For there are no bands in their
death; but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men;
neither are they plagued like other men. . . . They set their mouth
against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.
Therefore his people return hither; and waters of a full cup are wrung
out to them. And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in
the most High?" And though the Psalmist says that such persons will come
to a sudden and fearful end, yet he confesses that so long as they live
they have prospered, while he had been punished all day long, and
chastened every morning. And do we not know that so it is? Is it not
obvious now, and has it not been notorious in every country, and in all
times, that so it is? Do not good men often lead lives of poverty and
affliction? Do not men make large fortunes, or rise to fame and power,
by base and wicked means? and do not those same men often enough die in
their beds, and leave children behind them, and found families, who
prosper for generations after they are dead? How were they recompensed
in the earth? Now this is one of the puzzles of life, which tries a
man's faith in God, as it tried the psalmists and prophets in old time.
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