which yet he maketh not in this life; therefore he will make it after this life.Y

That God is the Governor of the world, in a proper sense, by laws and moral government, is proved; and that he is righteous, is contained in the perfection of his nature: to deny either of these, is to deny him to be God. That his laws of nature have not only precepts of duty, but sanctions of reward and punishment, is also proved; and further may be, thus: 1. If there be no rewards or punishments, there is no judgment or execution; but there is judgment and execution; for they are parts of government. Ergo. 2. Without rewards and punishments, precepts would be vain to such as us, and ineffectual as to their ends; but God hath not made his laws in vain. Ergo. Object. Governors use not to give men rewards for their obedience: subjects must obey without reward.

Answ. It is not the name, but the thing that we inquire of. Call it a benefit, if you had rather: all government is upheld by rewards and punishment. Reward is either that which is common to all obedient subjects, or such as is specially proper to some. All subjects that are faithful have title to protection, and approbation, and justification against all false accusations, and to their share in that peace and felicity of the commonwealth which is the end of the government; and some commonwealths having far greater felicities than others, accordingly the subjects of them have their right and part: and this is the common reward or benefit of obedience and fidelity. Besides which, some great exploits are usually rewarded with some special premium. In human kingdoms, as such, the end is no higher than the beginning: temporal governors give but temporal rewards. The felicities of the kingdom, which are the ends of government, as they are from man, are but temporal; and our share in them is all our reward from man: but the original and end of the kingdom of God are higher; and of further prospect, the benefits of fidelity are greater, as shall be further proved.

Qui rectè et honestè curriculum vivendi à naturâ datum confecerit, ad astra facilè revertetur. Non qui aut immoderatè, aut intemperanter vixerit.— Cic. de Univ. Improbo bene esse non potest.- Cic. Par. Impii apud inferos pœnas luunt.-Cic. 1. de Legib. Impiis apud inferos sunt pœnæ præparatæ.—Cic. 1 de invent. Sic habeto, te non esse mortalem, sed corpus hoc.-Cic. Som. Scip. Cicero saith, that their worshipping of Hercules, and other heroes, doth imply, that animi omnium sunt immortales, sed bonorum divini.-Cic. 2. de Leg. Bonorum mentes mihi divinæ atque æternæ videntur, et ex hominum vità ad Deorum religionem sanctimoniamque migrare.-Idem. Deorum providentiâ mundus administratur, iidemque consulunt rebus humanis, neque solum universis, verum etiam singulis.-Cic. 1. de Divinat.

But let it be noted, that this objection saith nothing against a life of punishment. Governors never leave their precepts without this sanction; and he that believeth future punishment will easily believe a future reward.

Let it also be noted, that paternal government hath, evermore, rewards in the strictest sense; that is, a special favour and kindness showed to the child that is specially obedient: and so the rest according to their measures. But the kingdom of God is a paternal kingdom, as is proved. That God will make, in his retributions, a just dfference between the good and bad, is proved from his justice in government. If his laws make no difference, then men are left at liberty to keep or break them; nor can it rationally be expected that they should be kept; nor could he be said so much as to love, or approve, or justify the obedient more than the rebellious; but so unholy a nature, and so indifferent between sin and duty, and so unwise and unjust in governing, is not to be called God: either he justly differenceth, or he doth not govern."

That God maketh not a sufficient, differencing retribution in this life is the complaint of some, and the confession of almost all the world the bad are commonly the greatest, and the lords and oppressors of the just. The Turks, the Tartarians, the Muscovites, the Persians, the Mogul, and more such brutish monarchs, who use the people as the slaves of their pride and lust, do take up the far greatest part of the earth. Few places are so good, where goodness exposeth not men to sufferings, from the rabble of the vulgar, if not from the governors. Slanders and abuses are the common lot of those that will differ from the carnal, wild, rebellious rout. And poverty, pain, sickness, and death, do come alike to all. The sensual, that have wit enough so far to bridle their lusts as to preserve their health, do usually live longer than more obedient men: and they deny themselves none of those fleshly pleasures, which the obedient do continually abstain from.

Object. But do you not, ordinarily, say, that vice bringeth its punishment with it in its natural effects; and obedience its reward? Is not the life of a glutton and drunkard punished by poverty and shame, and sickness? And is not godliness a pleasure in itself? If it be our highest end and happiness to love

z Persuasum hoc sit à principio hominibus, Dominos esse omnium rerum ac moderatores Deos; eaque quæ gerantur, eorum geri ditione atque numine. Et qualis quisque sit, quid agat, quid in se admittat, quâ mente, quâ pietate colat religionem, intueri, piorumque et impiorum habere rationem.-Cicero de Leg.2.

God, and please him; then, surely, the beginnings of it here must have more good than all the pleasures of sin and so God maketh a sufficient difference here.

Answ. Some vices that are sottishly managed, do bring poverty, shame, and sickness; but that may easily be avoided by a vicious wit. Gluttony and drunkenness may fall short of sickness. Fornication, and adultery, and incest, may be managed with greater craft. Pride, and ambition, may attain dominion and wealth. Theft may be hid, and cheating and fraud may make men rich, and free them from the pinching wants, and cares, and the temptations to discontent and contention of the poor. Malice may delight itself in secret revenges, in poisonings, murderings, and such like; without any worldly hurt to the transgressor. A Tiberius, a Nero, a Caligula, a Domitian, a Commodus, a Heliogabalus, a Sardanapalus, may be on the throne, when a Socrates, a Seneca, a Cicero, a Cato, a Demosthenes is put to death; yea, when a Paul or Peter, an Ignatius, a Cyprian, are sacrificed to their bloody rage.

Yet it is true, that all this while they want the dignity and comfort of the just: but while they value it not, and feel not the want of it, they take it not for a punishment, but choose it as a felicity.

And as for the present rewards of virtue, to speak impartially, I verily think that if there were no life to come, virtue and holiness were rationally more eligible: but that is much because God is an end above ourselves. And for our Own content, in many, holiness would give the mind more pleasure, than all fleshly pleasure and worldly greatness could counterpoise. But with many others, whose afflictions are very heavy, and pains and poverty very great, and who are grievously tormented by cruel persecutors; and, perhaps, a melancholy constitution may forbid them much delight, it is hard to say, that if they durst let loose themselves to all sin, which maketh for their fleshly interest, their pleasure would not be much greater. While the soul is in flesh, it unavoidably partaketh of the pain or pleasure of the flesh. Therefore, the torment of the stone, or strangury, or of a rack, or strappado, will reach the soul and the operations of the soul being in and by the body, a tormented body will hinder those contemplations which should feed our joy, and also hinder the joy of those contemplations. Most Christians enjoy little comfort in holiness, through the very cares of this life, and the weakness of grace, and power of corruptions,

and doubts and fears which do attend them: much less would they have much comfort, if they were here tormented, and miserable in body, and had no hope of another life. In some sense, we may say, that heaven is begun on earth, because holiness is begun. But the heaven on earth is the hope and reflection of the heaven indeed, and is soon gone if that be gone, as the light here ceaseth when the sun is set. God seen and loved in a glass doth more differ, as to us, from God as seen and loved in the intuition of his glory, than the heart of man is now able to conceive. The difference may he well called specific as to our actions; yea, transcendently such. Let any man in torment without any hope of heaven be judge.

And though honesty, without the pleasure and comforts of it, be still better and more eligible, yet while man's reason and virtue are so weak, and his sense and appetite so strong, and his body hath so much power upon his mind, it is very few that the mere love of virtue would prevail with, if that virtue were never to come to a higher degree than this.

It is undoubtedly true, that the delights of holiness are incomparably more desirable, as we have them in this life, than kingdoms and all the pleasures of the flesh; but, that is, principally, because that this life is the passage to a better, and hath relation to so glorious a reward. The least forethought of future blessedness may weigh down all the riches and pleasures of the world, but take away the respect to the life to come, and weak man would meet with no such comforts.

It is true, also, that virtue and piety is most desirable, even for itself; but that is, especially, as it will be itself indeed, in a life of fuller perfection than this for here it is so weak and clogged with so many corruptions and infirmities, that the comfort of it is little perceived; but as a child in infancy hath less pleasure than a brute, for all his reason; and, as young scholars for a time do meet with more trouble than pleasure in their learning, and half-witted artists are often more incommodious than none; and no one would much seek after arts and learning, for all its excellency, if they had no hopes to ascend above that troublesome, smattering degree: even so in the present case, though the least virtue be in itself more valuable than all sensual pleasure, yet, considered as good to us, we should never be able to prefer it, if we had not hopes of a higher measure than most of the truly virtuous and obedient do here attain.

Either it is fleshly, worldly pleasure, or it is the pleasing and enjoying of God in holiness and love, which is man's ultimate end if it be the former, then, certainly the sensual and wicked are in a better condition than the obedient; for they have much more of that kind of delight, while the best are often tormented and persecuted by their cruelty: but if it be the latter, then it is sure to be enjoyed hereafter, seeing we have here so small a measure, and also find that all the virtue and holiness of this life consisteth much more in desire and seeking, than in delightful enjoying; and our delights are, for the most part, the effects of hope of what we shall possess hereafter, more than of the sense of our present happiness.a

There is no righteous governor on earth that will suffer, if he can help it, his disobedient subjects to persecute those that most carefully obey him, and to make them a common scorn, and to imprison them, torment them, burn them at stakes, or banish them; and then say, 'That their obedience is, in its own nature, so much better than disobedience, that it is reward enough of itself.' It is not the work of a ruler, only to see that no man be a loser by him, or his service, in point of commutative justice, but to see, that by distributive justice, such a difference be made between the obedient and disobedient, as the difference of their actions do require, in order to the ends of government. Justice giveth every one his due: mercy, itself, when it remitteth a penalty, doth it for the same ends, and upon such reasonable considerations of repentance, confession, satisfaction, reparation, according to power, that it may be called a just mercy. God is such a lover of holiness, that he will in his government manifest that love, and such a hater of sin, that he will signify his hatred of it to the sinner.b

Moreover, the body itself is part of the man, and that part which hath no small interest in the sin. It seemeth, therefore, unjust that the bodies and sensitive powers of the disobedient, should have all kind of pleasures, and the bodies and sense of the obedient, have the pain of fasting, self-denial, persecutions, cruelties, and no further judgment to make a more equal retribution.

a Animus est ingeneratus à Deo, ex quo verè vel agnatio nobis cum cœlestibus vel genus vel stirps appellari potest.-Cic. 1, de Leg.

b Quum Pompeio res infeliciter cederent, et ad Cæsarem inclinaret victoria, Cato dicebat, in rebus divinis multum esse caliginis; quod Pompeio præter jus agenti fuissent omnia prospera; causam reipublicæ tuenti nihil succederet.-Plutarch. in Catone.

Plato dicebat, Deum nullo uspiam modo injustum esse sed planè justissi