perdition and destruction: O love! love in a high degree to man:
For verily he took not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham
he took hold (Heb 2:16). Yet this is not all: In all probability
this Lord Jesus has ten times as much to do now he has undertaken
to be our Saviour, as he would have had, had he stepped over us
and taken hold on them.

(1.) He needed not to have stooped so low as to take flesh upon
him; theirs being a more noble nature.

(2.) Nor would he in all likelihood, have met with those contempts,
those scorns, those reproaches and undervaluings from them, as he
has all-along received in this his undertaking, and met with from
sinful flesh. For they were more noble than we, and would sooner
have perceived the design of grace, and so one would think more
readily have fallen in therewith, than [creatures in] such darkness
as we were, and still by sin are.

(3.) They would not have had those disadvantages as we, for that
they would not have had a tempter, a destroyer, so strong and
mighty as ours is. Alas! had God left us, and taken them, though
we should have been ever so full of envy against their salvation;
yet being but flesh, what could we have done to them to have laid
obstacles in the way of their faith and hope, as they can and do
in ours?

(4.) They, it may fairly be presumed, had they been taken, and we
left, and made partakers in our sted, while we had been shut out,
as they are, would not have put Christ so to it, now in heaven
(pray bear with the expression, because I want a better) as we by