certain things, from which I see that those men are free, nevertheless I trust that God is far more good to me than He is to them. Thus the blessings which we see the wicked enjoy become to us an incentive to hope for those blessings which are not seen, and to despise the evils which we suffer. Even as Christ, in Matthew vi, bids us behold the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, saying, "Wherefore if God so clothe the grass, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?"[1] Hence, by this comparison of the blessings in which the wicked abound with the evils that we suffer, our faith is exercised, and our consolation is placed in God alone, which is the only holy consolation. So doth He make all things work together for good unto His saints.[2]
The other blessing, which is more marvelous, is this, that the evils of our adversaries become blessings to us, under the providence of God. For though their sins are a stumbling-block to the weak, to such as are strong they are an exercise of virtue, and an opportunity for conflict and the amassing of greater merit.[3] For, "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life."[4] What greater temptation can there be than a host of evil examples? For this reason, indeed, the world is called one of the enemies of God's saints, because with its allurements and ungodly works it incites, provokes, and entices us from the way of God to its own way. As we read in Genesis vi, "The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they were made flesh."[5] And in Numbers xxv, "The people of Israel began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab."[6] So it is good for us to be always oppressed with some trouble or other, that we may not, in our weakness, stumble at the offences of the world, and fall into sin. Thus Lot is praised by Peter, in II. Peter ii.,[7] because he suffered many
