21. Yet the Doctor complains of the _Treatise upon Christian Perfection_, because Christians in _sickness, distress, and dejection_ of _spirit_, are there directed to seek for comfort and refreshment in God alone! Our blessed Lord is very short and yet very full upon this article. He only says, _Be of good comfort, I have overcome the world._ And the Doctor might as well be angry at the gospel for having made no mention of worldly amusements proper for sick and distressed Christians, as at the treatise of Christian Perfection, for not having done the same.
If I should see a sick man smelling a rose, I should not reprove him. But if he wanted comfort in his state, I would no more direct him to _any thing_, but the great and solid comforts that are to be found in the love, and goodness of God, than I would direct him to another Saviour, than Jesus Christ.
* For to tell Christians that in _some kinds_ of trouble, they might justly seek for relief in reading a _play_, or wanton _Bucolic_, instead of the _gospel_; would be the same absurdity, as to have told people in our Saviour’s time, that in some sorts of distress, they might justly have recourse to _Simon Magus_, instead of Jesus Christ.
22. But now to look back a little. I have considered the bulk of those Christians that are the most likely to be the Doctor’s readers, under two characters. The one as living some way or other in a partial, false, superficial, or half state of piety; the other as an awakened people, called by the Spirit of God to come out of the common corruption of the times. I have shewn that the Doctor’s discourse (where it is not disliked) must do great hurt, and have dreadful effects upon those two sorts of people; the one sort it seals up in a false security, sleeping in the chambers of death, without any oil in their vessels; the other it frightens, and discourages from their pious intentions of trimming their lamps with all diligence, and living upon the watch for the midnight call of the bridegroom’s voice.
That I may therefore do all the good I can to both these sorts of people, that I may awaken the one from their false security in their form of godliness, and encourage the other to proceed with all earnestness, after every degree of Christian holiness; I shall before I proceed any further, lay down a short account of the whole _ground_ of the Christian religion, that every one may clearly see, why we want the Christian religion to save us, what it is to do for us; and how it is done.
23. [1] Man was created a living image of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
“2. This whole visible world, as far as the stars, or any corporeal being reaches, takes up that extent of space, where _Lucifer_ and his angels before their fall, had their glorious kingdom. So far as this visible frame of nature extends, so far was the extent of that kingdom.¹
¹ N. B. This, with several of the particulars that follow are probable, but not supported by scripture. This is the theory of _Jacob Behme_, ingenious, but quite incapable of proof.
“3. That the _place_ or _extent_ of this world, was the place or extent of their kingdom, is probable from the two following reasons: first, because the place of this world is now their habitation. For we must by no means suppose that God brought them from some other region into this world, only to tempt man. No: but they are here _now_, because they were created to dwell _here_. For fallen angels do not leave the _place_ of their sin and fall: they live in the _defilements_ and _disorders_ of their spoiled kingdom; and in that place they find their hell and torments, where they extinguished their light and joy. Secondly, because the whole extent of the world, and every thing in it, _sun_, _moon_, _stars_, _fire_, _air_, _water_, and _earth_, _stones_, _minerals_, must all be _dissolved_, and pass thro’ a _purifying fire_. Therefore all these things are polluted, and have in them some disorder from the fall of the angels; and we may see _how far_ the place of their kingdom extended, by the extent of those things that are to be _dissolved_ and _purified_.
“4. When the angels had, by their rebellion, lost the divine life within themselves, and brought their _whole outward_ kingdom into darkness and disorder, so that as _Moses_ speaketh: ‘Darkness was upon the face of the deep;’ that is, the whole extent of the place of this world; then in the place where they were fallen, and out of the _materials_ of their ruined, angelical kingdom, did God begin the _creation_ of this present, material, temporary, visible world.