according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and
David, were righteous, and all those commended by the mouth of God;
but were judged unrighteous by silly men, judging out of man's
judgment, and measuring by their own petty habits, the moral habits of
the whole human race. As if in an armory, one ignorant of what were
adapted to each part should cover his head with greaves, or seek to be
shod with a helmet, and complain that they fitted not: or as if on a
day when business is publicly stopped in the afternoon, one were
angered at not being allowed to keep open shop, because he had been in
the forenoon; or when in one house he observeth some servant take a
thing in his hand, which the butler is not suffered to meddle with; or
something permitted out of doors, which is forbidden in the
dining-room; and should be angry, that in one house, and one family,
the same thing is not allotted every where, and to all. Even such
are they who are fretted to hear something to have been lawful for
righteous men formerly, which now is not; or that God, for certain
temporal respects, commanded them one thing, and these another,
obeying both the same righteousness: whereas they see, in one man, and
one day, and one house, different things to be fit for different
members, and a thing formerly lawful, after a certain time not so;
in one corner permitted or commanded, but in another rightly forbidden
and punished. Is justice therefore various or mutable? No, but the
times, over which it presides, flow not evenly, because they are
times. But men whose days are few upon the earth, for that by their
senses they cannot harmonise the causes of things in former ages and
other nations, which they had not experience of, with these which they
have experience of, whereas in one and the same body, day, or
family, they easily see what is fitting for each member, and season,
part, and person; to the one they take exceptions, to the other they
submit.