The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…

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.

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 Moscovites, the Persians, the Mogull, 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 Governours; slanders and abuses are the common lot of those that will differ from the carnal, wilde, 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.

Obj. 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 it self? If it be our highest end and Happiness to love God and please him, then sure the beginnings of it here, must have more good, than all the pleasures of sin? and so God maketh a sufficient difference here.