GODS GOODNESS I'M'DIG kTCD 585 spaces : we see in a tube or telescope. a marvelous likeness of the moon to this él i:th, with shade's, inequalities, &c. Multitudes of stars, in the, galaxy and elsewhere, are discernible in the telescope, which without it no eye can see : little know we how far the world extençleth itself, beyond all these stars and sun whichwe can see; or whether there be millions of the like beyond our sight. The Scriptúre telleth us ofinnumerable angels, holy and glorious spirits that attend Christ in the service of this lower world. No Scrip- ture telleth us whether all the glorious or blessed spirits be thus employed as angels.for mankind, or whether ten thousand thou- sandfold more be otherwise employed. No Scripture or reason telleth whether sun or moon, star and intermediate ether, be in- habited or not. It is. temerity to affirm that they are. And it ,is a great temerity to say that they are not. It is lawful to dpubt, and it is lawful to conjecture that it is most probable they are, considering, L That life is the excellency of the creation, and the deadest parts are the basest. 2. That the earth, and water, and air, are full ofmen, beasts, fishes, birds, worms, flies, &c. 3. That it is incredible to him that looketh upward, that sun, moon, stars, and ether, are baser regions than this dirty earth; and consequent- ly that they are baser as ,to their use and inhabitants. These thoughts of an uncertain thing are lawful to him that will go no further than he bath evidence, and not make an uncertain thing seem certain ; and certain it is that spirits are innumerable. And though some of these have fallen to be devils, God hath not told us how many; nor can we know that it is one to a million of hap- pier creatures. And can that .man, 'then, who is offended with God, not for damning a very few, but for the proportion of the damned in comparison of others, tell what he saith ? Can he say, if God had cast off all this earth, that it had been more than one of a million of millions as to the whole creation? It is true I can- not tell the number : but it is as true that when our foundation is sure, that God is infinitely wise and good, it is madness to accuse him as unwise, or evil, or cruel, for that which we must confess we do not know; and to talk against him in the dark. Stay till you see who dwelleth in all the superior regions, and then take yourselves for fitter discerners ofyour Maker's ways. Quest. 16. ' Are you well acquainted with the nature and de- grees of the futuremiseries which tempt you to think that God is cruel ?' They are not all of one degree-; what if much of them be still voluntary to the miserable souls ? The devils who are now tormented in hell, are yet inhabitants of the air, and exercis- ed in voluntary acts of malice. I take it to be no small degree of hell which the ungodly choose, and love, and possess among us vos.. II. 74
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