Page:On the providence of God in the government of the world.pdf/10

 storms or good weather, fair or cross winds, a safe arrival or ship wreck are alike for them both. They eat of the delicious or course fare, the plentiful or scarce provision at the same table.

Good and bad men are mixed in the world as the tares and the wheat in the parable: if you will have the wheat grow, the tares must grow too; if you will pull up the tares, the roots are intangled, and the wheat must come up with it: they cannot be parted till the harvest: then the Wheat may be gathered into the barn by itself, and the tares burnt. So shall the good and the bad, who must for a while live together, and take part one with another in such things as happen, be for ever divided at the 'resurrection of the dead.'

Then the believing husband and the unbelieving wife, the religious parents and ungracious children, the just magistrate and the seditious and unruly people, the good and charitable man and his envious and malicious neighbour, who could not be separated in many of the blessings and calamities of life, shall now for ever be separated, to be happy or miserable alone by themselves.

But whilst they live here, they must share one in another's fortune, and enjoy the same prosperity, or suffer the same affliction together.

4. there must be 'one event to the righteous and to the wicked,' for the more evident and certain distinguishing of them from one another.

The devil's insinuation against Job's integrity would have been unanswerable if it had been true, viz. That his service of God was for the world's sake, that his love would be changed into dispight, and his prayers into cursing, if he were afflicted. But his behaviour, in the greatest affliction that ever befel a mere man was an undeniable proof of his sincerity. Those in whom the love of the world is the ruling affection, as the case now stands, trouble not themselves much about religion or justice. Virtue sometimes helps a little, but more often hinders them from attaining their end; at least they think so; yet these men would be very devout and precise, if by such means they might be rich and great, and enjoy all manner of pleasure, and have satisfaction to all their des-