could not eat; "but
why weepest thou," said Elkanah her husband, "and why eatest thou not? why
is thine heart troubled? am not I better to thee than ten sons?" and she
was quiet. Thou art here [3795]vexed in this world; but say to thyself,
"Why art thou troubled, O my soul?" Is not God better to thee than all
temporalities, and momentary pleasures of the world? be then pacified. And
though thou beest now peradventure in extreme want, [3796]it may be 'tis
for thy further good, to try thy patience, as it did Job's, and exercise
thee in this life: trust in God, and rely upon him, and thou shalt be
[3797]crowned in the end. What's this life to eternity? The world hath
forsaken thee, thy friends and fortunes all are gone: yet know this, that
the very hairs of thine head are numbered, that God is a spectator of all
thy miseries, he sees thy wrongs, woes, and wants. [3798]"'Tis his
goodwill and pleasure it should be so, and he knows better what is for thy
good than thou thyself. His providence is over all, at all times; he hath
set a guard of angels over us, and keeps us as the apple of his eye," Ps.
xvii. 8. Some he doth exalt, prefer, bless with worldly riches, honours,
offices, and preferments, as so many glistering stars he makes to shine
above the rest: some he doth miraculously protect from thieves, incursions,
sword, fire, and all violent mischances, and as the [3799]poet feigns of
that Lycian Pandarus, Lycaon's son, when he shot at Menelaus the Grecian
with a strong arm, and deadly arrow, Pallas, as a good mother keeps flies
from her child's face asleep, turned by the shaft, and made it hit on the
buckle of his girdle; so some he solicitously defends, others he exposeth
to danger, poverty, sickness, want, misery, he chastiseth and corrects, as
to him seems best, in his deep, unsearchable and secret judgment, and all
for our good. "The tyrant took the city" (saith [3800]Chrysostom), "God did
not hinder it; led them away captives, so God would have it; he bound them,
God yielded to it: flung them into the furnace, God permitted it: heat the
oven hotter, it was granted: and when the tyrant had done his worst, God
showed his power, and the children's patience; he freed them:" so can he
thee, and can [3801]help in an instant, when it seems to him good. [3802]
"Rejoice not against me, O my enemy; for though I fall, I shall rise: when
I sit in darkness, the Lord shall lighten me." Remember all those martyrs
what they have endur