Hale, M. (1675). Of afflictions, the best preparation for them, and improvement of them, and of our delivery out of them. In M. Hale, Contemplations moral and divine: In two parts (pp. 209-242). London, England: William Shrowsbury.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/11829-008
Job's Friends, though in the particular Case of Job, they were mistaken, yet they were certainly very wise, godly and observing Men; and many of their Sentences were full of excellent and useful Truths, and particularly the Speech of Eliphaz (Job, V. 6, 7), which importeth these two useful Propositions. 1. That the general state of Man in this World is a slate of Trouble and Affliction and it is so common to him, so incident to all degrees and conditions of Mankind, that it seems almost as universal, as that natural propension in the sparks to fly upward: No person of whatsoever age, sex, condition, degree, quality, profession, but hath a part in this common state of Mankind; and although some seem to have a greater portion of it than others, some seem to have greater and longer vicissitudes and intermissions and allays thereof than others, yet none are totally exempt from it: yea it is rare to find any Man, that hath had the ordinary extent of the age of Man, but his Troubles, Crosses, Calamities, Afflictions have overweighed and exceeded the measure of his comforts and contentments in this life. 2. That yet those Afflictions and Troubles do neither grow up by a certain regular and constant course of Nature, as Plants and Vegetables do out of the ground, neither are they mere accidental and casual; but they are sent, disposed, directed, and managed by the conduct and guidance of the most Wise Providence of Almighty God: and this he proveth in the sequel of this Chapter. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)