And concerning the blind man, (John ix.), who was born blind, that the power of God might be shewn in him; he answers that it was not a punishment, but a blessing. I did not say it was a punishment; certainly it was an affliction. How then doth he call it a blessing? Reasonably enough: “because,” saith he, “it was the means to raise his soul illuminated, and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body is common to us with ants and flies, but the sight of the soul, with the blessed angels.” This is very well said; for no man doubts but some afflictions may be blessings; but I doubt whether the Bishop, that says he reads of some who have put out their bodily eyes, because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the soul, think that they did well. To that where I say that brute beasts are afflicted which cannot sin, he answereth, that “there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs, and the unsufferable and endless pains of hell.” As if the length or the greatness of the pain, made any difference in the justice or injustice of the inflicting it. (_f_) “But his greatest error is that which I touched before, to make justice to be the proper result of power.” He would make men believe, I hold all things to be just, that are done by them who have power enough to avoid the punishment. This is one of his pretty little policies, by which I find him in many occasions to take the measure of his own wisdom. I said no more, but that the power, which is absolutely irresistible, makes him that hath it above all law, so that nothing he doth can be unjust. But this power can be no other than the power divine. Therefore let him preach what he will upon his mistaken text, I shall leave it to the reader to consider of it, without any further answer. (_g_) “Lastly, howsoever T. H. cries out that God cannot sin, yet in truth he makes him to be the principal and most proper cause of all sin. For he makes him to be the cause not only of the law, and of the action, but even of the irregularity itself, &c. wherein the very essence of sin doth consist.” I think there is no man but understands, no, not the Bishop himself, but that where two things are compared, the similitude or dissimilitude, regularity or irregularity, that is between them, is made in and by the making of the things themselves that are compared. The Bishop, therefore, that denies God to be the cause of the irregularity, denies him to be the cause both of the law and of the action. So that by his doctrine, there shall be a good law whereof God shall be no cause, and an action, that is, a local motion that shall depend upon another first mover that is not God. The rest of this number is but railing. PROOFS OF LIBERTY DRAWN FROM REASON. NO. XIII. [Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]