A30598:444
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
THE RARE JEWEL OF CHRISTIAN Contentment. › Sermon 10 › Part 11: A Eleventh Plea.
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.
But yet there's another reasoning that many murmuring hearts think to feed their humour withal, (say they) If I never had bin in a better condition then I could bear this affliction, if God had always kept me in so low a condition I could be content, Oh but there was a time that I prospered more, and I had things at more full hand, and therefore now it is harder to me to be brought low; as in these times, perhaps a man that had five or six hundred a year, but now hath had nothing for a great while, if that man had not bin born to so much, or never had prospered in any higher degree than now he is in, this affliction had bin less, perhaps he hath some money and friends to live upon, but if he had never bin in a better condition he would not have accounted it so great a matter to have been without it now. This many times is our greatest wound, that once we were in a better condition; and this is the most unreasonable thing for us to murmur upon this ground of any.
But yet there's another reasoning that many murmuring hearts think to feed their humour withal, (say they) If I never had bin in a better condition then I could bear this affliction, if God had alwaies kept me in so low a condition I could be content, Oh but there was a time that I prospered more, and I had things at more full hand, and therefore now it is harder to me to be brought low; as in these times, perhaps a man that had five or six hundred a yeer, but now hath had nothing for a great while, if that man had not bin born to so much, or never had prospered in any higher degree than now he is in, this affliction had bin less, perhaps he hath some mony and friends to live upon, but if he had never bin in a better condition he would not have accounted it so great a matter to have been without it now. This many times is our greatest wound, that once we were in a better condition; and this is the most unreasonable thing for us to murmur upon this ground of any.
For first, Is thy eye evil because God hath been good to thee heretofore? It's an ill thing for us to have our eye evil because God is good to others, but to look upon our condition with an evil eye now, because God was once good to us; hath God done thee any wrong because he was formerly more good to thee than he was to others?