want of power, or wisdom, or goodness, when men either cannot make good their words, or otherwise attain their ends; or when they have not wit to know what is, or was, or will be, or when they are so bad, as to be disposed to deceive. But he that ascribeth any of these to God, doth worse than to say that there is no God. If I hate deceit and lying myself; the God that gave me all that little good which I have must hate it more. Dream not of any but a worm, or fool, or impious tyrant, that needs and loves deceit and falsehood to attain their ends. Judge by the frame of heaven and earth, and by that little good that is in good men, whether the living God be one that needs such hellish engines to rule the world.

If therefore in order to the government of mankind we must needs believe a life to come, it is certainly true. And why do you not believe that which government requireth you to believe?

Query 13. Moreover I demand of you, 'Whether you take God indeed to be the Governor of this world, or not?" By 'governor,' I mean properly, one that ruleth the rational creature as such, by moral means, even laws and executions. I exclude not his potential, efficacious operations, but conclude a necessity of moral government. I know a self-conceited, popish infidel hath endeavoured to persuade the world that God's sovereignty and moral government are metaphorical expressions, arising from the misconceivings of weak men; and that wiser men like himself do conceive of God's government only as of an artificer's disposal of his works, that physically accomplisheth all his will. As if God's natural causations, and his moral, were inconsistent; or as if God were not wise and good as well as Almighty; or did not in his government of men demonstrate his sapience in his laws, and his goodness in attractive benefits, as well as his power in mere natural motion; or as if man were not a rational creature, and a free-agent, and were not to be governed according to his nature, by objects suited to his intellect and will, but must be used and ruled like a stone or beast; or as if God could not infallibly attain his ends by a sapiential government, and by preserving the liberty of the will, as well as by a mere necessitating causation! This man was so enamoured upon his supposed skill in physic and metaphysics, that he not only lost his morality, but grew to be such an

enemy to it, as to blot out all true morality, civility, policy, and economy at a dash; and stands with the rest of the proud faternity, as a monument of God's justice against the proud, so deplorately forsaken even in the reason that he glorieth of, that children may perceive his folly. He that is all for operations of power, as excluding sapiential government by laws, and their just executions, doth think sure that a horse hath more of the image of God than a man. For he is much stronger. Brutish force would be more excellent than the attraction of goodness and the conduct of wisdom, if the government (which is no government) that these men dream of were the most excellent. As he will allow his artificer to shew as much at least of his wit, by making a watch or clock that shall, though by a necessity, move without the finger of the workman continually moving it; so methinks he should allow the infinitely wise and gracious God, to be nevertheless wise or gracious, if he rule the rational freeagent, without a physical necessitation, by a gracious attraction and sapiential conduct, agreeable to the reason and liberty of the creature, as long as we exclude not the co-working of Omnipotency, nor deny the infallibility of divine predefinition, which may be secured with the security of the creature's liberty.

In a word, to deny God to be the Sovereign Governor of the world in proper sense; 1. Is a denying him to be God; it being a term of relation, comprising government, and not of mere nature. When it is commanded us that we have no other gods, and when we are required in the holy covenant to take the Lord for our God, and give up ourselves to him as his people, it most plainly expresseth that his governing authority, or his sovereignty is comprehended in the term God. And indeed, having made a rational, free creature, whose nature requireth moral government, it followeth by necessary resultancy, that he that had sole authority and sufficiency, must be his sovereign.

2. These proud blasphemers that deny God's proper government, do contradict the very drift of Scripture, that calleth him our king and governor, and requireth our subjection and obedience.

3. They deny the being of God's laws, both the law of nature, and the written laws, and so blot out the word of God, and the sense and use of all his works. Though they

allow them a certain physical operation on us, yet as laws they do obliterate them: that is, as they are norma officii et judicii,' our rule of duty and expectation, and God's resolved way of judging.

4. They hereby overthrow all duty as such, and make good actions to be but as the motion of the arrow that hits the white, and to have none but a physical goodness in them. For there can be no proper obedience, where there is no proper government or law.

5. Hereby also they deny all inward virtue: for this also can have but a physical goodness, if government and laws be down.

For where there

6. Hereby they deny the being of sin. is no law and government, but mere physical necessitating motion, there is no transgression. And therefore when they make a deal of talk about purging away sin, it is not sin indeed that they mean, but a mere physical disease to be physically expunged.

7. Hereby they deny all the proper judgment of God by Christ at the last day, and make his judgments to be nothing but execution.

Yea, and 8. All proper execution is denied, as vindictive, or remunerative, and so all justice.

9. The authority of every prince on earth is overthrown. For there can be no authority but from God's sovereign authority, any more than any being without derivation from the first being. They may talk to the ignorant of contracts, and people's wills being the original of governing authority, and deify the multitude and make them give that which they never had; but a mean understanding may perceive their folly.

10. Hereby they destroy all human laws, that must receive their strength from God's laws, or have none; and so they absolve all subjects in the world from conscientious obligations to obedience. If God have no proper governing laws but physical motions, then we are no further obliged to obey men, by any law of God, than we are effectually moved to it, and than we do obey them. And if so, then we can owe no more obedience to parents, masters, or princes, than they force us to! If they can make us obey them well and good: if not, we break no law of God by disobedience.

These and many such like are the consequents of that

horrid doctrine that denieth God to be the Sovereign Ruler of the world. In a word, it dasheth out at once all govern. mént, laws, justice, obedience, good works, and all morality, dissolving the whole frame of the universal monarchy of the world, and denying God to be our God, and man to be man and his subject.

But if you yield that God is the Governor of the world, it is then most evident that there is a life to come. For if he govern us, it is by laws and judgment. And if by laws, which are they? There is nothing known among rational men, by the name of a law of God, which containeth not promises and threatenings of rewards and punishments hereafter. He hath no laws for the governing of this world, that contain no motives but from temporal things. And I shewed you before, that he need not, he cannot govern the world by falsehood and deceit. And we see here by experience, that there is no such execution in this life of the laws of God, as are sufficient to the ends of government. The wicked prosper, and destroy the just: the best do most deny their flesh, and are oppressed by others. You see this in yourselves, and make it an argument for your infidelity. But stay a little till the assizes come. It follows not that there is no government or justice, because the thief or murderer is not hanged before the assizes, or as soon as he hath done the fact. Eternity is long enough for their punishIf God then be the Governor of the world, as most certainly he is, then is there a reward and punishment hereafter; and God's day will come, when man's is past.

ment.

Query 14. My next question is, Whether you think that God should be loved and obeyed or not?' If not, then certainly none should be loved or obeyed. For none deserves it, if he deserve it not, from whom we are, and have all our benefits. But if he be, then I further question you,

'Whether it be likely or possible, that any man, or at least all the best people in the world, be losers by God, and their love and obedience to him?' And whether it be credible, that goodness and obedience to the Lord, should be the constant, certain way to men's undoing, loss, or misery? I think you will say, if you believe that there is a God, that this cannot be. For certainly he that sets us at work, will own us in it, and save us harmless. An honest man will take it for a disgrace to him, that his service should be the

shame and misery of his servants, and he should make them no satisfaction. If God be not able to bear us out, he is not God and his wisdom and goodness assure us that he will do it. So that there is no possibility that goodness should be man's loss, and any should finally be losers by God. On this assurance I am encouraged to lay out all my time and labour, and dare boldly venture all that I have, in the work of God: for I am sure I cannot lose by him.

But be thou judge thyself whether his service would not make us losers, if there were no life but this, (though I confess the loss would be small and short.) Who are so hated, and persecuted as they that serve God best? How many thousands of them have been fain to give up their bodies to tormentors, and their lives to the devouring flames? The very work of God consisteth in flesh-displeasing things; to deny ourselves and contemn this world, and live soberly, and righteously, and godly in the world, and to be for this the scorn of men is the lot of the obedient.

If you say, This is not the lot of any but those that are over-righteous, I answer, 1. We cannot be over-obedient to God. 2. You contradict the experience of all ages. Even the form of godliness is hated by the profane; and temperance by the drunkard; and he shall be their scorn that runs not with them to excesses of riot. Seneca tells us that it was, so even at Rome among the heathens, that he was their derision that would not be as bad as the rest. If therefore in this life only we had hope, we were of all men most miserable; 1 Cor. xv. 19. Not but that even here we have the far better life than wicked men: but that is because it savoureth of the life to come, to which it hath relation. Otherwise we should lose our credit, ease, pleasure, profit in the world, and have nothing for it. Faithfully labour for God, O my soul, and never fear being a loser by his work.

Query 15. I further ask, 'Whether you would be alone of this brutish opinion, or would you have all others of your mind?' If you would not have others believe as you do, it seems you think not well of your own opinion, but take it to be naught for men to hold. And why should not all men hold it if it were true? But if you would have all of that mind, it were time for you to look about you. Certainly the law-makers would make other laws than now they do, and men would lead other kind of lives. And what security you