actions, but their own wishes. They desire, that every affliction of their adversary were sent by God in hatred, and therefore they will vote it so in their apprehensions. When a man's professed enemy is his judge, whatsoever his cause is, you may foresee the sentence.

The will has prejudged the case, before ever it comes to the understanding; and when there is any malicious averseness in that, as it is seldom but there is, judgment cannot be committed to a worse hand. For the will is both a blind and a commanding faculty, and therefore has the two worst of qualities in conjunction, not to discern, and yet to domineer. And certainly, when this interprets providences, they cannot but be direful; and he who is censured, very unhappy, when God must be angry with him as often as his adversary is pleased to be malicious.

There is scarce any thing in the world so entirely bad, but may be much qualified by a fair acceptance; and nothing so absolutely good, but may be detorted and soiled at least by a malign interpreter. What can be more beautiful, perfect, and equal, than the ways and works of the omnipotent, all-wise God? And yet what more harsh, unequal, and destructive, when they are in the dispensing of men, and distributed to each man by his enemy! They are like the rain, which falls pure from heaven, but arriving to the earth, turns into mud. Even the divine dealings are not privileged from the prejudices of malice; but God's works are like his words, liable to be wrested: malice is the bias of the soul, that sways it in all its operations.

To judge properly is to apply a rule, and a mind possessed with malice is under great disturbances;

so that a malicious person is as fit and able to make a right judgment of things, as a shaking hand to take exact measures; or a person that is drunk, to study the mathematics, and to resolve problems.

And when the decrees of Heaven shall be examined by the partiality of perverse, malicious, and discontented persons, we must expect nothing else, but the ugly issues of passion, darkness, and confusion.

And thus I have shewn the principles inducing men to pass false and uncomely sentences upon God's judgments. For the first inevitable foundation of this erroneous judging, is the uncertainty of the rule by which they judge: but supposing the rule were certain, yet there follows weakness in the understanding attended with rashness, that makes it unable to apply the rule. And lastly, though both the rule were certain, and the understanding apprehensive and steady; yet there being malice in the will to pervert the intellect in its sentencing God's judgments, it follows, that we have always almost false and deformed reports made concerning God's dealings with men. Whence it is, that there never happens any calamity, but the suffering is by this redoubled; men suffering by the uncharitableness, God by the falseness of the censure.

And thus much for the first proposition.

II. I proceed now to the second, viz. That not always the sin or merit of the person afflicted, but the will of God that afflicts, is sometimes the sole, but always the sufficient reason of the affliction.

That this is so, is apparent from several scriptures; and to produce one instead of all, see the whole series of Job's sufferings resolved into this,

and that by the impartial determination of God himself. His friends charged him sometimes with the sins of his life, sometimes with the hypocrisy of his heart; but still they rested upon this as a certain maxim, that God never smites, but for sin; which was the sum of all their discourses. But God confutes this strange divinity, declaring withal his severe anger against them, Job xlii. 7, because they had not said that which was right of him, as his servant Job had. So that we have the testimony of the Father in the Old Testament, ratified by the testimony of the Son in the New, that God does not always afflict for sin.

And here we must observe a necessary distinction between punishments and afflictions. Punishment is properly the evil of sufferance for the evil of sin : and therefore is always founded in the merit of some precedent sin, inherent or imputed. But affliction is only God's bringing the evil of pain upon the creature, whatsoever the cause may be for which he does it. So that we see, though every punishment include in it affliction, yet every affliction is not convertibly a punishment.

Now, since this may seem to grate hard upon human nature, which cannot but love itself; I shall clear this proceeding of God from injustice, upon

these reasons.

1. The first shall be drawn from his absolute, unaccountable dominion and sovereignty over the creature. God is an absolute lord over all things: and we know, even in earthly kingdoms, as here in ours, it is a received maxim in the law, regem nec errare posse, nec cuiquam injuriam facere. God has as much power over his laws, as over his subjects; and

he that has a right over all things can do no injury: and he that cannot go against a law, can do no wrong; as he that cannot tread out of his own land, can commit no trespass. So that the creature, upon no suffering whatsoever, can implead his Maker. He that can do what he will, may do what he will: for the supreme law is the will of the supreme power.

Let not therefore any think, that God must fetch a licence for his actings from our merit or demerit. Sic volo, sic jubeo, howsoever tyrannical and intolerable from men, yet, uttered by God, is the greatest reason in the world. As God's truth is the reason of our faith, so his will is the reason into which we must resolve our obedience. Those who can stand upon terms with God, and question and arraign his proceedings, manifest but low and unworthy thoughts of the infinite, essential majesty of his nature, and too arrogant apprehensions of their own.

Do we not see, amongst ourselves, the owner use his cattle as he pleases, employ them as he thinks fit, keep what he will alive, kill what he will, and in what manner he will; and all this without any injury to them, only by virtue of a grant and charter from both his and their Maker? And yet they are his fellow-creatures, and the distance between them is not considerable; neither is the good of man the utmost end of these creatures, which he makes such a free use of. What shall we then say of the power of God himself to dispose of men? little, finite, obnoxious things of his own making? Is not his right over them inconceivably greater? May he not, as an absolute monarch, pull down whom he pleases, and whom he pleases set up? And who can tax the reason of his proceeding in all this?

That which has its being only for another, may be used, preserved, destroyed, as may best advance that thing, to which, both in being and well-being, it is subservient. Were I as free from sin as Adam in his innocence, and had never in the least provoked the curse of the law, and God should be pleased to smite me with all the pains and plagues that torture the body, and should divest me of all livelihood, and reduce me to hunger, nakedness, and the rage and scorn of my enemies, and fill my mind with as much horror and despair as could consist with a being, and after that throw me into eternal flames; I might say indeed, I was ruined, but not injured: neither could I therefore be charged as sinful, because God is pleased to deal with me as if I were. And these dealings of God, if you would give them their right and proper name, cannot be called cruel, but strange; unusual indeed, but not unrighteous. Now this consideration may regulate the behaviour of one man to another, and of all towards God: for if the dealings of God do not presuppose the merit of our sin, then we cannot charge any man as sinful, because he suffers. And then also, since God has an absolute dominion, he, who suffers, cannot charge God, who afflicts, as unjust; for God's laws are intended for the rule of our actions, not his own.

2. The second reason may be drawn from the essential equity of God's nature. The practice of justice, on man's part, is indeed at the free choice of his will; but God's is fixed in the necessity of his being. And though God cannot be subject to any positive law, as springing from the sole determination of his own will, yet his nature is to him instead of a law that is to say, as the creature is, by a law;