Of what service is a religious life to man since Providence treats all alike?
This statement is--
I. Phenomenally true. To all outward appearance the good and the bad are treated alike. All are subject to the same diseases, bereavements, disappointments, all go down to the grave alike.
1. This a perplexing fact. Antecedently one might have supposed that the God of holiness and rectitude would, in His providence, have treated men according to their moral character, that happiness and misery would be measured out according to the merits and demerits of mankind.
2. This fact is significant. It shows--
(1) The unalterableness of God’s laws. They pay no deference to moral character.
(2) The high probability of a future state.
II. Spiritually false. “All things” do not “come alike to all.”
1. They do not come in the same character.
(1) To the wicked the trials of earth are either blind casualties or penal inflictions. But to the godly they are chastisements of fatherly love.
(2) To the wicked the prosperity and enjoyment appear as the results of their own skill, industry, and merit. To the godly they appear as the unmerited favours of a merciful God.
2. They do not come with the same influence. Trials irritate the spirit of the wicked; they purify the godly. Prosperity feeds the vanity and ambition of the wicked; but inspires the godly with devout humility and holy gratitude. The same soils, dews, and sunbeams that fill the hemlock with poison, fill the wheat with food for nations. And the same events which transform some men into devils, transform others into seraphs. (Homilies.)
Providence
I. For the same things uncertainly and indifferently to befall the righteous and the wicked in this life is unavoidably necessary.
1. Because men have the dominion over their own actions, and do that which themselves choose to do.
2. Because a great deal of prosperity and affliction befalls men, not as the reward or the effect of anything done by themselves, but by descent from their parents, whose virtues and vices have great influence upon the persons and fortunes of their children by the providence of God, and by the laws of men, and by the course of nature.
3. Because they are so mixed together in their persons, interests, employments, and places of abode, that they cannot be distinguished in the events that befall them.
4. For the more evident and certain distinguishing of them one from another.
II. They who make this objection against providence are no competent judges in the case, and suppose in their objection that which is false. It is supposed in this objection that the righteous endure so much grief, and the wicked enjoy so much pleasure, as cannot consist with God’s love to the righteous and anger at the wicked, if He take notice and be concerned in that which happens. The better to judge of this supposition, let two things be considered.
1. That by the outward estate of men we know very little of their present grief or pleasure.
2. If we did know their present grief or pleasure, we cannot infer from thence which is the good, and which is the bad condition.
III. However, the day of judgment is a sufficient answer to the objection.St. Paul, when he felt the smart of his present afflictions, called them light afflictions, for a moment, not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed. (Z. Cradock,D. D.)
The sufferings of good men
1. God permits the sufferings of good men for the advancement of the honour and interest of religion. A passive state is the proper sphere of action for the noblest virtues of Christianity; and for this reason the Son of God, when He took our nature upon Him, chose to appear in such a state that His example might be of more powerful and general influence to mankind. And indeed, next to the miracles, whereby the truth of the Christian religion was established, nothing contributed more to the propagation of it than the invincible patience and constancy of its possessors.
2. God has this further wise and religious end in the sufferings of good men: that we may learn by them to moderate our affections to this deceitful world; and to cast our views forward upon a more durable state of happiness, and better suited to the noble faculties and inclinations of human nature.
3. The sufferings of good men are designed to remind us both of our duty and our danger; when it is observed that the righteous fall and no man layeth it to heart, it is implied that this is a proper season of inquiring into the occasions of God’s public judgments, and reforming those sins which provoked them; and this is the more incumbent upon us in proportion to the dignity of the person and the character he sustains.
4. There is no man so good but he is conscious to himself he deserves what he suffers. The world perhaps cannot charge him with any visible or notorious escapes; yet he need only put the question to his own heart concerning the reasons of his sufferings, and it will acquit the justice of heaven in them. (R. Fiddes.)
