Zachary Craddock

“ Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. These things have I spoken that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full;' St. Paul exhorts them, 'Rejoice in the Lord always. Be careful for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God: and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. ”

“ Nothing doth more generally, powerfully and constantly affect men, that the concerns of their children: For their sakes they will imbitter their whole life with continual cares, patiently undergo the most slavish drudgeries, be guilty of the vilest actions, do any thing, and endure any thing, to leave their posterity more wealth and a higher place; and yet, if some of them may be believed, they desire neither riches nor honour for themselves: they talk of the world like philosophers: a little is enough for all the necessities and all the delights of nature ”

“ If prosperity and affliction were the certain effects of God's love and hatred, the constant marks of his favour and displeasure, it would be impossible to reconcile what we see every day, with what we are taught to believe. But prosperity and affliction have other causes, and there is a necessity of their happening uncertainly, 'one event to the righteous and to the wicked,' as well from the nature of men, as from their relations and mutual dependencies, and from the order of the life to the next as a state of probation. ”

“ On the other side, if a man will be religious and just, tho' he be ever so great a loser by it, if he will hold fast his integrity in riches and poverty, in honour and disgrace, in good and evil report, when he is advanced and when he is persecuted for righteousness' sake; this will be a demonstration that he fears and loves God above all, that the laws of God are the rules of his life, that he makes it his business to be saved, that his religion and worship is not for worldly respects, and that his good actions are not prevented and chang'd into sins by corrupt ends and motives. ”

“ It is visible who hath lands and great houses, and who hath none, who is followed by a long train and receives the respects and the complements, and who may go whether he will without any notice; but which of these two enjoys himself best, and lives most at ease, is still a question, which they, who resolve by what they see, are likely to be mistaken in their resolution, to misplace their envy and pity, to envy the men that are miserable in all their great pomp and state, and to pity them who are happy in their obscurity ”

“ That which would have been hypocrisy, if religion would have done their business, will be profaneness if it will not. That which would have been the secret wickedness of the most close and retired thoughts scarce reflected on by him that thinks it, will now be the open wickedness of word and deed. The man will be known to the world that would have been unknown to himself. ”

“ When the righteous abound in wealth, 'they make to themselves friends of the unrighteous Mammon;' they give alms, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the fatherless and the widow in their distress; watch and pray lest luxury or pride or profaneness, or uncharitableness, should turn their temporal blessings into plagues and curses: they trust not in uncertain riches, but in the living God, whose gifts they receive with thankfulness and fear: they do good, and are rich in good works as well as great possessions ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is very often the inside of that gawdy shew that the prosperity of the wicked makes. Their afflictions are not so apt to deceive the standers by; there it is easy to see how their sins and unmortified lusts, and evil consciences increase their torment; they have used religion too ill to expect any relief from thence; they know not how to make God their refuge; they are, it may be, too stubborn and desperate to pray at all, or too guilty to pray with confidence; their pride and haughtiness makes them more impatient; they break their teeth with biting the chain ”

“ The wicked may be in the same prosperity, but with another behaviour. The worse they are, the more they will be tempted and insnared; they who were proud and vain before, will be insensibly led away into more pride and more vanity, forgetful of him who made the difference ”

“ The righteous, in authority, encourage and countenance the good, relieve the oppressed, 'break the jaws of the wicked, and pluck the spoil out of their teeth,' Job 29. 17. and by their justice and temperance, and reverence to God and to holy things, bring religion and virtue into more esteem, and do as much as in them lies to convert sinners. However, they are such a check and restraint upon them, that their wicked disposition cannot so openly and boldly discover itself as it would if they were let alone, both in doing wrong, and enticing others to the same sins which they commit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But whatever those men, who would by all means discharge themselves of the fear of God, may be forward to infer from this uncertainty of events, either that there is no Providence, or, that God is unconcerned whether men be just or unjust; it will appear, when the whole matter is laid together, that their inference is rash and ill-grounded; that reason, as well as religion, is against them; but this order in the government of the world is necessary to the wisdom, and consistent with the justice of God, and with his goodness too, and with David's testimony concerning him, Psalm. ”

“ There is another consideration of human laws in this argument of prosperity or affliction by descent, viz. That laws make not a man's virtue his title to his estate, but inheritance, or gift, or purchase, or any just way of acquiring it; nor doth a man forfeit what he hath by the most common vices: so that a foolish and riotous heir of a provident father justly possesses that wealth and plenty which he abuses and surfeits upon, and wastes prodigally, till it be all gone, and leaves, perhaps, to a wife and good son all the calamities of poverty, and more ”

“ The things may happen accordingly, as the predictions of a false prophet may come to pass by chance, and then they, who use the scripture in this fashion, may talk as they please of the skill and power of faith, and what wonders it can do, with all the promises that are to be found in the Bible. But if the things happen not, then their confident application to themselves, of promises that were made to others, runs into scandal and blasphemy, and represents God as a deceiver, that promises and does not perform. ”

“ Now they know that, which either they did not believe, or would not consider before; they abused his patience that waited for their repentance, and now they feel the punishment of their sin in the exquisite torments of the soul: and, full of fear and terror, expect greater at the resurrection of the body. If it seem strange to you, that God should suffer the righteous to be at the mercy of the wicked, behold the rich man in torment looking up to Abraham, and begging for a drop of water to cool his tongue ”

“ The belief and expectation of this was implied in the last particular, as the great reason of the behaviour of 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, is the reason why the wicked are so ill-governed, and often so unhappy in their prosperity, and so comfortless in affliction: But if bad men live in more delight, and good men in more trouble and grief than indeed they do, and God would not interpose his almighty power to alter the course of things ”

“ 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 ”

“ Stephen's vision, 'Heaven opened, and Jesus on the right hand of God into whose presence, where there is fulness of joy, they should make so much the more haste, by how much the sharper their sufferings were. ”

“ Thus the wisdom of God provides, that the antidote shall grow upon the same root from which the poison springs, that the remedy against the most dangerous temptations shall be found in the same affection from whence the temptation arises. ”

“ On the other side, men magnify the prosperity of the rich, let them be never so bad, and 'they call the proud happy, but the account will be another thing, if the abatements be deducted. Their pleasures are short, a blaze, the crackling of thorns under a pot' often interrupted, not by unlucky accidents only, but most of all by their own unruly passions ”

“ Those promises, which concern all good men, are not promises of prosperity, but of God's protection and care of them in every condition, and causing 'all things to work together for good to them that love God, Rom. ”

“ But it would seem strange, that they who were better instructed by revelation, should be at a stand sometimes, and doubtful what to resolve; if every day's experience did not teach us how apt even wise men are to hearken to the suggestions of passion against reason, and to break out unto hasty expressions, contrary to their habitual persuasion. ”

“ Because we cannot attend long, nor to many things at once, but are tired with thinking, and perplexed with doubts, wavering and uncertain to resolve, erring in the choice of our end, and when that is well chosen, easily bewildered and lost in our way: therefore, infinite Knowledge, and almighty Power, must be liable to the same inconveniences with our ignorance and weakness. ”

“ Flatterers pretend to be, and sometimes think themselves, sincere and faithful friends; but when the man whom they love so passionately is falling, and they get as far off as they can from the ruins of his greatness, then at last they find out the mystery, if they know it not before ”

“ Scripture and reason, and experience teach us, that good men have the most true delight, both in prosperity and affliction; 'that they have great peace, who love God's law, and nothing can offend them,' Psal. cxix. 165.
In prosperity there are many things contribute to and improve the joy of the good: A quiet conscience, trust in God, moderation, humility, 'Prudence and temperance, and justice and fortitude which are such things that men can have nothing more profitable in their life,' Wisd. ”

“ How come all things alike unto all, one event to the righteous and to the unclean: to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not? as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath. ”

“ And although conscience seems to give them but little trouble, to be either reconciled to what they do, or fast asleep, and to observe nothing; yet every now and then it affears them with dreams, and terrifies them with visions, and upon some surprizing accident, will be apt to start of a sudden, and awake in a great affright, and will not, without much ado, be pacified and laid to sleep again. ”

“ Since therefore a great part of men's calamities happen to them by the wickedness of their neighbours, and wealth and greatness oftentimes are procured by their own wickedness and usurpation, which tho' God disapprove and strictly forbid, and declares that he will punish, yet, if he doth not interpose his irresistable power to hinder, it evidently follows, that the sin of the oppressor may make him rich and prosperous, and the innocent oppressed man poor and afflicted ”

“ And whereas in their sorrows, many of the wicked renounce God, and dishonour him with pride, and stubbornness, and infidelity, and blasphemy, and impatience; these own God's dominion, and humble themselves under his mighty hand and acknowledge his justice, and honour him before men with confession of sin, and repentance, aud submissions, and prayers, and thanksgiving. ”

“ The sum of all these particulars is, that many of the good and evil things of this life, happen to men by the justice or injustice of their neighbours, who have free-will; and though they are forbidden, under severe penalties, yet they are not irresistibly restrained from doing injury: that men are prosperous or afflicted by the virtues or vices of their parents; that the good and bad are so mixt that they cannot, in many cases, but fare alike ”

“ And tho' sometimes he changes the hearts of men, alters their inclinations, makes them chuse and resolve as it seems expedient to him, by an influence of their understanding and will, which they neither discern nor can resist; yet the reason of this argument is still the same, because this secret and effectual operation of God doth not take away the natural liberty of man's will, but only over rule and determine it in some particular cases. In others he leaves men to themselves. ”