A discourse about the state of true happiness delivered in certain sermons in Oxford,…A discourse about the state of true happinesse deliuered in certaine sermons in Oxford,…

The reasons of this contrary state and condition of the wicked and godly in this life may be these. First for the flourishing of the wicked.

The reasons of this contrarie state and condition of the wicked and godly in this life may bee these. First for the flourishing of the wicked.

One reason may be, the notable cunning and policy of Satan, in plotting and contriving the prosperity of those whom he perceives & hopes it will ensnare, and in whose harts it begets hardness, pride, insolency and forgetting of God. For we must understand, that the devil ever proportions his trains and temptations most exactly, even at a hairs breadth▪ to the tempers, humours and dispositions of men. If he meet with an ambitious and working spirit, he is well enough content to lighten him the way to hell with some ray or beam of all that great glory of the world which he offered Christ, if he will fall down and worship him. Little cares he, so that he may keep a man fast in his hold until the day of execution, whether in the mean time he lie in a lower dungeon of discontented retiredness, or in the golden fetters, or ⟨p. 53⟩some more honourable servitude and glorious misery. If he meet with a base and earthly minded fellow, that prefers a little transitory trash before the preciousness of his own soul, and the lasting treasures of immortality; why he can easily provide a golden wedge, and cast in his way to enrich him; he can compass for him, though by bloody means and merciless enclosure, a Naboths vineyard to enlarge his possessions. For all is one to him so he keep him his own, whether by want and poverty he drive a man to impatience, murmuring, and independency upon the providence of God, or by heaping upon him abundance of wealth, and filling him a full cup of temporal happiness, he cast him into a deep sleep of carnal security, and a senselessness in all matters of sanctification and salvation.