Four useful discourses viz. ... /Four usefull discourses viz. ... /

7. The Application of all. These are the seven Heads that I shall cast the matter into.

For the first, When hath a Man learned how to be full? What do you mean, when you say that Christ doth teach his people to know how to be full? A Man hath learned how to be full, when he hath attained to these several particulars:

First, When a Man hath learned to set a due price on his fullness. When he hath learned to set a due price and value upon those mercies that God hath been pleased to grant unto him: When he can prize them, not too high nor too low, but as they are, those mercies that God grants him. A Man doth not learn to be full, when he doth not understand what the mercies are that God hath granted to him. As no man can attain to the grace of Christian Contentment that is stupid under affliction, he must understand his affliction, and know his affliction, or else he cannot come to Christian Contentment: so neither can We learn how to be full, except we know what the mercies are that God hath granted to us. If a man should enjoy many mercies, and doth not understand them, he is not taught how to be full; he must prize the mercy that God hath granted to him, at a due rate. As he must look upon (even these outward mercies) as the good blessings of God to him, he must not slight them; and he must look upon them as coming to him from the promise. Godliness hath the promise of this life, and the promise of the life to come; as a fruit of the promise of God to him, and as Gods goodness for the encouraging of him in the way […] ⟨p. 7⟩righteous God hath set him in. He must so look upon the outward things that he doth enjoy. He must look upon them as good Utensils (as I may so speak) as affording opportunity to do God service in the place where God hath set him: And so good things, in that regard he must prize them according to the due value of them. A man that slights Gods mercies and thinks there is little in them, he doth not know how to be full. But now, as he must not prize them at too low a rate, his Health and Estate, and Comfort that he hath; neither will he prize them at too high a rate; they are mercies, but they are but outward mercies: they come to me from Gods goodness, I but it's from Gods general Goodness. Though it's true, a Christian may look upon every mercy that he hath, as coming from another fountain than the ungodly; but yet the general goodness of God is enough to bestow the things themselves: For the matter of them, they are mercies, but they are but common mercies: Indeed I have them, but yet they are no other, but that a Reprobate may have as well as my self. They are good things, but they are not such good things as they make any one to be good.