God (according to the comparison of David) would purify them by
the fire of tribulation, as gold is purified in the crucible. That God
would secure their salvation, and screen them from the inevitable
danger which is ever connected with worldly prosperity. That
God, (says St. Bernard,) by an amiable violence, would force them,
in some measure, to unite themselves with him, by mixing bitter-
ness with everything else, and placing before them no object that
is not creative of disgust. That God would continually administer
to them a cause of conflict, to the end it might be, at the same
time, a continual cause of victory for them, and consequently of
merit. That righteous as they are, they still are indebted to
Almighty God on sundry accounts ; whereas, the just man, (as So-
lomon speaks) falls seven times a day ; but that Almighty God had
rather punish them as a father, not as a judge ; and accordingly
that he chastises them in this world, according to his mercy, that
he may not punish them in the next, according to his justice.
Should we stop here, Christians, and proceed no farther into
the designs of God, what more were requisite to uphold the faith
of the righteous man ? And were not one of these reasons suffi-
cient to shield him, and strengthen him against the sharpest
assaults ? Let God, therefore, command according as he pleases, let
him destroy and overturn, let him debase and humble, let him
strike according to his all-perfect will, the righteous man will have
nothing to give but benedictions ; and should he but utter the
least complaint, God might reproach him in the words of our
Saviour to St. Peter, " Man of little faith, why didst thou doubt ?"
Infatuated man ! leave the whole to God ; he loves you, and knows
what is wanting to you. If he treats you with rigour, it is a seem-
ing rigour ; and how heavy soever you may feel the weight of his
ami, it is the effect of his love.
Affecting thoughts, and powerful motives these of a truly Chris-
tian consolation ! In so vast and numerous an audience as this, it
ON ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY. 227
is hardly possible there should not be many of those souls whom
Almighty God loves, and whom, notwithstanding, he leaves
to the crosses and vexations of the world. Now my duty obliges
me to give you a relish for these truths. My duty obliges me,
beloved Christians, to raise by that means your sinking spirits, in
a situation (into which either poverty, or humiliation, or ill usage
may have thrown you) which overpowers you with sorrow, and
which renders your existence so irksome and painful. My duty
obliges me, as a gospel minister, to point out the means to you of
finding the necessary relief in your faith. For my business is not
merely to upbraid you with your transgressions, and to fill your
minds with the salutary fear of eternal judgments. These things
I have done occasionally ; these I still do : nor can I thank heaven
enough for the attention you give to my words, or rather to the
words of God, which I utter. But on the other hand, my duty
obliges me to comfort you in your troubles ; and as I hold the place
of Jesus Christ, who speaks to you by my mouth, and whose am-
bassador I am, " We are ambassadors for Christ," (1 Cor. v. ;) my
duty obliges me to say so you, what that divine Saviour said to
the people : " Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are burthened
and I will relieve you." Matt. xi. Come, ye melancholy and
afflicted souls ; ye who groan under the heavy weight of human
woes, and in the agonies of grief. You meet with nothing in this
world but contempt and scorn, and you daily experience its injus-
tice. The most licentious and vicious rule and domineer over the
most righteous ; and this is what racks your hearts, and fills your
souls with bitterness. But come, I say it again, and without chang-
ing your condition, I will relieve you. I am but a weak man, like
yourselves, nay, weaker than yourselves ; but with the grace of
my God, with the unction of his word, and the maxims of his gos-
pel, I have wherewithal to make you firm and unshaken amidst a
thousand crosses, losses, and misfortunes ; I have wherewithal to
awaken all your faith, and wherewithal to animate all your hope ;
wherewithal to show you there is nothing desirable in whatever is
most alluring in this world ; and wherewithal to teach you the pre-
cious advantage of a state in which God watches over you with the
greater care and love, as he seems less to love you and to regard
your interest.
1st. For, to resume in order, and the better to lay open what I
have not as yet but slightly touched upon, and what requires and
228 ON ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY.
deserves your most serious reflection, as it must be a treasure and
inexhaustible store of patience for you. I say, that if God treats
the righteous man with a seeming severity, and suffers him to la-
bour under a load of hardships, it is to try him. Thus he explains
himself in a thousand places of the inspired writings, where he tells
us expressly, that it is one of the laws of his providence, and that
therefore it is, he lets his scourges fall more heavily on those who
serve him, than on those who do not. Insomuch, that affliction,
in the sacred text, is commonly called trial, or temptation ; and
according to the same language of scripture, what the divine Spi-
rit denominates temptation, is nothing but affliction. This is the
noble answer which one of the most zealous defenders of the Chris-
tian law (Minutius Felix) gave idolaters and infidels, when they
reproached him with the extreme dereliction and want in which
they saw the faithful ; and they pretended to draw from thence, a
consequence against either the power or the mercy of the God we
adore. You are mistaken, (says he,) our God wants neither means
nor goodness to relieve us. But he examines each of us in par-
ticular, by withholding from us the good things of this life, and
keeping us in adversity. He searches our hearts, and interrogates
them by sufferings and afflictions, as if he should say to the righ-
teous man, " Declare yourself, and show me what you are. I have
not known it as yet completely, and I mean to be told it by your-
self. So long as you enjoyed felicity upon earth, and passed your
days in a calm and peace, you told me, it is true, you would stea-
dily and constantly persevere in my service ; but at that time there
was no relying on your asseverations. In affluence and prosperity,
you could not well know, or judge with any degree of precision,
to which you were devoted, to me or to yourself. But now, that
cross accidents and misfortunes have disturbed the tranquillity of
your life ; now that you are oppressed with bodily infirmities, that
you are fallen into distress, that you are surrounded, it should seem,
with every kind of evil, it is a situation in which you may give me
assurances of your faith, and in which I may rely upon your word.
If, therefore, I see you persevere in my service, and always hear
you at the foot of my altar, make the same protestations of an
inviolable attachment, I shall hearken to you, and believe you ; for
a love evinced by such a test, can no longer be liable to suspicion."
To this, beloved hearers, what answer can we make ? If God
is not pleased to put the righteous man to the like trials, with what
ON ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY. 229
kind of sentiment should his supposed happiness affect us ? Is it
with envy ? Or is it not rather with a secret horror, for that if
God spares him, it is because he judges him unworthy of his
favour ; because God gives himself, in some manner, no farther con-
cern about fitting him for his service ; because God considers him
as a false metal, which the workman throws away, whereas, he
throws gold into the furnace, and makes it pass through fire ? It
was that which gave occasion to the royal prophet's prayer to God :
" Prove me, O Lord, and try me." Prove me, and grant me the
consolation and inestimable advantage, of having it in my power
to show you what I am, and which are the true and real disposi-
tions of my heart towards you. But because I cannot better make
them known to you, than by suffering hardships, strike, burn,
destroy me, if requisite, with pains, afflictions, and wretchedness ; I
agree to all.
2ndly. We ought, ourselves, my brethren, to consent to it with
the greater facility, because another design of God upon the afflicted
righteous is, to purify them from all earthly affections. And, in-
deed, if temporal prosperity were annexed to virtue, we should not
serve God but with that view, and consequently we should not love
God for his own sake. St. Augustin hath already made the same
observation, and reasons upon it with his usual solidity and pene-
tration. When you see (says he) libertines, and the enemies of
God, overflow with riches and enjoy vast estates, it makes a deep
impression on your mind, and you say : " Through a course of so
many revolving years, I have served my God, I have kept his com-
mandments, and I have acquitted myself of all the duties of re-
ligion. My fate, hoAvever, is always the same ; my affairs prosper
not a whit the better for it, and it would seem, on the contrary,
as if God were determined to perplex and cross them on all occa-
sions. These people lead a criminal life, without any regularity,
without any modesty, without any piety, and nevertheless enjoy
perfect health, heap riches upon riches, and are honoured and dis-
tinguished." But (continues the same holy doctor) that, there-
fore, was what'you wanted ; it was, therefore, for health of body,
for the good things of this life, for worldly honours, that your meant
to please God, Now this is exactly the reason why it was proper
that God should deprive you of them, to the end you might love
him, not for the things he gives to men, but for what he intrinsi-
cally is himself. For, let it be remembered, (adds the same father,)
230 ON ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY.
that if you are righteous, you live in the state and order of grace.
As, therefore, this grace is entirely gratuitous on the part of God,
it lays an obligation on you of loving God with a gratuitous love ;
neither are you allowed to love him for any reward but himself, as
he means to be himself your whole reward. The good things of
this world would make your love mercenary ; and if you complain
when God refuses them, or deprives you of them, you thereby dis-
cover, that these things are more dear to you than God himself,
and, consequently, that you do not deserve to possess them.
3rdly. A great fortune is so infectious, that its inherent quali-
ties are capable to pervert the most righteous, and that oftentimes
it plunges them into a frightful gulf, and total corruption. The
instances we have of this are but too glaring and too numerous.
But Almighty God, by a signal mark of his providence and mercy
respecting his chastisements, secures them from this so imminent
a danger, by involuntary poverty, that is a preservative for them
against the contagion of temporal riches ; by a mortifying obscurity,
that is a guard for them against the contagion of perishable gran-
deur ; by a lingering illness, that is a fence for them against the
contagion of sensual pleasures, and the deceitful suggestions of the
flesh. True it is, that the righteous man may not now perceive
the danger to which he was so much exposed, if Almighty God
had not used such precaution in his favour. But what he is unable
to perceive at present, he will perceive at the final close of ages,
and at the great day of universal revelation. Then shall the
Almighty place before his eyes all the injustices into which an insati-
able avarice would have led him ; all the criminal schemes and pro-
jects, in which an unbounded and restless ambition would have
engaged him ; all the excesses and ill habits, into which a blind and
brutal passion would have plunged him, if the bridle of affliction
had not restrained him, and the misfortunes of life had not hin-
dered the fire from kindling in his heart. Enlightened with a ray
of divine light, and convinced of the salutary and favourable secrets
of the eternal wisdom which conducted him, he will bless God over
and over again, for the very thing which oftentimes had well nigh
excited his murmurs against God. What the world looked upon
as a total dereliction, and kind of reprobation, he will consider as a
stroke of divine Providence, and as one of the most precious graces
of God.
4thly. Forasmuch, however, as it is not enough to withdraw
ON ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY. 231
from the world, and the occasion of sin, if it be not in the view of
adhering to God, I proceed farther ; and gradually disclosing the
favours of the Lord, and the designs of his providence, so far as I
am able to discover them, I add, that he doth not make his elect
suffer in this world, but to draw them to himself, and to lay them
under the happy necessity of having recourse to himself, of con-
fiding in him, and of fixing on no object but himself. For, (ac-
cording to St. Bernard,) there are four classes of the predestinate.
Some there are, who bear away the kingdom of heaven by vio-
lence ; and these are the voluntary poor, who by a spontaneous act of
abdication give up, and renounce, all property. Others endeavour,
as it were by making a bargain, to purchase it ; and these are the
rich, who according to holy writ, procure by alms-deeds interces-
sors with God, and friends to receive them into the eternal taber-
nacles. Others, as I may say, seem as if they would steal it ; and
who are they ? The humble of heart, who shun the light, not out
of worldly consideration, but a holy desire of debasement, and who,
in a retired and solitary life, hide from the eyes of mankind all the
meritorious works they do. Finally, there are many who come not
to the possession of it, but because it is out of their power to avoid
it ; and these are they who do not determine to seek God, but
because God would afford them nothing beside whereon to place
their affection. Had the world looked on them with the same
eye it beholds its votaries ; that is, had the world pleased them,
made them happy by its distinctions, its respect, and its pleasures,
ah ! Lord, would they ever have thought of you ? Like that
selfish and carnal people, whom you brought up with so much
care, and whom you made to feed upon the fat of the land, they
would have lost the memory of their Creator and benefactor ; they
no longer would have remembered that you were their God, and
all their incense would have arisen before altars not dedicated to
you: " grown thick, waxed fat, much-spread, they would have
forsaken the God their Maker." Deut. xxxii. But because your
arm fell heavy upon them, and for their sakes you filled the world
with thorns that pricked them, with losses and misfortunes that
made them disappear, and suffered them no more to quit their
retreats, though you seemed to make them die, you gave them
life, and by undoing them to appearance, you effectually saved
them. They found no other resource but you, and for that reason
they betook themselves to you. They flung themselves into your
23*2 ON ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY.
arms as their sanctuary, and there you received them, there you
kept them, and there you preserved them from all danger : " When
he slew them, they returned and came early to him." Ps. lxxvii.
5thly. Not but that they have many conflicts to undergo, and
this is what God himself declares. The reason is, (as St. Ambrose
observes,) that their merit is owing to their conflicts. Without
fighting there is no victory to be obtained, and without victory
there is no crown to be hoped for. You are surprised (continues
this holy father) that God tries the patience of his faithful servants
in this manner, and, on the contrary, leaves the greatest sinners in
profound peace. You would know the reason of this difference.
It is essential, and very natural : namely, that God crowns none
but conquerors, and that he desires to crown his elect. Whence
it follows by a necessary consequence, that therefore he must afford
them a subject of triumph. But the crown not being reserved for
sinners, he leaves them, by a contrary method of proceeding,
without the means of fighting or overcoming. In this we have
a similitude before our eyes ; the sovereigns of this world act in a
manner conformable to the sovereign Lord of all things, nor doth
it surprise us. We do not suppose that they forsake those whom
they intend to place in honourable stations, when the better to
qualify them for the intended favours, they employ them in so
many perplexing affairs, or expose them to so many dangerous
occurrences. In the opinion of the world, it is neither indifference
nor rigour, but grace and favour.
6thly. But even supposing that in this instance God acted
rigorously towards the righteous, would it not be a paternal
and merciful rigour ? These are my notions of the matter. There
is no man of worth, how righteous soever, that hath not lapses to
repair, and transgressions to atone for. The most innocent and
godly, according to the notions Ave should have of this matter, in
the present life, is not he who never hath committed sin, (where is
there such a man to be found ?) but he who hath committed sin
the least, and who the least commits sin ; he who hath committed
the slightest sins, and who still commits the fewest sins ; he who
recovers, and recovers the most speedily from his sin. Whoever
he be, he is accountable to God for many debts, and from paying
which nothing can excuse him. But when will he pay them ? If
it be after death, what a judgment and what a chastisement must
he undergo ? It is. therefore, better for him, that in this life, and
ON ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY. 233
by the pains of this life. Now this, in fact, is the time which God
chooses ; these are the means he employs to chastise him. It was
in this manner that St. Jerom wrote to the illustrious Paula, and
thus he comforted her on the loss she suffered, and assuaged the
heartfelt grief it occasioned. Why so many tears, (says he,) and such
regret ? Choose which you please, for your consolation, and ad-
here to one of these reflections. Either from the testimony of a
good conscience, and without hurting or diminishing the real sen-
timents of humility, you consider yourselves as righteous, and then
your comfort should be, that God perfectionatcs your virtue, that
he exercises it, and gives it increase and strength; or the remem-
brance of your transgressions, and the knowledge of your weak-
nesses, induce you to look upon yourself as criminal, and in that
view you should, in order to mitigate your grief, and render it not
only supportable, but amiable, think that God corrects you, and
affords you an opportunity of making him satisfaction at a small
expense. But why doth he not likewise correct the libertine ?
Ah ! beloved hearer, it is sufficient for you, that your God loves
you. Why should you oblige him to disclose his reasons for the
terrible judgments he suffers others to undergo ? I have told it
already ; neither can I repeat it too often. God takes vengeance
the more rigorously, the longer he postpones it ; and wo be to the
rich, the powerful, the haughty and proud ones of this world,
whom, (to use a particular expression of Tertullian,) he pampers
like victims for the day of his wrath.
Here let us stop ; and by the way of conclusion to this part,
let us reason, if you please, a moment together. By what I
have said, the divine Providence is justified, respecting the
partition which it makes of temporal prosperities and adver-
sities between the righteous and sinners. For, this vindication
must be reduced to two heads : one, that God takes care of his
elect in this life ; the other, that even in this life, he is averse
from sinners, and suffers his justice to act against them. Now
what but the cares of a mercy equally wise and beneficent,
could thus induce him to try his elect, banish his elect, pre-
serve his elect, unite them with himself by a stricter tie, make
them multiply and accumulate meritorious deeds, in the view
of making them rise to a high degree of glory. But by a rule
directly contrary, is it not an effort of severe justice, the more to
be dreaded, as it is the less discernible, to give up sinners to them-
Q
234 ON ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY.
selves and to their passions ; not to disturb a mortal repose, in
which they quietly remain absorbed ; never to intermingle bitter-
ness with the false sweets that corrupt them ; to let them remain
in an elevated state that swells their pride, in a splendor that
dazzles them, in an affluence that inspires their minds with effemi-
nacy, in a voluptuous life that brings with it irregularities of every
kind, in a forge tfulness of a salvation and a state of impenitence
that leads to a death of sin and reprobation ? What deceives us
is, that we oftentimes form our judgment of tilings according to
the time in which we now are, and which passes away ; but that
the judgment of God is formed relatively to eternity, in which we
shall hereafter be, and which mil never pass away. Now, of these
two rules, which is the best, and the most advantageous?
According to the former, (says St. Augustin,) I grant that the
sinner, it should seem, hath a right to insult the righteous man,
and ask him, " Where is thy God ?" But according to the latter,
which beyond all dispute is the safest, and indeed the only one we
have to follow, the righteous man may reply to the insults of the
sinner : neither my time nor yours is as yet come ; but let us have
patience, they will both come, and then I shall ask you : where
now are those gods whom you adored, and in whom you placed
your whole confidence? What is become of all the happiness
which you relished to fascination, and which you loved to adora-
tion ? Why do you not summon it, and make it relieve you in
the eternal wretchedness into which you are fallen ? " Where arc
their gods, in which they placed their confidence ?" Deut. xxxii.
Accordingly, beloved hearers, what remains for you to do is, to
enter into the views of your God who afflicts you, and by your
patience to further his designs. And perhaps nothing ought at
present to give you greater concern, than not to have as yet turned
the talent to advantage, which you might have made to fructify a
hundred-fold ; than to have hearkened too much to your natural
diffidence, and broke out into complaints so unjust and injurious
to the providence of the Master who watches over you ; than to
have lent too fond an ear to the seducing discourses of the world,
concerning your distresses, and the seeming unhappiness of your
condition ; than to have sought to excite the compassion of men for
the sake of vain comfort, when you ought to have rather looked
upon yourself as an object of envy, and expected relief from faith
alone : than not to have sufficiently comprehended the truth of
ON ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY. 235
these great evangelical maxims, that blessed are the poor, because
theirs is the kingdom of heaven ; and that blessed are they who
suffer persecution in this world, and who mourn, because they
shall be eternally comforted in the other. But, Lord, I now know
enough to dispel all my doubts, and calm all the inquietudes of
my mind. Of so many reasons, one only should suffice ; and
although there were not so many reasons, were it not enough to
know, that whatever befals me, it is your holy will it should be
so ? Command, my God, whatever you please, and dispose of
me as you please. What though the ungodly rule over the
righteous, trample them under foot, and I, most of all, smart
under the lash of persecution, I will cry out like the apostles in
dismay, " Lord, save us, we perish." But resting entirely on
your infinite wisdom and supreme mercy, I will say to you with
one of your most faithful prophets, " In thee, O Lord, have I
hoped, I shall not be confounded for ever ;" (Ps. xxx. ;) for I am
certain that all will be well with me, so long as I place my trust in
you ;~and that in the economy of your divine providence, which
seems so surprising to mankind, there is not only nothing that
should slacken their faith, but that should not conform it. This I
shall make appear in the second part.
Part II. If there be a motive, beloved Christians, to confirm
me in the faith, and to corroborate my hope, it is, that I see the
impious rise and prosper in the world, while the righteous are
overwhelmed in the mighty gulf of debasement and misery. This
proposition may seem paradoxical at first view ; but I am going to