The great duty of resignation to the divine will in afflictions enforced from the…

'Tis equal folly to imagine that God, who is an infinite Good, suitable to the spiritual immortal nature of the Soul, and all-sufficient to fill the vast capacity and desires of our angelical Faculties, the Understanding and Will, by his glorious Perfections; that God, I say, cannot make us happy in his Love, because our lower animal Faculties, our Senses, have not in our Communion with him what is pleasing to their carnal Appetites. The Spouse in the Canticles is represented as a Lilly among Thorns, encompassed and oppressed ⟨p. 164⟩with injurious Enemies, yet she breaks forth in triumphant Joy, I am my Beloved's, and he is mine; by an irrevocable donation she gave her Heart to Christ, and reciprocally he gave himself to her; she despised all inferior things, and rested in his Love as her sole Felicity. In short, none are concerned to lose the weak light of a Candle at Noon-day, when the Sun pours forth a deluge of Light to illustrate all things; and the Soul that enjoys the propitious Presence of God, is satisfied therewith when lower Comforts fail.

'Tis equal folly to imagine that God, who is an infinite Good, suitable to the spiritual immortal nature of the Soul, and all-sufficient to fill the vast capacity and desires of our angelical Faculties, the Understanding and Will, by his glorious Perfections; that God, I say, cannot make us happy in his Love, because our lower animal Faculties, our Senses, have not in our Communion with him what is pleasing to their carnal Appetites. The Spouse in the Canticles is represented as a Lilly among Thorns, incompassed and opprest ⟨p. 164⟩with injurious Enemies, yet she breaks forth in triumphant Joy, I am my Beloved's, and he is mine; by an irrevocable donation she gave her Heart to Christ, and reciprocally he gave himself to her; she despised all inferiour things, and rested in his Love as her sole Felicity. In short, none are concerned to lose the weak light of a Candle at Noon-day, when the Sun pours forth a deluge of Light to illustrate all things; and the Soul that enjoys the propitious Presence of God, is satisfied therewith when lower Comforts fail.