6. That question made famous by the disputations of the ancients: _why evil things befal the good, and good things the evil_: is the same with this of ours; _by what right God dispenseth good and evil things unto men_; and with its difficulty it not only staggers the faith of the vulgar concerning the divine Providence, but also philosophers, and which is more, even of holy men. Psalm lxxiii. 1, 2, 3: _Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart; but as for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped. And why? I was grieved at the wicked; I do also see the ungodly in such prosperity._ And how bitterly did Job expostulate with God, that being _just_ he should yet be afflicted with so many calamities! God himself with open voice resolved this difficulty in the case of Job, and hath confirmed his right by arguments drawn not from Job’s sin, but from his own power. For Job and his friends had argued so among themselves; that they would needs make him guilty, because he was punished; and he would reprove their accusation by arguments fetched from his own innocence. But God, when he had heard both him and them, refutes his expostulation, not by condemning him of injustice or any sin, but by declaring his own power, (Job xxxviii. 4): _Where wast thou_ (says he) _when I laid the foundation of the earth, &c._ And for his friends, God pronounces himself angry against them (Job. xlii. 7): _Because they had not spoken of him the thing that is right, like his servant Job._ Agreeable to this is that speech of our Saviour’s in the man’s case who was born blind: when his disciples asking him whether he or his parents had sinned, that he was born blind, he answered, (John ix. 3): _Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be manifest in him._ For though it be said, (Rom. v. 12), _that death entered into the world by sin_: it follows not but that God by his right might have made men subject to diseases and death, although they had never sinned; even as he hath made the other animals mortal and sickly, although they cannot sin. [Sidenote: The obligation of yielding obedience unto God, proceeds from human infirmity.]