A30598:131
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.
In the Tenth place, A godly man hath Contentment in the way of a mystery, because as he sees all his afflictions come from the same love that Jesus Christ did; so he sees them all sanctified in Jesus Christ, sanctified as a Mediator; he sees (I say) all the sting and venom, and poison of them all to be taken out by the virtue of Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and Man: As now for instance, Thus, a Christian when he would have Contentment falls a working, what is my affliction? Is it poverty that God strikes me withal? Jesus Christ had not a house to hide his head in, the Fowls of the air had nests, and the Foxes had holes, but the Son of Man not a hole to hide his head in: now my poverty is sanctified by Christs poverty, I can see by faith the curse and sting and venom of my poverty, taken out by the poverty of Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus he was poor in this world to deliver me from the curse of my poverty, that it should not be cursed unto me, then my poverty is not afflictive, if I can be contented in such a condition. That is the way, not to stand and repine, because I have not what others have, no, but I am poor, and Christ was therefore poor that he might bless my poverty to me.
In the Tenth place, A godly man hath Contentment in the way of a mystery, because as he sees all his afflictions come from the same love that Jesus Christ did; so he sees them all sanctified in Jesus Christ, sanctified as a Mediator; he sees (I say) all the sting and venom, and poyson of them all to be taken out by the vertue of Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and Man: As now for instance, Thus, a Christian when he would have Contentment fals a working, what is my affliction? Is it poverty that God strikes me withall? Jesus Christ had not a house to hide his head in, the Fowls of the air had nests, and the Foxes had holes, but the Son of Man not a hole to hide his head in: now my poverty is sanctified by Christs poverty, I can see by faith the curse and sting and venom of my poverty, taken out by the poverty of Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus he was poor in this world to deliver me from the curse of my poverty, that it should not be cursed unto me, then my poverty is not afflictive, if I can be contented in such a condition. That is the way, not to stand and repine, because I have not what others have, no, but I am poor, and Christ was therefore poor that he might bless my poverty to me.