enduring all sorts of misfortunes, say to yourself, that if there were no resurrection and no judgment, God would not allow him to leave this world after suffering so many evils and enjoying no good. Hence it is evident that He holds in reserve for them another life far pleasanter and higher than this. If this were not the case He would not allow so many sinners to feast in this life, nor so many just to be in a sea of troubles. But since there _is_ another life, in which He designs to give to every man according to his deserts, whether they be those of wickedness or those of goodness, He suffers the one to be persecuted and the other to enjoy himself. I will endeavour to prove another reason (why suffering is tolerated) from the Scriptures. And what is it? That we who are called to the same virtue may not say that _they_ had a different nature to ours and were not men. So in speaking of the great Elias it is said that Elias was a man of like feelings to ourselves. Do you see that he is shown to be a man like to us from similarity of feelings? And again: _For I am a man of like nature to yourselves_. This is a pledge of similarity. Clearly He is teaching you here the lesson that He makes us happy in the right way. When you hear Paul saying, _Up to the present time we are in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and we are chastised, and homeless, and weary_; and again: _that the Lord chastises the one He loves, and scourges every son He receives_, it is evident that we should exalt not those who are enjoying rest, but those who are tried and afflicted for God, and that we should emulate those who live holily, and care for piety. So spoke the prophet: _Their right hand is the right hand of iniquity. Their daughters decked out, adorned round about after the similitude of a temple. Their store-houses full, flowing out of this into that. Their sheep fruitful in young, abounding in their goings forth; their oxen fat. There is no breach of wall, nor passage, nor crying out in their streets. They have called the people happy that hath these things._ What do you say, O prophet? _Happy_, he says, _is that people whose God is the Lord_. I call blessed, not the man who abounds in money, but him who lives for piety, even if he suffer a thousand evils. And if we ought to speak of another[9] reason, I should say that tribulation increases the worth of the tried. _Tribulation worketh patience, and patience probation, probation hope, and hope is not shamed_: see you how the probation produced by tribulation makes us hopeful concerning the future, and how remaining in temptations puts us in good hope of what is to come? Therefore, I said, not unadvisedly, that tribulations themselves strengthen the resurrection in our hearts, and make those who are tried better. For as, he says, gold is tried in the fire, so is an acceptable man in the fire of humiliation. There is yet another[10] reason. What is this? One which