A Meditation Upon a Piece of Battered Plate by William Spurstowe (ca. 1666)   A Battered Plate is methinks an emblem of a suffering Saint, who by afflicting strokes may lose somewhat of his accidental beauty; but nothing of his real worth.  In the plate the fashion is only marred; but the substance is neither diminished or embased.  If you bring it to the scale, it weighs as much as it did; if you try by the touchstone, it is as good silver as it was.  And is it not thus with a Saint when bruised and broken with many sore pressures?  His luster and repute with men may be prejudiced and eclipsed by them, but not his person  or his worth with God; if he be weighed in His unerring balance, he will not be found the lighter; if examined by His test, he will not be esteemed the less precious.  It is not the cross that makes vile, but sin; not the passive evils which we suffer, but the active evils which we do.  The one may render us unamiable to men, but the other makes us unholy before God; the one raise the casket, and the other makes a flaw in the jewel.  Happy and wise therefore is that man who maketh Moses his choice to be his pattern in choosing affliction rather than sin; esteeming it better to be an oppressed Hebrew that builds the houses and palaces of brick, than an uncircumcised Egyptian to dwell in them, for when he is tried he shall receive the Crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.   A Meditation Upon a Picture and a Statue In what a differing manner is the image and representation of the same person brought into these two pieces of art?  In the one it is effected by the soft and silent touches of the pencil, which happily convey likeness and beauty together.  In the other it is formed by the rough and loud strokes of the hammer, and by the deep cuttings and sculptures of instruments of steel.  In as strange and far differing way is the heavenly image of God formed in the souls of new converts, when first made partakers of the Divine Nature.  In some God paints (as I may so speak) His own likeness by a still and calm delineation of it upon the table of their hearts.  In others He carves it by afflicting them with a great measure of terrors, and wounding their souls with a thorough sense both of the guilt and defilement of sin.  But in this diversity of working, God is no way necessitated, or limited by the disposition and temper of the matter, as other agents are; but is freely guided by the counsel of His own will, which is the sole rule and measure of all His actions towards the creature, as His Word is of theirs towards Him.  Lord therefore do with me what Thou pleasest; let me be but thine, and I will not prescribe Thy wisdom the way to make me Thine; bruise, break, wound, yea, kill, Lord, so that I may be made alive again by Thy power, and bear Thy holy Image, according to which I was first made, and to which by Thy grace and might only I can be restored.    -----------------------  This article is taken from:  Spurstowe, William.  The Spiritual Chymist: or, Six Decads of Divine Meditations on Several Subjects. London: Philip Chetwind, 1666.  A PDF file of this book can be downloaded, free of charge, at http://www.ClassicChristianLibrary.com