Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/190

Chap. 6. cellent Being doth eternally persevere in its benignity, and those very severities which we cast off from him, are only as Medicines; sharp and bitter to the sense, but healthful in their issue and events. That Homer ''of Philosophers said rightly God doth no evil, and therefore cannot be the cause of any. But better and more fully that wise one of ours. What is the cause of the Gods doing good? Their Nature. He errs that imagines they are either desirous or able to do hurt. As they cannot receive, so neither can they do an injury. The first honor that we owe to the Gods, is to believe that they are, the next is to ascribe Majesty to them, and goodness without which there is no Majesty. To know they are those, who preside over the world; who govern all things as their own; who are the Guardians of Mankind, and of every particular person, and that no evil is in them, neither doth any proceed from them.'' Rh