77. For the wicked look for the afflicting of the righteous, and long to see them in distress, and ‘in the dark they dig through houses,’ when the heart of the innocent but weak ones they corrupt in the season of their casting down by the worst mode of discourse. But it commonly happens that when they see the good in a sunken state, on a sudden, by the secret appointment of God, any righteous one that seemed to be borne down is upheld by some share of the world’s power, and the prosperity of the present life smiles on him, whom the darkness of adversity before overlaid. Which same prosperity of that man when the wicked behold, as it has been said, they are troubled. For directly they turn back to their own hearts, they bring back before their minds’ eye whatever they remember themselves to have done amiss, they fear for every particular sinful habit to be avenged in them, and by the same means by which he that receives power is made to shine the bad man who dreads to be corrected i...
