are in the World either the Disorders of Nature or the Wickedness of Men By the Disorders of Nature I mean unseasonable Weather Earthquakes excessive Heat or Cold great Droughts or immoderate Rains Thunders Lightnings Storms and Tempests which occasion Famines and Plagues great Sickness or a great Mortality these may very reasonably be attributed to the more immediate Hand of God who directs and governs Nature but besides that in such Cases the visible Corruption of Mankind justifies such Severities how rarely do these happen and how few suffer by them in comparison with those many and constant Evils which the wickedness of men every day bring upon themselves and others For most of the other Evils and Calamities of life are visibly owing to mens Sins Bodily Sickness sharp and painful Distempers which shorten mens lives or make them miserable are the common effects of Intemperance Luxury or Wantonness Children inherit the Diseases of their Parents and come into the World only to cry and die or to struggle some few years in the very Kingdom and Territories of Death and to languish under those mortal Wounds which they received with the first beginnings of life Another great evil is Poverty which many men bring upon themselves by Idleness or Prodigality and some expensive Vices It is not in every man's power by the greatest Prudence and Industry to make himself rich for time and chance happeneth to them all but in ordinary Cases Prudence and Industry joined with a religious regard for God and his Providence will preserve a man from the pressing Wants and Necessities of Poverty Others who do not make themselves poor by their own Sins are many times reduced to great poverty by the Sins of other men by Injustice and Oppression and Violence by the Miseries and Calamities of War which brings a thousand Evils with it which makes many helpless Widows and Orphans deprives men of their Patrons and Benefactors drives others from their plentiful Fortunes to seek their Bread in a strange Land plunders Poor and Rich lays a flourishing Countrey desolate puts a stop to Trade makes Provisions dear and leaves no work for the Poor Some others are reduced to Poverty more immediately by the Providence of God without their own fault Those who have no other support but their daily labour are quickly pinched by a long and Expensive Sickness or by the Infirmities of Age or by the loss of their Eyes or Hands or Legs others are undone by Fire or Shipwrecks or the various Accidents of Trade which the most wary and cautious men cannot escape but besides that there are few of these in comparison with the throngs and crowds of Idle Prodigal Self-made Poor God has made provision for all such Cases that no man shall suffer extreme want by commanding the Rich especially to supply the want of such Poor who are properly God's Poor or the Poor of God's making and commanding this under the penalty of their Eternal Salvation and the forfeiture of their own Estates if they prove unjust and unfaithful Stewards So that though God makes some men poor it is the fault of other men if they suffer want The poverty they suffer is owing to the Providence of God the wants and miseries they suffer are owing to the Sins to the Uncharitableness of Men For though the World be unequally divided of which more presently yet there is enough to supply the wants of all the Creatures that are in it and God never intended that any of his Creatures should want necessaries that one man's plenty and abundance should cause another man to starve And thus it is in most of the other miseries of life it is the sin and the folly of Mankind which makes them miserable which is so obvious to every one who will consider it that I need not expatiate on every particular I believe there is no man but will confess that were all men good and vertuous this World would be a very happy place and if the practice of moral and sociable Vertues would make Mankind happy it is no hard matter to guess what it is that disturbs the Peace and Happiness of the World 2dly Let us now consider how unreasonable it is to reproach the Divine Providence with those Evils and Miseries which Mankind bring upon themselves And laying down this as a Principle that most men make themselves miserable it is very easy to defend and justify the Goodness of Providence For these Evils which men complain of are not justly chargeable upon Providence and therefore are un unreasonable Objection against Providence God does not bring these Evils upon Mankind but men bring them upon themselves Supposing the nature of things and the nature of man to be what they now are and that men lived just as they now do there must be the same Miseries in the World that there now are though there were no Providence Though God did not interpose in the government of the World yet Intemperance Luxury and Lust would destroy mens health Sloth and Prodigality and expensive Vices would make men poor Pride Ambition and Revenge would make Quarrels raise Wars and bring all the Calamities of War upon the World if there were no Providence thus it must be for excessive eating and drinking will oppress Nature and those who will take no honest pains to get Money or will spend what they have upon their lusts must be poor and those who will quarrel and fight must take what follows these evils are not owing to Providence because Providence does not bring them no more than Providence makes men wicked Men make themselves wicked and wickedness makes them miserable and we may as well charge the Providence of God with all the wickedness of men as with those miseries which their own wickedness brings upon them Now since most of those evils which are in the World are not justly chargeable upon Providence the Goodness of God is very visible in those very Evils and Calamities which Mankind suffer For 1. God has in ordinary Cases put it into every man's power to preserve himself from most of the greatest evils and miseries of life even from all those which men bring upon themselves by their own sins What could be done more than this for a reasonable Creature to make it his own choice and to put it into his own power whether he will be happy or miserable God has not only in his Laws but in the nature of things set before us life and death happiness and misery All men see what the visible and natural punishments of Sin are and have a natural aversion to those evils and may avoid them if they will this is a plain proof not only of the Holiness of Providence as I observed before in deterring men from sin by those natural evils which attend it but also of the Goodness of Providence by shewing men a plain and natural method how to avoid the miseries of life and to make themselves easy and
than to command every thing that is Holy and to forbid all kinds and degrees of Wickedness and to encourage the practice of Vertue and to discourage all Wicked practices as much as the Wisdom of Government and the freedom of human Actions will allow That God does all this wherein the Holiness of Government consists I know no man that denies As wicked as Mankind is it is not for want of holy and just and good Laws The law of the Lord is an undefiled law converting the soul the testimony of the Lord is sure and giveth wisdom unto the simple the statutes of the Lord are right and rejoyce the heart the commandment of the Lord is pure and giveth light unto the eyes The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth for ever the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether 19. Psal. 7 8 9. The great complaint is That the Laws of God are too Holy for the Corrupt state of this World and most men think to excuse their Wickedness by the degeneracy of human Nature and the too great Purity and Perfection of the Divine Laws which they have no Ability to perform Now the Holiness of God's Laws are an undeniable Argument of the Holiness of his Providence and Government whether we consider these Laws as a copy of his Nature or a declaration of his Will much more if we consider them both as his Nature and his Will as all Moral Laws which have an eternal and necessary Goodness in them are for the Divine Nature and Will must be the rule and measure of his Providence and Government unless he Govern the World contrary to his own Nature and Will Nay Laws themselves are not only the Rule of Obdience to Subjects but of Government to the Prince and it is universally acknowledged to be as great a miscarriage in a Prince not to Govern by his own Laws as it is in Subjects not to obey them Princes may be guilty of such miscarriages but God can't and therefore the Laws he gives to us are the Rules of his own Providence and then the Holiness of his Laws prove that his Government and Providence must be very Holy And indeed we have very visible and sensible proofs of this in that care he takes to encourage the Practice of Vertue and to discourage Wickedness This he has done by those great Promises which he has made to the Observation of his Laws and by those terrible Threatnings which he has denounc'd against the breach of them both in this World and in the World to come But this is not what I mean for men can despise both Promises and Threatnings if they do not see the Execution of them and the Promises and Threatnings of the other World which are much the most considerable are out of sight and do not so much affect Bad men and that which is most proper for us to consider here is how the external Administrations of Providence encourage Vertue and discourage Wickedness and Vice Now those who believe that all the Miseries that are in the World are the effects or rewards of Sin as all men must do who believe the Scripture nay as all men must do who believe that a Just and Good God governs the World must confess that the Divine Providence has done abundantly enough to discourage Wickedness For it is visible enough how many Miserie 's there are in the World So many and so great as are commonly thought a reproach to Providence but if they be the just recompence of Sin they are only an Argument of the Justice and Holiness of Providence If we believe the Scripture Mortality and Death and consequently all those Infirmities and Decays of Nature all those Pains and Sicknesses and Diseases which are not the effect of our own Sins or which we do not inherit from our more immediate Parents as an entail of their Sins are owing to the Sin of Adam which brought Death upon himself and all his Posterity and such a curse upon the earth as has entail'd Labour and Sorrow on us As for many other Miseries and Calamities of life they are visibly owing to our own or to other mens Sins Such as Want and Poverty Infamy and Reproach Seditions and Tumults violent Changes and Revolutions of Government and all the Miseries and Desolations of War Take a survey in your thoughts of all the several sorts of Miseries which are in the World and tell me what place they could find here by what possible means they could enter into the World were Sin banished out of it What Miseries could disturb Human life were all men Just and Honest and Charitable did they love one another as themselves Perfect Vertue is not only an innocent and harmless but a very beneficial thing it does no hurt but all the good it can both to it self and others and when there is nothing to hurt us neither within nor without we can suffer no hurt And is not this a sufficient proof of the Holiness of Providence that God has so ordered the nature of things and the circumstances of our life in this World that if men will be Wicked they shall be Miserable Can any thing in this World more discourage men from Sin or make them more zealous to reform themselves and the rest of Mankind than so many daily and sensible proofs that there is no expectation of a secure state of rest and happiness while either they themselves or other men with whom they must of necessity converse or have something to do are Wicked For you must remember that I am not now a vindicating the Justice but the Holiness of Providence and therefore it is no Objection against what I have now said That many times vertuous and innocent men suffer very greatly by the Violence and Injustice of the wicked Tho this may be an Objection against the Justice of Providence which I have already accounted for yet it is no Objection against the Holiness of Providence but a great justification of it for the more effectual care God has taken to give all mankind an abhorrence of all Wickedness both in themselves and others the more undeniable proof it is of the Holiness of God's Government and this is more effectually done by the evils which we suffer from other mens wickedness than from our own Men who are very favourable to their own Vices when they feel the Pleasures and Advantages of them learn to hate to condemn to punish them by feeling what they suffer from other mens sins When they lose their own Estates by Injustice and Violence or their Good Names by Reproaches and Defamations or are injur'd in the Chastity of their Wives and Daughters by other mens Lusts this gives them a truer sense of the evil of Injustice Defamation and Lust and makes them condemn these Vices in themselves how well soever they love them This is the foundation of Human Government which keeps Mankind in order and lays great Restraints upon
c. destroy the Ease and Security of Life and the Freedom and Pleasure of Conversation without which all the other Pleasures of Life are very tastless And here I cannot but bewail the Folly and Distraction of Mankind who are fond of Life and impatiently thirst after Happiness but will not suffer either themselves or others to live and to be happy Who bite and devour each other and by their ungoverned Passions raise such Hurricanes in the World that there is no Ease or Rest or Happiness to be found but in a Grave or in a Charnel-house Where the wicked cease from troubling and where the weary be at rest where the prisoners rest together they hear not the voice of the oppressor the small and great are there and the servant is free from his master 3. Job 17 18 19. Did men consider what it is to live and to be happy it would convince them that there is nothing in this World worth purchasing with Eternal Discontents Envyings Emulations Jealousies Fears with doing all the Mischiefs and Injuries we can and with suffering all the Injuries which others can do nay indeed it is wonderful to me that mens own sense and feeling if they will not be at the pains to reason the matter does not convince them of this To live is not merely to be but to be happy and to be happy does not signify merely to have but to enjoy and to enjoy requires an easy serene undisturbed mind which can relish what it has and extract its true pleasure and satisfaction The security of Life the easiness and freedom of Conversation when we fear no Spies upon our Words and Actions no Malicious Eye no Slandering Tongue when our Lives are spent in the exchange of good Offices in the Endearments and Caresses of Friendship or at least in mutual Civilities and Respects this is to live and to be happy A very little of what is external will make such a state as this happy which all the Power and all the Riches of the World cannot do when to get or keep it divides the Hearts and the Interests of men ferments their Passions destroys Friendships and all mutual Trust and Confidence cantons and crumbles Human Societies into Parties and Factions and animates them with a bitter Zeal and Rage to reproach and vilify supplant and undermine each other if this be to be happy or the way to Happiness in this World it is time to seek for Happiness out of it 2dly And yet this is no reason for a wise and good man to despise or abhor life much less to force his passage out of this World There is no difficulty in persuading the generality of Mankind to live notwithstanding all the Troubles and Calamities they meet with The love of life is natural and strong and reconciles men to great Miseries before they desire that death should ease them Self-murther is so unnatural a Sin that it is now-a-days thought reason enough to prove any man distracted we have too many sad Examples what a disturbed Imagination will do if that must pass for Natural Distraction but we seldom or never hear that mere external Sufferings how severe soever tempt men to kill themselves The Stoicks themselves whose Principle it was to break their Prison when they found themselves uneasy very rarely put it into practise Nature was too strong for their Philosophy and though their Philosophy allowed them to die when they pleased Nature taught them to live as long as they could and we see that they seldom thought themselves miserable enough to die There is no danger then of frightning men out of this World by the Troubles and Calamities of it that I need not concern my self with such fears but yet without contradicting Solomon to vindicate the Providence of God and to support and encourage Good men I shall briefly shew you That it is very desirable for a Good man to live on and that a Wise and Good man may live very happily notwithstanding all the Troubles and Difficulties which he may and sometimes must encounter in this World For Difficulties are a glorious Scene of Vertue and such a Vertue as can conquer Difficulties has its Rewards its Pleasures and Satisfactions even in this Life It is very necessary that good men should live in very bad times not only to reprieve a wicked World that God may not utterly destroy it as he once did in the days of Noah when all Flesh had corrupted its ways but also to season Human Conversation to give check to Wickedness and to revive the practice of Vertue by some great and bright Examples and to redress those Violences and Injuries which are done under the Sun at least to struggle and contend with a Corrupt Age which will put some stop to the growing Evil and scatter such Seeds of Vertue as will spring up in time It is an Argument of God's care of the World that Antidotes grow in the neighbourhood of Poisons that the most Degenerate Ages have some excellent men who seem to be made on purpose for such a time to stem the torrent and to give some ease to the Miseries of Mankind And would it become such men when the World so much needs them to get out of it if they could to chuse the quiet and silent Retirements of Woods and Deserts or of the Grave to avoid the trouble of serving God or doing good to Men Great Minds cannot do this Vertue is made for Difficulties and grows stronger and brighter for such Trials it lays a mighty obligation on Mankind to serve the Publick good with labour and danger to purchase the Ease and Liberty and Security of their Countrey at the price of their own Ease and the utmost hazard of their Lives and Fortunes to oppose a hardened and laborious and unwearied Vertue against Zeal and Faction and not like Issachar to crouch between two Burthens and cry rest is good And it is a mighty pleasure to a Vertuous mind to feel its own strength to contend with Difficulties as far as Vertue and Prudence directs with an unbroken mind it is always pleasant to do good but yet it has the sweeter relish the dearer we pay for it This is a Pleasure above all the Ease and Luxury of the World it not only sweetens all the Troubles of Life but turns them into Triumphs to endeavour to bear up a sinking World though he should at last be crush'd in the Ruins of it will make the very Ruins he sinks under an Illustrious Monument of his Vertue To do all that a Wise and Good man ought to do without regard to his own Ease to save a Sinking Church and State will make him fall with pleasure and perpetuate his Memory with Honour for in spight of Envy and Detraction Vertue will always be honourable in the Grave But I cannot enlarge on these things and therefore shall give you the result of all I have said in two or three Observations 1. That
happy Let the most Sceptical Objector against Providence consider with himself what God could have done more to prevent the miseries of Mankind without changing the nature of man or the nature of things To have laid a necessity upon man that he should never chuse nor do any thing which will bring these evils on him had been to change his nature to destroy the free exercise of his Reason and the liberty of choice and yet men cannot live as they do and escape these miseries unless all Nature be changed We must have other kind of Bodies than we have or our Meat and Drink must have other vertues and qualities to bear the disorders and excesses of intemperance and lust without feeling the inconveniences of it Fire must not burn nor Water drown if Wine must not inflame nor a flood of indigested Liquors extinguish the vital heat The whole World must be a Paradise and bring forth fruit of it self and all things must be possessed in common or the idle slothful prodigal Sinners must be poor Our Bodies must be invulnerable and immortal or there must be no instruments of death in the World or men who quarrel will fight and kill one another It is impossible as the World now is to separate sin and misery but men may avoid misery if they please And that is a very good World and a good God that made such a World and a good Providence which governs the World wherein men may make themselves happy if they will 2dly Besides this the Goodness of Providence is seen in hindering and preventing a great many more evils and miseries which the sins and lusts of men would bring upon the World were they not under the restraints and government of Providence No man doubts but there might be a great deal more evil and misery in the World than there is nor that many bad men are inclined to do a great deal more hurt than they do what is it then after all that makes the World so tolerable a place If this be owing to the Providence of God it is a great argument of his Goodness that he will not suffer foolish Sinners to make themselves and others so miserable as they would that as many furious Phaetons as there are in the World it is not yet all in flames but the Moral as well as the Natural World has its Temperate as well as Torrid Zones and what shall we attribute this to if we do not attibute it to Providence To what else can we ascribe our deliverance from those unseen Snares which were laid for us and which we knew nothing of till we had escaped nay which it may be we know nothing of to this day how many wicked Designs prove abortive how many secret Plots are discovered when ripe for execution how often does God put a hook into the nostrils of the proudest Tyrants and by some cross Accidents or by weak and contemptible means breaks their Power and humbles them to the dust Sacred and Profane Histories are full of such Examples which can be attributed to nothing else but a Divine Providence which sets bounds to the Waves of the Sea and to the Rage and Pride of men The Scripture teaches us to ascribe our deliverance from all the evils we escape as well as all the good we enjoy to a Divine Providence and then we must acknowledge that the Divine Providence prevents all that evil which bad men would do but can't and who knows how much this is who knows how much evil bad men would do had they no restraint that we have much more reason to adore the Divine Goodness for restraining the Lusts and Passions of men which prevents an universal deluge of misery than complain that he suffers so many miseries to afflict the World 3dly Especially if we consider in the next place That God permits bad men to do no more hurt and mischief than what he over-rules to wise and good purposes For God many times serves the wise ends of his Providence by the wickedness of men to punish the wicked and to chastise the good to exercise the Graces and Vertues of good men or to give terrible Examples of his Vengeance on the wicked and all this how severe soever it may be proves the Goodness of Providence because it is for the general good of the World that bad men should be punished suppressed destroyed and that good men should be made better and become great and eminent Examples of Faith and Patience Whatever evils and miseries there are in the World if there be no more than the good government of the World requires if no man suffers any more than what he deserves or than what will do himself good if he wisely improves it or will do others good if they will either take warning by his Sufferings or imitate his Vertues all this is not only reconcilable with the Goodness of Providence but is an eminent instance of it for to do good is an expression of Goodness though the ways of doing it may be very severe This is a sufficient justification of Providence even as to those evils which God himself immediately inflicts upon the World that he inflicts no more nor greater evils than what are for the good government of the World as I have observed before but it is much more so with reference to those evils which men bring upon themselves for is it not wonderful Goodness in God to defend us from our selves to qualify the malignity of our own sins to suffer us to do our selves no more hurt than what he can turn into great good to us if we consider our ways and learn wisdom by the things which we suffer So to restrain bad men that they shall hurt no body but those whom God thinks fit to punish or to correct or to exercise with some severities and that they shall do no more hurt nor hurt any longer than the Divine Wisdom sees useful to these ends Let us then briefly review this Objection and Answer and setting aside the consideration of God and his Providence let us suppose it to be the case of a Father And I hope what we our selves would allow to be a reasonable defence of earthly Parents will be thought a good justification of God and his Providence Suppose then a Father has several Children whom he providees very bountifully for and sends them abroad into the World in such hopeful circumstances that if they will be frugal diligent and vertuous they may live happily and increase their Fortunes Should such Children turn Prodigals and waste their Estates in rioting and luxury destroy their health and suffer all the miseries of sickness and poverty would any man blame their good Father for this and would not such a good man think himself much injured should he be accused of unkindness and severity to his Children only because after all the kindness he could show them they have made themselves miserable especially if we suppose