let's look at how the faithful are comfortable. It is true that if God sends them
CHAPTER 5: Persecution Reproach and the Worlds Praise
let's look at how the faithful are comfortable. It is true that if God sends them prosperity and rest, they will bring everything to his praise: for they will use what is given to them soberly, even to such an end that they will always try to live well. Well, they will not want these goods to be lost: but they recognize them as blessings from God. Afterwards, if a man hates some excellent gift of the Spirit of God, he will not say that he is entirely empty of it: otherwise he would be a hypocrite. If they are rich, if they have bodily health, and even (as I said) if they are endowed with some excellent gifts of the Holy Spirit, they will recognize the graces of God in all this, and will devote themselves to it, and will give Him praise.
This is how the faithful will use all the goods of the present life. But however today they are at ease, they are prepared to suffer tomorrow, when it pleases God to call them to it: and if it pleases him to strip them of the goods he has given them, they are also ready to resign them to him, and place them in his hands, knowing well that it was on this condition that they possessed them, to leave them when it pleases him. The faithful man will therefore know, Well, today rich, tomorrow poor. When it pleases God to make such a change in me, that instead of being at ease I have to suffer a lot: and instead of laughing, that I have to cry, it is enough for me that nevertheless I will not stop being one of his children: and for his part, he has promised me that he will always confess me as such, I will therefore be happy to do so. This, I say, is how the faithful will do it, and then they will always maintain sobriety: they will restrain their appetites. And will hold back, and will think, Even though I can rise in ambition and loftiness, although I can place my confidence entirely in pleasures, if it is necessary that I think higher, and that I know that all the goods that God distributes to me in this world, it is to make the way for me to tend to him, and to be like a ladder to take us up, and not to be like a sepulchre to bury me down here. This is how the faithful will not rejoice like brute beasts, and will not stop at the obsolete happiness which is given to them: and then they will not also become intoxicated when the world applauds them, as if they had their rent here on earth, and as if they were already rewarded for the good life they have led: but they will be ready to walk faithfully through good report and bad. This is the measure and the means that the faithful hold, knowing that when they are at ease, if they will not fall asleep there: and get drunk there, even less: and then they will always be ready to leave everything, when it pleases God. But on the contrary, unbelievers immediately become intoxicated with their ease, they are completely exhausted, and are so stupid that there is no question of thinking