The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

Sixthly, We are worse than nothing. For by sin we come to be a great deal worse than nothing; sin makes us more vile than nothing, sin makes us contrary to all good: now it's a great deal worse to have a contrariety to all that is good, than merely to have an emptiness of all that is good, we are not empty pitchers in respect of good, but we are like pitchers filled with poison, and is it much for such as we are to be cut short of outward comforts?

Sixtly, We are worse than nothing. For by sin we come to be a great deal worse than nothing; sin makes us more vile than nothing, sin makes us contrary to all good: now it's a great deal worse to have a contrariety to all that is good, than meerly to have an emptiness of al that is good, we are not empty pitchers in respect of good, but we are like pitchers fill'd with poison, and is it much for such as we are to be cut short of outward comforts?

In the Seventh place, If we perish there will no loss of us. If God should annihilate me what loss would there be of me? God can raise up another in my place, to do him other manner of service than I have done. Now put but these Seven things together and then hath Christ taught you Self-denial: I may call these the several words in our lesson of Self-denial; Christ teaches the soul this, so that as in the presence of God upon a real sight of its self it can say, Lord I am nothing, Lord I deserve nothing, Lord I can do nothing, I can receive nothing, I can make use of nothing, I am worse than nothing, and if I come to nothing and perish, there will be no loss at all of me, and therefore what great matter is it for me to be cut short here? A man that is little in his own eyes, such a man or woman will account every affliction to be little, and every mercy to be great: Saul, There was a time (the Scripture saith) that he was little in his own eyes, and then his afflictions were but little to him, when some would not have had him to be King but spake contemptuously of him he held his peace, but when Saul began to be big in his own eyes, then the affliction began to be great upon him. There was never any such contented man or woman at this self-denying man or woman: There was never any denied himself so much as Jesus Christ did, he gave his cheeks to the smiters, he opened not his mouth, he was as a lamb when he was led to the slaughter, he made no noise in the street, Oh he denied himself above all, and was willing to empty himself, and so he was the most contented that ever any was in the world, & the nearer we come to learn to deny our selves as Christ did, the more contented shall we be, and by knowing much of our own vileness, we come to