A94156:1009
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature…
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature and necessity of it is discovered. : As also the Christian directed how he may perform it in [brace] religious duties, natural actions, his particular vocation, his family directions, and his own recreations. / By George Swinnock ...
London: printed for T.P., 1662
Treatise › Chapter 26: How to exercise our selves to Godliness in our Partiular Callings.
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.
Sixthly, Labour for contentedness, and an holy composedness in all conditions: Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, Heb. 13. Thy duty is, to have the scales of thy mind equally poised in all providences; not rising in prosperity through lightness, ⟨p. 490⟩nor sinking in adversity under the heaviness of the load. As the tree bendeth this way and that way with the wind, but still keepeth its place; so thou mayest yield according to the gales of providence, but still retain and keep thy standing, thy piety. If thine estate decrease, let not thine heart despair; if the World flow in, let not thine heart flow out: O it was an excellent Lesson which Paul had learned, I know in what state soever I am to be content; I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound; I know how to be full, and how to be empty, Phil. 4.11. Paul was not like a musical Instrument out of tune with every change of weather; but like the Cypress tree, which no storms (Naturalists tell us) can alter; and like the Hill Olympus, above all winds and weather.
Sixthly, Labour for contentedness, and an holy composedness in all conditions: Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, Heb. 13. Thy duty is, to have the scales of thy minde equally poized in all providences; not rising in prosperity through lightness, ⟨p. 490⟩nor sinking in adversity under the heaviness of the load. As the tree bendeth this way and that way with the wind, but still keepeth its place; so thou mayest yield according to the gales of providence, but still retain and keep thy standing, thy piety. If thine estate decrease, let not thine heart despair; if the World flow in, let not thine heart flow out: O it was an excellent Lesson which Paul had learned, I know in what state soever I am to be content; I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound; I know how to be full, and how to be empty,