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In this present time we learn to bear with equanimity the ills to which
even good men are subject, and to hold cheap the blessings which even
the wicked enjoy. And consequently, even in those conditions of life
in which the justice of God is not apparent, His teaching is
salutary. For we do not know by what judgment of God this good man is
poor and that bad man rich; why he who, in our opinion, ought to
suffer acutely for his abandoned life enjoys himself, while sorrow
pursues him whose praiseworthy life leads us to suppose he should be
happy; why the innocent man is dismissed from the bar not only
unavenged, but even condemned, being either wronged by the iniquity of
the judge, or overwhelmed by false evidence, while his guilty
adversary, on the other hand, is not only discharged with impunity,
but even has his claims admitted; why the ungodly enjoys good health,
while the godly pines in sickness; why ruffians are of the soundest
constitution, while they who could not hurt any one even with a word
are from infancy afflicted with complicated disorders; why he who is
useful to society is cut off by premature death, while those who, as
it might seem, ought never to have been so much as born have lives of
unusual length; why he who is full of crimes is crowned with honors,
while the blameless man is buried in the darkness of neglect. But who
can collect or enumerate all the contrasts of this kind? But if this
anomalous state of things were uniform in this life, in which, as the
sacred Psalmist says, "Man is like to vanity, his days as a shadow
that passeth away,", so uniform that none but wicked men won the
transitory prosperity of earth, while only the good suffered its ills,
this could be referred to the just and even benign judgment of God.
We might suppose that they who were not destined to obtain those
everlasting benefits which constitute human blessedness were either
deluded by transitory blessings as the just reward of their wickedness,
or were, in God's mercy, consoled them, and that they who were not
destined to suffer eternal torments were afflicted with temporal
chastisement for their sins, or were stimulated to greater attainment
in virtue. But now, as it is, since we not only see good men
involved in the ills of life, and bad men enjoying the good of it,
which seems unjust, but also that evil often overtakes evil men, and
good surprises the good, the rather on this account are God's
judgments unsearchable, and His ways past finding out. Although,
therefore, we do not know by what judgment these things are done or
permitted to be done by God, with whom is the highest virtue, the
highest wisdom, the highest justice, no infirmity, no rashness, no
unrighteousness, yet it is salutary for us to learn to hold cheap such
things, be they good or evil, as attach indifferently to good men and
bad, and to covet those good things which belong only to good men, and
flee those evils which belong only to evil men.
But when we shall have come to that judgment, the date of which is
called peculiarly the day of judgment, and sometimes the day of the
Lord, we shall then recognize the justice of all God's judgments,
not only of such as shall then be pronounced, but, of all which take
effect from the beginning, or may take effect before that time. And
in that day we shall also recognize with what justice so many, or
almost all, the just judgments of God in the present life defy the
scrutiny of human sense or insight, though in this matter it is not
concealed from pious minds that what is concealed is just.
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