A30598:116
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
The rare jewel of Christian contentment wherein is showed, I. What contentment is, II. The holy art or mystery of it, III. Several lessons that Christ teacheth, to work the heart to contentment, IV. The excellencies of it, V. The evils of murmuring, VII. The aggravations of the sin of murmuring / by Jeremiah Burroughs.The rare jewel of Christian contentment wherein is shewed, I. What contentment is, II. The holy art or mystery of it, III. Several lessons that Christ teacheth, to work the heart to contentment, IV. The excellencies of it, V. The evils of murmuring, VII. The aggravations of the sin of murmuring / by Jeremiah Burroughs.
London: printed for Peter Cole, 1649
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
SERMON III.
PHILIPPIANS. 4.11. For I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
THE Mystery of Contentment will appear yet further. A gracious heart gets Contentment in a mysterious way, a way that the world is not acquainted with
THE Mystery of Contentment will appear yet further. A gracious heart gets Contentment in a mysterious way, a way that the world is not aquainted with
Eighthly, He lives upon the dew of Gods blessing. It's the similitude of one Adrian Junius setting out a Contented man by a Grasshopper, leaping and skipping up and down, that lives upon the dew, and he hath this motto, I am content with what I have, and hope for better. A grasshopper doth not live upon the grass as other things do, you cannot know what it feeds upon, other things though as little as grasshoppers, yet feed upon seeds or little flies, and such things, but the grasshopper, you know not what it feeds upon. So a Christian can get food that the world knows not ⟨p. 41⟩of, in a secret way is a Christian fed by the dew of the blessing of God, a poor man or woman that hath but a little which hath grace, lives a more contented life than his rich neighbour that hath a great deal coming in, we find it so ordinarily, so that though they have but a little, yet they have a secret blessing of God going in it, that they are not able to express to any other man; if you would come to them and say; How comes it that you live so comfortably as you do? they are not able to tell you what they have, but they find there is a sweetness in what they do enjoy, and they know this by experience that they never had such sweetness in former times, that though they had more plenty in former times than now they have, yet they know they had not such sweetness; but how this comes they cannot tell; and we may show some particulars, even in that godly men do enjoy, that make their condition to be sweet.