The Christians converse with God, or, The insufficiency and uncertainty of human friendship and…

3. Hereby also they shall better understand what they would have been, if God had le•t them to themselves, that so they may be thankful for grace received, and may not boast themselves against ⟨p. 9⟩the miserable world, as if they had made themselves to differ, and had not received all that grace by which they excel the common sort: when our falls have hu•t us and shamed us, we shall know to whom we must be beholden to support us.

4. Christ would permit his Disciples thus far to forsake him, because he would have no support from man, in his sufferings for man: This was part of his voluntary humiliation, to •e deprived of all earthly comforts, and to be•r affliction even from those few, that b•t lately were his faithful servants: that men dealing like men, and sinners, while he was doing like God, and as a Saviour, no man might challenge to himself the honour of contributing to the Redemption of the world, so much as by encouraging the Redeemer.

5. Christ did permit the Faith and courage of his Disciples thus far to fail, that their witness to him might be of the greater credit and authority, when his actual Resurrection and the Communication of the Spirit should compel them to believe: when all their doubts were dissipated, they that had doubted themselves, and yet were constrained to believe, wo•ld be received as the most impartial ⟨p. 10⟩