A65276:312
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.
First, they exercise grace: affliction doth breath our graces; every thing is most in its excellency, when it is most in its exercise. Our grace, though it cannot be dead, yet it may ⟨p. 159⟩be asleep, & hath need of awakening. What a dull thing is the fire when it is hid in the embers, or the Sun when it is masked with a cloud; a sick man is living, but not lively; afflictions quicken and excite grace. God doth not love to see grace in the eclipse. Now faith puts forth its purest and most noble acts in times of affliction: God makes the fall of the leaf the spring of our graces▪ What if we are more passive, if grace be more active?
First, they exercise grace: affliction doth breath our graces; every thing is most in its excellency, when it is most in its exercise. Our grace, though it cannot be dead, yet it may ⟨p. 159⟩be asleep, & hath need of awakening. What a dull thing is the fire when it is hid in the embers, or the Sunne when it is masqued with a cloud; a sick man is living, but not lively; afflictions quicken and excite grace. God doth not love to see grace in the eclipse. Now faith puts forth its purest and most noble acts in times of affliction: God makes the fall of the leafe the spring of our graces▪ What if we are more passive, if grace be more active?
2. Afflictions do increase grace: as the wind serves to increase & blow up the flame; so do the windy blasts of affliction augment & blow up our graces; grace spends in the furnace, but it is like the widows oil in the cruse, which did increase by pouring out. The torch when it is beaten, burns brightest, so doth grace when it is exercised by sufferings. Sharp frosts nourish the good corn, so do sharp afflictions grace; some plants ⟨p. 160⟩grow better in the shade then in the Sun; as the Bay and the Cypress. The shade of adversity is better for some then the Sun-shine of prosperity. Naturalists observe, that the Colewort thrives better when it is watered with salt water then with fresh: So do some thrive better in the salt water of affliction; and shall we be discontented at that which makes us grow and fructify more?