The rare jewel of Christian contentment. By Jeremiah Burroughs, preacher of the Gospel to…The rare jevvel of Christian contentment. By Jeremiah Burroughs, preacher of the Gospel to…

So in a holy gracious way should a soul say, Well, this affliction that I am brought into, it is by the hand of God, and I am content to be here till God brings me out himself. God doth require it at our hands that we should not be willing to come out till he comes and fetches us out. In Josh. 4. 10. you have a notable history there that may very well serve our purpose; we read of the Priests, that the Priests bare the Ark and stood in the middest of Jordan; you know when the Children of Israel went into the land of Canaan they went through the River of Jordan: Now the going through the river Jordan was a very dangerous thing, only God bad them to go, they might have been afraid that the water might have come in upon them: Put mark, it is said, The Priests that bare the Ark stood in the middest of Jordan till every thing was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua, and the people hasted and p•sed over: And it came to pass when all the p••ple were clean passed over, that the Ark of the Lord passed over, and the Priests in the presence •f the people. Now it was Gods dispose that all the people should pas•e over first, that they should be safe upon the land; but the priests they must stand still till all the people be passed over, and then they must have leave to go, but they must stay till God would have them go, stay in all that danger; for certainly in reason and sense there was a great deal of danger in staying: for the text saith the people hasted over, but the Priests they must stay till the people be gone stay till God calls them out from that place of danger; and so many times it doth prove that God is pleased to dispose of things so that his Ministers must stay longer in danger then the people, and Magistrates and those in public ⟨p. 25⟩place, which should make people to be satisfied and contented with a lower condition that God hath put them into: Though our condition below, yet you are not in that danger that those are in that are in a higher condition▪ God calls them in public place to •and longer in the gap and place of danger then other people but we must be content to stay even in Jordan till the Lord shall be pleased to call us out.