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.
“5. ‘In the beginning, saith Moses, God created the heaven and the earth.’ Here, at this instant, ended the devil’s power, over the place or kingdom in which he was created. As soon as the whole of his outward, disordered kingdom was thus divided into a created heaven and earth, all was taken out of his hands, he was shut out of every thing, and he and all his host became poor prisoners in their lost kingdom, that could only wander about in chains of darkness, looking with impotent rage at the created heaven and earth, which was sprung up in their own place of habitation.
“6. Thus was this outward kingdom, of the whole extent of this world, taken out of the hands of Lucifer and his angels. All its darkness, disharmony, and disorder, was by the creation restored to a low resemblance of its first state, and put into that form of sun, stars, fire, air, light, water, and earth, in which we now see it.
“7. Into this world thus created out of the ruins of the kingdom of the fallen angels, was man introduced on the sixth day of the creation, to take his place as lord and prince of it; to have power over all outward things, to discover and manifest the wonders of this new created world, and to bring forth such an holy offspring, as might fill up the place of the fallen angels. And when certain periods of time had produced these great effects, then this whole frame was by the last purifying fire, to have been raised from its paradisaical state, into that first heavenly brightness and glory, in which it stood before the fall of Lucifer.