The Mixture of Good and Bad

    "I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: But that the Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me."

    There is a mixture of bad with good in the best societies in the world. And there are reasons for this mixture.

    Sometimes their own choice. The bad choose to be among the good: "It shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you." So Laban desired Jacob to stay with him, because he saw God blessed him for his sake; not that he loved Jacob as a godly man.

    Another reason is that the good do not infallibly know who are good, and who are bad, until their badness appears. We are to judge charitably, and not to despise "the weak."

    And, God, in his wise providence, orders it so for holy ends. For the sake of the bad—that they may be made better by being with those that are good. If it have not that effect, it will aggravate their condemnation another day that they would not follow the good examples of the saints. Sometimes their nearness to the good makes them worse. They malign, and despise, and hate, and reproach them.

    God so orders it too for the sake of the good, to exercise their graces—the grace of thankfulness to Him that hath made the difference. Lord, why am I not as bad as he ?" Even so, Father, because it seemed good" to thee to make a difference. I have nothing but what I "received." —The grace of patience under the taunts and reproaches that they meet with from the bad: "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution;" that so, "tribulation may work patience," and "patience, experience."— To exercise their wisdom: "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without." There is great need of wisdom to do this; to exercise charity and zeal in mourning over, and reproving, and admonishing, and praying for, them. "The poor ye have always with you." And so God hath left the profane always with us.—To keep us always upon our watch: because we are in the midst of snares and pollutions.

    God so orders it to make the grace that is in us the more illustrious. Contraries illustrate each other.

    And, to make a difference between heaven and earth. This is not the unmixed world. In hell all is misery. In heaven all is happiness. On earth there is a mixture both of conditions and persons.