Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/219

198 others blood; and despisers both of God and Man. And if I rightly divine, the same will befal this new World; which the Spaniards with an advantageous kind of cruelty have exhausted; but will again restore, and otherwise replenish. And as those who have great plantations; remove some trees elsewhere, and cut down others: Skilfully disposing all things, to make them more fruitful and to prosper the better: So doth God in this vast Field of the World. For he is the most excellent improver, in some places he prunes and cuts off the luxuriant branches of some Families, and in others (as I may so say) he plucks off some leaves of persons. This helps the stock, though the branches fall, and the leaves that drop off, become the mockery of the winds. He sees this Nation scorched and withered away; as having out-liv'd their Vertues, and he casts them out. That other he observes to be wild Rh