Page:On the providence of God in the government of the world.pdf/18

 Thus the same events are to the righteous a nourishing food, or a wholsome medicine, and to toto [sic] the wicked, a sweet or a bitter poison.

If then, by what is visible of men's condition, we cannot judge certainly of their grief and pleasure, and if we could, yet grief or pleasure may either of them be a blessing or a curse, and which it is in a particular case no man can tell, if he know not how either of them will be used, and what effect they will have: Also, if the objection be of no more force, unless it be granted that present delight is good, and pain is evil. It will be plain enough, that something is supposed which is very obscure and doubtful, and hard to be judged of, when this is used as an argument against Providence, that there is 'one event to the righteous and to the wicked.'

III. However, the day of judgment is a sufficient answer to the objection.

The belief and expectation of this was implied in the last particular, as the great reason of the behaviour the righteous in both conditions, and as their great support in affliction, and the not believing or considering this, or considering it rather with despair than hope,  the reason why the wicked are so ill-governed, and  so unhappy in their prosperity, and so comfortless  affliction: But if bad men live in more delight,  good men in more trouble and grief than indeed  do, and God would not interpose his almighty  to alter the course of things; yet when the wicked 'go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous in to life eternal,' Matth. xxv. 46. 'then shall ye return and discern betwixt the righteous and the wicked, betwixt him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not, Mal. iii. 18. And though men are apt to toto [sic]  that time stands almost still when they feel sharp, and the extremity of them makes minutes seem  than days, as days, in a transport of pleasure,  swifter than minutes, yet the no proportion betwixt  and eternity will endure all this false reckoning,  makes a clear account and unanswerable apology