A65276:66
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. The Doctrine of Contentment concerns poor men. You that do not suck so liberally from the ⟨p. 27⟩breasts of Providence, be content; it is an hard Lesson, therefore it had need be set upon the sooner. How hard is it when the livelihood is even gone, a great estate boiled away almost to nothing, then to be content? The means of subsistence, is in Scripture called our life, because it is the very sinews of life. The woman in the Gospel spent all her living upon the Physicians*, in the Greek it is, [Greek or Hebrew], She spent her whole life upon the Physicians, because she spent her means by which she should live. 'Tis much when poverty hath clipped our wings, then to be content: but, difficilia pulchra; though hard, it is excellent; and the Apostle here had learned in every state to be content.
2. The Doctrine of Contentment concernes poore men. You that do not suck so liberally from the ⟨p. 27⟩brests of Providence, be content; it is an hard Lesson, therefore it had need be set upon the sooner. How hard is it when the livelihood is even gone, a great estate boyled away almost to nothing, then to be content? The means of subsistance, is in Scripture called our life, because it is the very sinewes of life. The woman in the Gospel spent all her living upon the Physicians*, in the Greek it is, 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, She spent her whole life upon the Physicians, because she spent her means by which she should live. 'Tis much when poverty hath clipped our wings, then to be content: but, difficilia pulchra; though hard, it is excellent; and the Apostle here had learned in every state to be content.