Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/195

174 when he sees it good with anothers? There is no wrong or injury done to us in all this. Does that Servant hate you? Doth he come with a Mind to do you a mischief? It matters not, overlooking the instrument of what you suffer: Look back to the Mind of him that hath commanded it. For assuredly the Father that requires it stands by; nor will he suffer one stripe to be superadded to what himself hath prescribed. But you ask again; why is Sin here immixed? and why are these divine Arrowes dipp'd in the poyson of Affections? You put me upon a difficult task, which yet I shall adventure upon; and my answer is, that God may declare his Wisdom and Power. They are St. Austine's words; he judg'd it better to make evils good, than to permit no evills at all. For what greater instance can there be of Wisdom and Goodness, than to bring good out of evil, and to make those things Conspire Rh