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| That in the Mingled Web of Human Affairs God’s Judgment is Present, Though It Cannot Be Discerned.
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Chapter 2.—That in the Mingled
Web of Human Affairs God’s Judgment is Present, Though It Cannot
Be Discerned.
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,”1316
—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 by 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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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