1. Are Believers now Gods Children? It may then teach us what a dangerous thing it is for any to go about to do them any injury or wrong The ignorant world seeing the Saints of God so low and despicable, to have so few friends here below to take part with them, and to be so poor and disregarded among men; they are hereupon ready to think they may do their pleasure against them, there is no danger is like to a •ise upon it, but they abide secure, though they slander, revile, persecute, and do them all manner of imaginable wrong: They have none to take in with them, none to plead their Cause for them, none to stand up in their defence: And being thus animated, with what boldness, virulency and spite do they prosecute them? But they grievously mistake themselves, and shall, in Gods time, find that they have so done to their cost. God will not suffer his own dear Children to be abused, and see that abuse to go free, and escape unpunished: Whosoever they be, though armed with the greatest worldly power, yet they ⟨p. 35⟩had better take a Bear by the tooth, a Lyon by the Paw, than meddle with the least, meanest, obscurest and most seeming contemptible Saint of Christ, to do him any the least injury. If an earthly Father see his Child abused or misused by a stranger, how will his fatherly affection stir, his bowels boil, and put him upon it to vindicate that wrong? How much more will God do so for his Children, who are to him as the apple of his eye, and to whose mercies the bowels of most affectionate Parents are not to to be compared? God may possibly seem to wink and keep silence for the present, and men may take encouragement therefrom to vent their spite and malice, but he will not do so always, but a time shall come, and that quickly, when he will call them to an account for all, and a dreadful account it will be when it comes: God doth many times in this world testify to his displeasure upon this very account, and there are several remarkable instances in Scripture of his severity upon the malicious adversaries of his Saints, enough to put a dread upon any such, would they but consider of it. Do Korah and his accomplices arise up against Moses and Adron• They shall not die as other men, but a new work shall be done, the earth with her opened mouth shall swallow them up quick, and they shall go down alive into the pit.
1. Are Believers now Gods Children? It may then teach us what a dangerous thing it is for any to go about to do them any injury or wrong The ignorant world seeing the Saints of God so low and despicable, to have so few friends here below to take part with them, and to be so poor and disregarded among men; they are hereupon ready to think they may do their pleasure against them, there is no danger is like to a •ise upon it, but they abide secure, though they slander, revile, persecute, and do them all manner of imaginable wrong: They have none to take in with them, none to plead their Cause for them, none to stand up in their defence: And being thus animated, with what boldness, virulency and spite do they prosecute them? But they grievously mistake themselves, and shall, in Gods time, find that they have so done to their cost. God will not suffer his own dear Children to be abused, and see that abuse to go free, and escape unpunished: Whosoever they be, though armed with the greatest worldly power, yet they ⟨p. 35⟩had better take a Bear by the tooth, a Lyon by the Paw, than meddle with the least, meanest, obscurest and most seeming contemptible Saint of Christ, to do him any the least injury. If an earthly Father see his Child abused or misused by a stranger, how will his fatherly affection stir, his bowels boile, and put him upon it to vindicate that wrong? How much more will God do so for his Children, who are to him as the apple of his eye, and to whose mercys the bowels of most affectionate Parents are not to to be compared? God may possibly seem to wink and keep silence for the present, and men may take encouragement therefrom to vent their spite and malice, but he will not do so alwayes, but a time shall come, and that quickly, when he will call them to an account for all, and a dreadful account it will be when it comes: God doth many times in this world testifie to his displeasure upon this very account, and there are several remarkable instances in Scripture of his severity upon the malicious adversaries of his Saints, enough to put a dread upon any such, would they but consider of it. Do Korah and his accomplices arise up against Moses and Adron• They shall not dy as other men, but a new work shall be done, the earth with her opened mouth shall swallow them up quick, and they shall go down alive into the pit.
