GOD'S GOODNESS VINDICATED. 587 numerable hosts (if not worlds) of men and angels into suchwon- derful felicity, and compare this with the sufferings of the devil, andof his damned followers, instead, then of quarreling with the goodness of God, you will be wrapt up in The admirations and praises of it with full delights, to all eternity. Quest. 17. ' And tell me, Is he fit to entertain suspicions and quarrels with God, who knoweth God to be God, and knoweth himself to be bet a man ?' I speak not only in respect of our in- feriority, as the potsherd should not quarrel with the potter ; but in respect of our great and certain ignorance. Are we not puzzled about the poorest worm and pile orgrass, whose manifold myste- ries no mortal man can yet .discover? Are we not grossly igno- rant about every thing (even visible and palpable) which we see, and touch, and have to do with? Dowe not know that we know but little, even of ourselves, or of any thingabout us in the world? And shall the darkened soul, while it must operate in such a pud- dle of brains and humors, be so madly proud, as to presume of a knowledge which findeth out errors and badness in God, who is infinitely wise and good ? Nothing is more sure than that God is most wise and good ; and nothing should be more easily known to us, than that we are very bliúd and bad. And if such wretches, then, cannot reconcile their thoughts about God's works should they not rather suspectthemselves than him ? Suspect, did I say ? should they not take it as the surest verity, that it is God, that is not only justifiable, but infinitely amiable and laudable, and that it is worse 'than brutishness for suÓh moles to be his accusers? Quest. 18. Yea, ' is this accusing God . a fit employment for that person who liveth'in a land of mercies ; who hath been bred up in mercy, preserved by mercy, yea, differeneed by saving mer- cy from the ungodly; who hath been called from blindness, carnal- ity, and profaneness, and e tertained many a time in hilly worship with God ; who hath beenlashed in Christ's blood, and justified from so many and grievous sins, and made of anenemy an adopt-, ed child, and of an heir of hell an heir of heaven, and all this by the tender mercies of a provoked God, a graciqus Redeemer, and a holy Sanctifier ?' Shall this person, I say, this, be one that, instead of praising God with the raptures of continual joy, shall turn his accuser ? . Q let the guilty that readeth this stop here, and fall downon his knees to God, and melt'into tears in the sense of such unkindness. Quest. 19. ' But can a child of God be possibly guilty of so great a sin as this ?' Answ. I speak not now of the malignant atheist ; but of the melancholy, tempted persons. Alas! it is the melancholy disease,
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