of the one, or Punishment of the other. It is
sufficient that there is a Day set apart for the hearing and requiting
of both according to their respective Merits.

The Folly of ascribing Temporal Judgments to any particular Crimes, may
appear from several Considerations. I shall only mention two: First,
That, generally speaking, there is no Calamity or Affliction, which is
supposed to have happened as a Judgment to a vicious Man, which does not
sometimes happen to Men of approved Religion and Virtue. When _Diagoras_
the Atheist [2] was on board one of the _Athenian_ Ships, there arose a
very violent Tempest; upon which the Mariners told him, that it was a
just Judgment upon them for having taken so impious a Man on board.
_Diagoras_ begged them to look upon the rest of the Ships that were in
the same Distress, and ask'd them whether or no _Diagoras_ was on board
every Vessel in the Fleet. We are all involved in the same Calamities,
and subject to the same Accidents: and when we see any one of the
Species under any particular Oppression, we should look upon it as
arising from the common Lot of human Nature, rather than from the Guilt
of the Person who suffers.

Another Consideration, that may check our Presumption in putting such a
Construction upon a Misfortune, is this, That it is impossible for us to
know what are Calamities, and what are Blessings. How many Accidents
have pass'd for Misfortunes, which have turned to the Welfare and
Prosperity of the Persons in whose Lot they have fallen? How many
Disappointments have, in their Consequences, saved a man from Ruin? If
we could look into the Effects of every thing, we might be allowed to
pronounce boldly upon Blessings and Judgments; but for a Man to give his
Opinion of what he sees but in part, and in its Beginnings, is an
unjustifiable Piece of Rashness and Folly. The Story of _Biton_ and
_Clitobus_, which was in great Reputation among the Heathens, (for we
see it quoted by all the ancient Authors, both _Greek_ and _Latin_, who
have written upon the Immortality of the Soul,) may teach us a Caution
in this Matter. These two Brothers, being the Sons of a Lady who was
Priestess to _Juno_, drew their Mother's Chariot to the Temple at the
time of a great Solemnity, the Persons being absent who by their Office
were to have drawn her Chariot on that Occasion. The Mother was so
transported with this Instance of filial Duty, that she petition'd her
Goddess to bestow upon them