Pyrobolia, seu de ignitis Sathanae telis, commonefactio theologica

2. Flesh: If human affairs were administered by a singular providence, then it would never go badly for the good, nor would it go well for the bad.

Spirit: You do not know what you are saying, because you are ignorant of the ends of the good and the bad. For it does not go badly for the good because their affairs are adverse: since these things also contribute to their good. Rom. 8:28. It does not go well for the bad because their affairs seem prosperous for a short time. For their table is a snare to them: and their prosperity is a net. Psalm 69:22. God places them on slippery paths: he casts them down into precipices. Psalm 73:18.

3. Flesh: Why therefore does Ecclesiastes complain that all things happen similarly to all: one event to the just and the unjust, to the good and the clean, and to the unclean? Eccl. 9:2.

Spirit: The Wise Man does not pronounce it so simply according to his own opinion: but he recounts the erroneous opinion of Atheists.

4. Flesh: Leaving others aside, I will speak about you yourself. Do you not remember that not long ago you were treated very kindly by him, whereas now you are vehemently tormented by poverty, diseases, slanders, and injuries, with God conniving at it, or indeed even inflicting those evils? Do you see that he is now hostile to you?

Spirit: The kind Father knows that I have need of this rod. Therefore, it is so far from being the case that I think to withdraw my hand from him, that I even congratulate myself for the paternal castigation. For when we are judged, we are punished by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned with the world. 1 Cor. 11:32.

5. Flesh: But your faith is weak and is now failing: therefore, it is not true faith.

Spirit: Indeed, it is being tested by the Lord, who has joined the gift of perseverance with it. Moreover, true faith is sometimes weak: but it finally emerges as victorious.

6. Flesh: You experience in reality that your prayers are not being heard.

Spirit: It is not so. Either those good things which I ask of the Lord unceasingly are delayed: or indeed greater things are being prepared, according to the purpose of God: or those things which I ask are given immediately.

Suppressed