Worldly prosperity and adversity

 True Repentance Required

I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Luke 13:5

Under the Law, worldly comforts and blessings were dispensed in some measure proportionably to their uprightness or impiety, though there were even then some exceptions from this general rule to lead the observers to the consideration, and expectation, of another state wherein God would reward all according to their works, as God frequently assured his people under the Mosaic Dispensation he would certainly do. Wherefore, they seeing that it was not done always in this [world], must unavoidably expect another state to succeed, as it is manifest they did expect by several passages in the book [of] Job, and Psalms, and elsewhere.

But worldly rewards and punishments were sanctions that were chiefly insisted upon before the publishing of the gospel, as may be seen by reading the book of Deuteronomy, which very much consists1 of promises and threatenings of this nature to enforce the observation and obedience of the Law.

And we have many instances of the bestowment of such temporal rewards upon the godly, and inflicting worldly adversities on the wicked; many upon the children of Israel the while they were in the wilderness, frequent instances under the judges, and afterwards under the kings. Thus, Saul and his family were blotted out for their transgression; and David, being a man after God's own heart, greatly flourished and prospered, and after him his son, Solomon, while he remained steadfast to his duty, and as he fell from it his glory fell with him. And so it constantly went well or ill with their kings, even to the captivity into Babylon, according as they feared the Lord or

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forsook him. This was needful for the infant state and childhood of the church to keep them from sin and awe them to obedience, when they enjoyed so much less light than we do.

But when Christ came into the world, the sanctions of God's commands are no more outward, and worldly prosperity and adversity; 

but, 

heaven and hell, 

eternal misery and eternal blessedness, 

fire and brimstone or light and glory, 

a bottomless gulf of misery or else rivers of pleasure forevermore.

So that now we need not to [be] stumbled at all by the great worldly prosperity of some of the wicked, and the great adversity of some of the godly. 

When we see a wicked [person] flourishing and spreading himself like a green bay tree, we suddenly may curse his habitation. When we see sinful and debauched men rolling in heaps of silver and gold, dwelling in proud palaces and decked in gorgeous apparel, and glutted with the fat and drunken with the sweet, we may well weep over him out of pity to him, considering what a poor, miserable wretch he is. We may pronounce the lifeless stocks and stones blessed in comparison of him.

And if we see a godly man oppressed, afflicted, vexed, and parched with worldly afflictions and adversities, yea, frying at the stake, we may well admire at their happiness and pronounce them thrice happy and blessed.

We have no cause to be stumbled at all because Nero, the wicked tyrant, reigned over all the earth and was drowned in worldly pleasures, and the poor Christians—or rather the blessed and thrice happy Christians—martyred and roasted, and fried, and cast to wild beasts, and crucified and put to all manner of the worst of deaths. What should we think if our eyes were opened and should see the difference of their states as they are now? Wherefore, Christ commands and instructs us in the beginning of this chapter, not to judge of the internal state of the souls of men by their outward condition, seeing that this state was not an estate of rewards and punishment, but of probation.

For says Christ, "Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans because they suffered such things as those eighteen, on whom the Tower of Siloam fell, and slew them? Think ye that they were sinners above all that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish" [Luke 13:2–5].

In the words observe two things: first, a solemn preface, "I tell you, Nay"; "I assure you, it is as I declare unto you." Second, the assertion

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itself, "except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish"; in which observe, first, the thing presupposed, and that is the danger of perishing; second, the means without which it cannot be escaped, to wit, repentance: "except ye repent."