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Care and Government of the moral Part of the World. It is one Thing to turn a State of Trial and Probation into a State of Re-. wards and Punishments, by dispensing Good. and Evil to every Man according to his Work; and another Thing to exercise Acts of Government fuitable to the State, and fubfervient. to the Ends of Creation. If God thinks fit to profper any Nation, or to afflict any People, he has a thousand Ways of doing it, without interfering with the Freedom and Liberty of one Man. Years of Plenty are a great Bleffing, but the Fruitfulness of the Season is no Restraint on you or me; it is a general Bleffing, but it makes no Distinction between Good or Evil. Plague and Pestilence are general Calamities, they may and ought to awaken all the World to a fober. Senfe of God and themfelves: But their Rage is not fo directed, as to touch the Sinners only; the Good perish with the Bad, and he that called both out of the World will foon make a Difference; though in the Sight of the World the End of both was taken to be Mifery. The fame holds true with refpect to private Perfons: God can correct them without breaking in upon the ordinary Course of his Providence. If a Man wants

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to be bowed down by Afflictions, Fevers and Agues, and all the Tribe of Distempers, ftand ready to obey the Order of Providence: But there is no Mark to know a Fever fo fent from another; there is no Appearance of the Execution of Judgment upon a Perfon fo vifited; the Phyfic may be sent, because it is wanted, but the Hand that adminifters it does not appear.

Thus much is faid to prevent Mistakes : But the forementioned Reasons remain ftill in force against the Expectations, which Men are too apt to raise, of some immediate Recompence to be bestowed on them by the Interpofition of Providence upon account of their Virtue and Goodness.

Let us now proceed to confider what Experience teaches in this Cafe. That Good and Evil are not difpenfed in this Life in Proportion to the Merits of Men, appears fo plainly to all Men of Sense and Reason, that the Fact, I think, has never been disputed. The World has never been without Complaints upon this Head. The Righteous in all Times have lamented their Cafe; their Hearts have been even ready to fail under the Oppreffion of the Ungodly. On the other Side,

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the Wicked, feeing their own Profperity, have been hardened, and grown fecure in their Iniquity, upon the foolish Presumption, that God regarded not them, nor their Doings. To abate these Prefumptions on one hand, to filence the Fears and Clamours on the other, has found Work for good and wife Men in all Ages; yet none of them called in question the Truth of the Cafe, though all condemned the perverse Use made on all Sides of this Administration of Providence. Becaufe Sentence, fays the Preacher, against an evil Work is not executed speedily, therefore the Heart of the Sons of Men is fully fet in them to do evil. That the Cafe was fo, he acknowledges: For all this I confidered in my Heart even to declare all this, that the Righteous and the Wife, and their Works, are in the Hand of God: No Man knoweth either Love or Hatred by all that is before them. All Things come alike to all; there is one Event to the Righteous, and to the Wicked; to the Good, and to the Clean, and to the Unclean; to him that facrificeth, and to him that facrificeth not: As is the Good, fo is the Sinner; and he that fweareth, as he that feareth an Oath. But this is indeed a very plain Thing, and needs not to

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be infifted on; we may leave it to every Man to judge for himself by what he can observe in the World, and he will foon find, that in fact God has not made this a Place for diftri

buting Rewards or Punishments, but that one Event happeneth alike to all.

Laftly, Let us inquire how far this Experience is confirmed by what the Scripture teaches us to expect.

There are fome Paffages of Holy Writ, which, at first hearing, and before they are duly weighed, may seem to promise more to the Righteous in this Life, than we have been able to find either Reafon or Experience to justify. Let us hear the Pfalmift: I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not Seen the Righteous forfaken, nor his Seed begging Bread. How! his Son Solomon faw a different Scene in his Days; then there were juft Men unto whom it happened according to the Work of the Wicked. Again, there were wicked Men to whom it happened according to the Work of the Righteous. In the Days of our Saviour and his Apostles, there were some Righteous in Ifrael, who begged their Bread by the Way-fide, and at the Doors of the Temple. Among thefe we find fome,

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who had Faith enough in the Son of God to be made whole of their Infirmities: An Evidence, I think, that they were not in a worse Condition than others, because they were worse Men. The Truth is, that this Paffage in the Pfalms relates not to our present Purpofe; it describes a general Cafe of Providence over good Men in providing them the Neceffaries of Life, whilst they endeavour to ferve God, but of a just Reward for them in this World it says nothing: The Seed of the Righteous, fays the Pfalmift, fhall not beg their Bread. Take it literally, and make the most of it, it will bear no Resemblance to a just Reward for their Goodness: For, if the Righteous and the Wicked were to be distinguished in this Life by temporal Prosperity and Adversity, we might expect to hear of much better Promises to the Good than this, That their Seed fhould not beg their Bread; we might expect to hear of Crowns and Scepters to be given them: But of this we hear nothing. As to the providential Care of God over the Righteous in fupplying their natural Wants, our Saviour has given us great Reason to expect it: Seek ye firft, fays he, the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness,

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