not a Minutes Space of Repentance but he takes them at the very Rebound and as soon as ever they have sinned they are damned III. That he did not only give them no Time and Space of Repentance but that he excluded them from all Possibility of Benefit by Repentance and Hopes of Recovery For he not only cast them into Hell but he reserves them in Chains for further Judgment No Reprieve no Hope no Pardon ever waiting for the Day of Execution Now look upon them and let us reflect upon our selves And first consider seriously why it should be so exceeding severe with Angels and not with Men. That they should be past all Pardon all Recovery and it should not be so with sinning Man Where can we lodge the proper Reason of this Difference And what can we say to the Cause of it I. We might observe that the Angelical Nature is uncurable if it be diseased and no Way but Death with it And that old Saying Corruptio optimi pessima to take Place deeply here and their Nature the more deeply corrupted when it became corrupted by how much it had been the more pure before II. We might observe that whereas they being in Heaven despised Heaven and vilified the Delights there it cannot be imaginable how ever they should recover Heaven again Poor Man was making for Heaven and stumbled and fell at his first setting out And it is a great deal more likely that he might get up and get onward his Journey again than they that had wilfully cast themselves from Heaven whither he was making III. We might observe their Sin to have been aggravated with whatsoever might make Sin unpardonable They sinned in Heaven they sinned without a Tempter they sinned as wilfully proudly maliciously as it was possible to sin And therefore the less Wonder if it were impossible they should ever repent and be pardoned The Sin of Man was not of so very deadly Aggravation and yet we must not lay the Reason of his being pardoned there but in the infinite Mercy of a Gracious God It was not so much for that Man was less sinful than these Angels were that he was therefore pardoned and they not but because God was the more merciful And whereas to them that so sinned he shewed Severity to thee he sheweth Goodness if thou continue in his Goodness as the Apostle speaks in another Case Lastly Let us more nearly yet reflect upon our selves Let your Thoughts at once look up towards Heaven and down towards Hell and see the Angels sinning in Heaven and instantly cast into Hell for it upon their first sinning and upon the very instant of their sinning Now who can give a Reason why we Sinners are not thrown after them Who among us all but hath deserved Hell as well as they if God should take Vengeance on us according to our Deservings as he did on them What have we then to say of the Patience and Mercy that hath so forborn us DECAD III. I. An Inquiry which is most