Passive Obedience, or the Christian Doctrine of Not Resisting the Supreme Power

of entire Cities and Nations, wou'd be better pronoted by a particular Suſpenſion, or Contradiction, than an exact Obſervation of thoſe Laws. Yet for all that, Nature ſtill takes its courſe ; nay, it is plain that Plagues, Famines, Inundations, Earthquakes, with an infinite variety of Pains and Sorrows; in a word all kinds of Calamities publick and private do ariſe from a uniform ſteddy obſerration of thoſe general Laws, which are once eſtabliſh'd by the Author of Nature, and which he will not change or deviate from upon any of thoſe Accounts, how wiſe or benevolent ſoever it may be thought by fooliſh Men to do ſo. As for the Miracles Recorded in Scripture, they were always wrought for Confirmation of ſome Doctrine or Miſhon from God, and not for the ſake of the particular natural goods, as Health or Life, which ſome Men might have reaped from them. From all which it ſeems ſufficiently plain, that we cannot be at a loſs, which way to determine, in caſe we think God's own Methods the propereſt to obtain his ends, and that it is our Duty to Copy after them, ſo far as the frailty of our Nature will ermit.