Moses his choice with his eye fixed upon Heaven, discovering the happy condition of…

Yet we must all take heed of giving offence, for though offences will come, yet woe to them by whom they come: Howsoever there fall out offences, through the sinful distempers of mens hearts, let not the Ordinance of God be challenged as the cause of these offences. Joining in Church-fellowship is a special Ordinance of God, to maintain love and peace amongst his people, yet by the abuse of it many times, divisions and dissentions are stronger, and more bitter in the Church, then elsewhere; let not Gods Ordinance be accused as the cause of it, nor declined for this, but let the wickedness of mens hearts be accused, let us seek to have it purged.

Yet we must all take heed of giving offence, for though offences will come, yet wo to them by whom they come: Howsoever there fall out offences, through the sinful distempers of mens hearts, let not the Ordinance of God be challenged as the cause of these offences. Joyning in Church-fellowship is a special Ordinance of God, to maintain love and peace amongst his people, yet by the abuse of it many times, divisions and dissentions are stronger, and more bitter in the Church, then elsewhere; let not Gods Ordinance be accused as the cause of it, nor declined for this, but let the wickedness of mens hearts be accused, let us seek to have it purged.

Christ came into the world to dissolve the works of the Devil, and yet the Devil never more raged, then in Christs time, and a while after; We never read of men so possessed of the Devil before Christ came, as they were then; Shall we therefore accuse Christ for bringing the Devil into the world, for being the cause of mens being possessed of the Devil? Those who thus reason against the Ordinance of Christ, because of this evil that falls out by accident upon it, may as well, yea, and certainly would as readily reason against Christ, if they lived in his time, because of such possession of Devils, which never was so before he came, as it was then; but as the true reason why the Devil thus prevailed upon Christs coming, was the just judgement of God against men for contemning and rejecting Christ, who came amongst them: so it is here the judgement of God for the evil of mens hearts in abusing such a blessed Ordinance of love and peace.