or ever did suffer, but was more or less a sinner before he was a sufferer; and consequently, that there is ground enough in every man to make God's infliction of the greatest evil upon him just; and yet I affirm, that a man's sin is not always the reason of his sufferings, though sinfulness be still the qualification of his person; but the reason of those must be fetched from some other cause. For the better understanding of which, we must observe, that God may, and sometimes actually does deal with men under a double capacity or relation, viz. 1. as an absolute lord; and, 2. as a judge or governor. The rule which he proceeds by as an absolute lord, is his sovereign will and pleasure; and the rule which he acts by as a judge, is his justice and his law. Now, though under the former notion God does not properly exercise or exert his justice, yet he cannot therefore be said to do any thing unjustly; it being one thing for God barely not to exercise an attribute in such or such a particular action, and another to oppose, or do any thing contrary to the said attribute. The former of which is usual, and fairly agreeable with the whole economy of his attributes; but the latter is impossible.

Accordingly, in the various dispensations befalling the sons of men, we find, how naturally prone the world has been all along to state the different usages of men's persons upon the difference of their deserts. As when Pilate mingled the Galileans' blood with their sacrifices, there were enough ready to conclude those poor Galileans sinners above all other Galileans, for their suffering such things; but our Saviour quickly reverses the sentence, and assures them that the consequence was by no means good, Luke xiii. 1,2,

And on the other hand, the Israelites, from the many miraculous works done for them, and blessings heaped upon them by the divine bounty, concluded themselves holier and more righteous than all the nations about them; but we find both Moses, in Deut. ix. and the Psalmist, in Psalm lxxviii. roundly telling them that there was no such thing, but that they were a rebellious, ungrateful, stiffnecked people from the very first; and, for ought appears from history to the contrary, have continued so ever since. And to proceed further, did not the righteous providence of God bring down most of the potentates of the eastern world under the feet of that monster of tyranny and idolatry, Nebuchadnezzar; and that while he was actually reigning in his sins with as high an hand as he did or could do over any of those poor kingdoms who had been conquered or enslaved by him? So that in the Song of the Three Children, (as it is called,) then the objects of his brutish fury, Azarias emphatically complains, that God had not only deserted his people, but delivered them into the hands of the most unjust and wicked king in all the world. These were the words, ver. 9, and this the character of that flagellum Dei, that scourge of nations, notable for nothing great or extraordinary recorded of him, but sin and success. In like manner, did not the same Providence make most of the crowns and sceptres of the earth bend to the Roman yokea? The greatness of which empire was certainly founded upon as much injustice, rapine, and violence, as could well be practised by men; though still couched and carried on under the highest pretence of justice

a See Dr. Arthur Duck's book de Usu et Authoritate Juris Civilis Romanorum.

and honour, (set off with the greatest shew of gravity besides,) even while the said pretences in the sight of the whole world were impudently outfaced by the quite contrary practices; as appears in particular from that scandalous case of the Mamertines, and the assistance they gave those thieves and murderers, against all the law of nations and humanity itself, only to serve a present interest against the Carthaginians. And lastly, what a torrent of success attended the Turks, till they had overrun most of the earth, and the whole Greek church and empire? And yet the notorious governing qualities which these barbarians acted and grew up by, both in war and peace, were the height of cruelty and treachery; qualities of all other the most abhorred by God and man, and such as we may be sure could never induce God to abandon so great a part of Christendom (which yet in his judgment he has actually done) to so base a people and so false a religion. And now, notwithstanding such flagrant examples of thriving impiety, carrying all before it, we see how apt the world is still to make Providence steer by man's merit. And as we have given instances of this in nations, so we want not the like in particular persons; amongst which we have not a more remarkable exemplification of the case now before us, than in the person of St. Paul, and the judgments the barbarians passed upon him, Acts xxviii. 4, 5, 6. For as soon as they saw the viper fastening upon his hand, they pronounced him a murderer; and presently again, as soon as he shook it off, and felt no hurt, they looked upon him as a god; that is, in a minute's time, from one not worthy to live, (as they had said,) they advanced him to the condition of one not able to die.

Thus we see how they declared their judgment of both these passages, and of one no doubt as wisely as the other. In like manner, is a man brought under any signal and unusual calamity? Why then to the question: Was it his own personal guilt, or that of his family, which consigned him over to it? or, in other words, Did the man himself sin, or his parents, that he was plundered, sequestered, imprisoned, and - at length sworn out of his estate and life? Much the like question, we know, was proposed to our Saviour himself, in John ix. 2, 3, and that upon the account of as great a misery befallen a man, as could be well incident to human nature. And the answer he gave it (stating the whole reason of the evil suffered upon the sole will of the inflicter, without the least regard to any guilt in the sufferer) stands upon record as an everlasting reprimand to all such queries and reflections. So that should Providence at any time strip a man of his estate, his honour, or high place, must this presently stamp him a reprobate, or castaway; or rather, according to the divine philosophy of our Saviour's forementioned answer, teach us, that God, who perfectly knew the temper and circumstances of the man, knew also, that a mean and a low condition would place him nearer to heaven, (as much a paradox as it may seem,) than the highest and most magnificent? Another man perhaps is snatched away by a sudden or untimely, a disastrous or ignominious death; but must I therefore pass sentence upon him out of Daniel or the Revelation, or charge him with some secret guilt, as the cause of it; as if a fever or an apoplexy were not sufficient, without the concurring plague and poison of a malicious tongue, to send a man packing out of this world; or as if

any death could be so violent, or distemper so mortal and malign, but that it may and does carry some into a better world, as well as others into a worse? But be the course of Providence never so unaccountable, and contrary to my notions, ought I to descant upon any act of it, while I am wholly ignorant of the purpose which directed it? Or shall I confess the ways of God to be unsearchable and past finding out, and at the same time attempt to give a reason of them, and so to the arrogance join the contradictions? Such methods certainly are equally senseless and irreligious.

But of all the examples producible of impudent and perverse judging, there can hardly be any one parallel to what passed upon the sufferings of the late king of blessed and glorious memory, king Charles I. whose genealogies of family guilt, besides personal, have been charged upon his royal head; as if he had come, not only to the throne, but also to the block by inheritance. But as that excellent prince was an eminent instance of the censorious venom of men's tongues in matters of this nature, so we need go no further for a proof of the falseness and fallaciousness of this rule of judging, than to the same royal martyr; for was there ever any prince more unfortunate, and yet ever any more virtuous? Who could have imagined, that so much true piety, so much innocence, so much justice, and tenderness of his subjects' lives and properties, so much temperance and restraint of himself in all the affluence and prosperities of a long-flourishing court, so much patience and submission to the hand of God in his sharpest adversities, and, in a word, such an union of all moral perfections as scarce ever met in