A65276:212
The Art of Divine Contentment
Autarkeia, or, The art of divine contentment by Thomas Watson.
London: printed by T.M. for Ralph Smith, 1654
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. Be not sinfully discontented,1 for God can make the errors of the Church advantageous to truth. Thus the truths of God have come to be more beaten out and confirmed; as it is in Law, one man laying a false title to a piece of land, the true title hath by this means been the more searched into and ratified: some had never so studied to defend the truth by Scripture, if others had not endeavoured to overthrow it by Sophistry; all the mists and fogs of Error that have risen out of the bottomless pit, have made the glorious Sun of truth to shine so much the brighter. Had not Arius and Sabellius broached their damnable Errors, the truth of those questions about the blessed Trinity had never been so discussed and defended by Athanasius, Augustine, and others; had not the Devil brought in so much of his ⟨p. 104⟩princely darkness, the Champions for Truth had never run so fast to Scripture to light their Lamps. So that God who hath a wheel within a wheel, over-rules these things wisely, and turns them to the best. Truth is an heavenly plant that settles by shaking.
2. Be not sinfully discontented,1 for God can make the errours of the Church advantageous to truth. Thus the truths of God have come to be more beaten out and confirmed; as it is in Law, one man laying a false title to a piece of land, the true title hath by this means beene the more searched into and ratified: some had never so studied to defend the truth by Scripture, if others had not endeavoured to overthrow it by Sophistry; all the mists and fogs of Error that have risen out of the bottomlesse pit, have made the glorious Sun of truth to shine so much the brighterr. Had not Arius and Sabellius broached their damnable Errours, the truth of those questions about the blessed Trinity had never beene so discussed and defended by Athanasius, Augustine, and others; had not the Divel brought in so much of his ⟨p. 104⟩princely darknesse, the Champions for Truth had never runne so fast to Scripture to light their Lamps. So that God who hath a wheele within a wheele, over-rules these things wisely, and turnes them to the best. Truth is an heavenly plant that settles by shaking.