The Art of Divine Contentment

SECT. 7.

7. Rule. Look not so much on the dark side of your condition, as on the light.

God doth chequer his providences, white and black, as the pillar of cloud had its light side and dark; look on the light side of thy estate; who looks on the back side of a landscape? Suppose thou art cast in a Law-suit, there is the dark side; yet thou hast some land left, there is the light side. Thou hast sickness in thy body, there is the dark side; but grace in thy ⟨p. 249⟩soul, there is the light side. Thou hast a child taken away, there is the dark side; thy husband lives, there is the light side. Gods providences in this life are various, represented by those speckled horses among the Myrtle-trees^*, which were red and white; mercies and afflictions are interwoven, God doth speckle his work. Oh, saith one, I want such a comfort: but weigh all thy mercies in the balance, and that will make thee content. If a man did want a finger, would he be so discontented for the loss of that, as not to be thankful for all the other parts and joints of his body? Look on the light side of your condition, and then all your discontents will easily disband; do not pore upon your loss, but ponder upon your mercies. What? wouldst thou have no cross at all? Why should one man think to have all good things, when himself is good in part? wouldst ⟨p. 250⟩thou have no evil about thee, who hast so much evil in thee? thou art not fully sanctified in this life, how then thinkest thou to be fully satisfied? never look for perfection of contentment till there be perfection of grace.