General causes, are either supernatural, or natural.  “Supernatural are from God and his angels, or by God’s permission from the devil” and his ministers.  That God himself is a cause for the punishment of sin, and satisfaction of his justice, many examples and testimonies of holy Scriptures make evident unto us, Ps. cvii, 17.  “Foolish men are plagued for their offence, and by reason of their wickedness.”  Gehazi was stricken with leprosy, 2 Reg. v. 27.  Jehoram with dysentery and flux, and great diseases of the bowels, 2 Chron. xxi. 15.  David plagued for numbering his people, 1 Par. 21.  Sodom and Gomorrah swallowed up.  And this disease is peculiarly specified, Psalm cxxvii. 12.  “He brought down their heart through heaviness.”  Deut. xxviii. 28.  “He struck them with madness, blindness, and astonishment of heart.” [1100]"An evil spirit was sent by the Lord upon Saul, to vex him.” [1101]Nebuchadnezzar did eat grass like an ox, and his “heart was made like the beasts of the field.”  Heathen stories are full of such punishments.  Lycurgus, because he cut down the vines in the country, was by Bacchus driven into madness:  so was Pentheus and his mother Agave for neglecting their sacrifice. [1102]Censor Fulvius ran mad for untiling Juno’s temple, to cover a new one of his own, which he had dedicated to Fortune, [1103]"and was confounded to death with grief and sorrow of heart.”  When Xerxes would have spoiled [1104]Apollo’s temple at Delphos of those infinite riches it possessed, a terrible thunder came from heaven and struck four thousand men dead, the rest ran mad. [1105]A little after, the like happened to Brennus, lightning, thunder, earthquakes, upon such a sacrilegious occasion.  If we may believe our pontifical writers, they will relate unto us many strange and prodigious punishments in this kind, inflicted by their saints.  How [1106]Clodoveus, sometime king of France, the son of Dagobert, lost his wits for uncovering the body of St. Denis:  and how a [1107]sacrilegious Frenchman, that would have stolen a silver image of St. John, at Birgburge, became frantic on a sudden, raging, and tyrannising over his own flesh:  of a [1108]Lord of Rhadnor, that coming from hunting late at night, put his dogs into St. Avan’s church, (Llan Avan they called it) and rising betimes next morning, as hunters use to do, found all his dogs mad, himself being suddenly strucken blind.  Of Tyridates an [1109]Armenian king, for violating some holy nuns, that was punished in like sort, with loss of his wits.  But poets and papists may go together for fabulous tales; let them free their own credits:  howsoever they feign of their Nemesis, and of their saints, or by the devil’s means may be deluded; we find it true, that ultor a tergo Deus, [1110]"He is God the avenger,” as David styles him; and that it is our crying sins that pull this and many other maladies on our own heads.  That he can by his angels, which are his ministers, strike and heal (saith [1111]Dionysius) whom he will; that he can