The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

Thus you see how a godly heart finds contentment in the Covenant, many of you speak of the Covenant of God, and of the Covenant of grace, but have you found it so effectual to your souls? have you sucked this sweetness from the Covenant and content to your hearts in your sad conditions? It's a special sign of the truth of grace in any soul, that when any affliction doth befall him, in a kind of natural way he doth presently ⟨p. 64⟩repair to the Covenant; just as a Child as soon as ever it is in danger, you shall not need to tell him and say, when you are in danger you must go to your father or mother, nature tells him so: so it is with a gracious heart, as soon as it is in any trouble or affliction there is a new nature that doth carry him to the Covenant presently, and there it finds ease and rest: and if you find that your hearts do thus work, presently to be running to the Covenant, it is an excellent sign of the truth of grace: that's for the general.

Thus you see how a godly heart finds contentment in the Covenant, many of you speak of the Covenant of God, and of the Covenant of grace, but have you found it so effectual to your souls? have you suckt this sweetnesse from the Covenant and content to your hearts in your sad conditions? It's a speciall sign of the truth of grace in any soul, that when any affliction doth befal him, in a kind of natural way he doth presently ⟨p. 64⟩repair to the Covenant; just as a Child as soon as ever it is in danger, you shall not need to tell him and say, when you are in danger you must go to your father or mother, nature tels him so: so it is with a gracious heart, as soon as it is in any trouble or affliction there is a new nature that doth carry him to the Covenant presently, and there it finds ease and rest: and if you find that your hearts do thus work, presently to be runing to the Covenant, it is an excellent sign of the truth of grace: thats for the general.

But now for particular promises in the Covenant of grace. A gracious heart looks upon every promise as coming from the Root of the great Covenant of grace in Christ. Other men look upon some particular promises, that God will help them in straights, and keep them and the like; but they look not upon the connection of such particular promises, to the root, the Covenant of grace: Now Christians do miss of a great deal of comfort they might have, from the particular promises in the Gospel, if they'd look upon their connection to the root, the great Covenant that God hath made with them in Christ. Now I remember I spoke a little about that, that in outward promises in the time of the Law, they might rest more upon them than we can in the time of the Gospel. I gave you the reason why we that live in the time of the Gospel cannot rest so fully, for a literal performance of outward promises that we meet withal in the old-Testament, as they might in the time of the Law: for there was a special Covenant, that God pleased to call a New Covenant by way of distinction from the other Covenant that is made with us in Christ for eternal life: And so even the Law was given to them in a more peculiar way for an external Covenant of outward blessings in the land of Canaan; and so God did deal with them in a more external covenant than he doth now with his people. Yet godliness, hath the promise of this life, and that which is to come. We may make use of the promises for this life, but yet not so much to rest upon the literal performance of them as they might; but that God will make them good some way or other, in a spiritual way, if not in an outward way. We must lay no more upon outward promises than this, and therefore if we will lay