Sinne Not The Cause Of All Affliction This question, “Why Evill men often Prosper, and Good men suffer Adversity,” has been much disputed by the Antient, and is the same with this of ours, “By what Right God dispenseth the Prosperities and Adversities of this life;” and is of that difficulty, as it hath shaken the faith, not onely of the Vulgar, but of Philosophers, and which is more, of the Saints, concerning the Divine Providence.  “How Good,” saith David, “is the God of Israel to those that are Upright in Heart; and yet my feet were almost gone, my treadings had well-nigh slipt; for I was grieved at the Wicked, when I saw the Ungodly in such Prosperity.”  And Job, how earnestly does he expostulate with God, for the many Afflictions he suffered, notwithstanding his Righteousnesse?  This question in the case of Job, is decided by God himselfe, not by arguments derived from Job’s Sinne, but his own Power.  For whereas the friends of Job drew their arguments from his Affliction to his Sinne, and he defended himselfe by the conscience of his Innocence, God himselfe taketh up the matter, and having justified the Affliction by arguments drawn from his Power, such as this “Where was thou when I layd the foundations of the earth,” and the like, both approved Job’s Innocence, and reproved the Erroneous doctrine of his friends.  Conformable to this doctrine is the sentence of our Saviour, concerning the man that was born Blind, in these words, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his fathers; but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”  And though it be said “That Death entred into the world by sinne, (by which is meant that if Adam had never sinned, he had never dyed, that is, never suffered any separation of his soule from his body,) it follows not thence, that God could not justly have Afflicted him, though he had not Sinned, as well as he afflicteth other living creatures, that cannot sinne.

Divine Lawes Having spoken of the Right of Gods Soveraignty, as grounded onely on Nature; we are to consider next, what are the Divine Lawes, or Dictates of Naturall Reason; which Lawes concern either the naturall Duties of one man to another, or the Honour naturally due to our Divine Soveraign.  The first are the same Lawes of Nature, of which I have spoken already in the 14. and 15.  Chapters of this Treatise; namely, Equity, Justice, Mercy, Humility, and the rest of the Morall Vertues.  It remaineth therefore that we consider, what Praecepts are dictated to men, by their Naturall Reason onely, without other word of God, touching the Honour and Worship of the Divine Majesty.