Note 76 — Chapter XIV · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Ask any man who knoweth these things whether all this earth be any more in comparison of the whole creation than one Prison is to a Kingdom or Empire, or the paring of one nail ... in comparison of the whole body. And if God should cast off all this earth, and use all the sinners in it as they deserve, it is no more sign of a want of benignity or mercy in him than it is for a King to cast one subject of a million into a jail ... or than it is to pare a man’s nails, or cut off a wart, or a hair, or to pull out a rotten aking tooth.76