SERMOXS. 369 



his Power (which was the first) we go on in the 

 next place to acknowledge his Justice too ; say- 

 ing, with Holy David, ^Righteous art thou, O 

 Lord, and just are thy Judgments : — The second 

 part of God's due. 



Give him the glory of his Justice, also ; and, if 

 you learn no other righteousness in his school, at 

 least learn this, and frankly confess it too. For 

 though God's judgments may be secret, yet they 

 cannot be unjust: fLike the great deep, indeed, 

 an abyss unfathomable : but, though we have no 

 plumb-line of reason that can reach it, our faith 

 assures us, there is justice at the bottom. J Clouds 

 and darkness are round about him, saith the 

 Psalmist ; but, as it follows. Righteousness and 

 Judgment are the habitation of his throne : so 

 much we may easily discern through all the veils 

 and curtains that envelop him, that justice stands 

 always fast by his judgment seat. And, therefore, 

 though it be a nice and a delicate point to assign 

 the particular sins, for which God hath thus sorely 

 afflicted us ; yet must we declare (as we are war- 

 ranted by sacred authority) § That God hath laid 

 his heavy Judgment upon us all, as an evidence 

 of his displeasure for our sins in general. 



Not to engage in that common theme; we may 

 clear it a little by the light of our own hres(the par- 

 ticular instrument of our calamity) in two or three 

 reflections upon that. God spake his righteous 



* Psm. cxix. 137. t Psm. xxxvi. 6. 



X Psm. xcvii. 2. § The King's Declaration. 



VOL. II. B B 



