Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/248

Chap. 16. ed, and do still every day repeat it. We are born in sin, and so we live in it; and to speak with the Satyrist the Magazeens of Heaven had been long since emptyed, if its Thunder-bolts had alwayes fallen upon the Heads of such as deserved them. For we must not think that as Fishes, though encreas'd and bred up in the Sea, do yet retain nothing of its saltness; so Men in the filthiness of this World should contract nothing of uncleaness. If then all are in fault? where are those guiltless people you speak of, who have not deserved the punishments they undergo; since it is most righteous that punishment should be the inseparable companion of unrighteousness But you will say it is the inequality of it that displeases me: For we see them heavily scourged that have but lightly offended; while those that are outragiously wicked, do continue and flourish in the height of all their grandeurs. Would you then wrest the Rh