In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.
Ver. 14. In the day of prosperity be joyful.] Here we have some fair days, some foul - crosses like foul weather, come before they are sent for; for as fair weather, the more is the pity, may do hurt, so may prosperity, as it did to David, Psa 30:6 who therefore had his interchanges of a worse condition, as it was but needful; his prosperity, like checker work, was intermingled with adversity. See the circle God goes in with his people; a in that thirtieth Psalm David was afflicted; Psa 30:5 he was delivered and grew wanton; then troubled again; Psa 30:7 cries again; Psa 30:8-9 God turns his mourning into joy again. Thus God sets the one against the other, as it were, in equilibrio, in even balance, for our greatest good. Sometimes he weighs us in the balance and finds us too light, then he thinks best to make us "heavy through manifold temptations." 1Pe 1:6 Sometimes he finds our water somewhat too high, and then as a physician, no less cunning than loving, he fits us with that which will reduce all to the healthsome temper of a broken spirit. But if we be but prosperity proof, there is no such danger of adversity. Some of those in Queen Mary's days who kept their garments close about them, wore them afterwards more loosely. Prosperity makes the saints rust sometimes; therefore God sets his scullions to scour them and make them bright, though they make themselves black. This scouring if they will scape, let Solomon's counsel be taken, "In the day of prosperity be joyful," - i.e., serve God with cheerfulness in the abundance of all things, and reckon upon it, the more wages the more work. Is it not good reason? Solomon's altar was four times as large as that of Moses; and Ezekiel's temple ten times larger than Solomon's; to teach that where God gives much, he expects much. Otherwise God will "curse our blessings," Mal 2:2 make us "ashamed of our revenues through his fierce anger," Jer 12:13 and "destroy us after he hath done us good." Jos 24:20
In the day of adversity consider.] Sit alone, and be in meditation of the matter. Lam 3:28 "Commune with your own consciences and be still," Psa 4:4 or make a pause. See who it is that smites thee, and for what. Lam 3:40 Take God's part against thyself, as a physician observes which way nature works, and helps it. Consider that God "afflicts not willingly," or "from his heart"; it goes as much against the heart with him as against the hair with us. Lam 3:33 He is forced of "very faithfulness" Psa 119:75 to afflict us, because he will be true to our souls and save them; he is forced to diet us, who have surfeited of prosperity, and keep us short. He is forced to purge us, as wise physicians do some patients, till he bring us almost to skin and bone; and to let us bleed even ad deliquium animae, till we swoon again, that there may be a spring of better blood and spirits. Consider all those precious passages, Heb 12:3-12 and then lift up the languishing hands and feeble knees. For your further help herein, read my treatise called "God's Love Tokens," and "The Afflicted Man's Lessons," passim.
a Circulus quidem est in rebus humanis. Deus nos per contraria eridit. - Naz., Orat. 7.