Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 18.1 (Patrologia Latina, vol. XXXVIII, col. 129; tr. Edmund Hill):

Now, you see, when God's commandments are recited, they are treated by some people as a joke. Because what God has promised is not yet forthcoming, and what he threatens is not yet to be seen, what he commands is jeered at. Now, you see, what we call the good luck of this world is enjoyed by bad people too; and what we call this world's hard luck is suffered by good people too. People who only believe what they can see with their eyes and believe nothing about the future notice that the good things and bad things of this present age are indiscriminately the lot of good and bad people. If their desire is for riches, they see that both the worst of people and good people have riches. They also see, if they have a horror of poverty and the miseries of this life, that it is not only good people who are caught in the toils of these miseries but also bad people. And they say in their heart of hearts that God is neither interested in nor in control of human affairs, but has utterly abandoned us in this world as in some kind of rock-bottom dump to be the playthings of chance, and makes no provision for us whatever.

modo enim quando dicuntur praecepta Dei, quibusdam in risum veniunt. et quoniam quod promisit Deus modo non ostenditur, et quod minatur modo non videtur, quod praecipit irridetur. modo enim felicitatem quae dicitur mundi huius, habent et mali; infelicitatem quae dicitur mundi huius, habent et boni. attendunt homines qui credunt praesentia et non credunt futura, quoniam ista bona et mala praesentis saeculi promiscue habentur a bonis et malis. si divitias optant, vident habere divitias et pessimos homines et bonos homines. vident etiam, si exhorrent paupertatem et miserias huius saeculi, laborare in his miseriis non solum bonos, sed etiam malos. et dicunt in corde suo, quia res humanas Deus nec respicit nec regit, sed omnino in intimo quodam fundo mundi huius dimisit nos casibus volvi, nec aliquam providentiam exhibet nobis.