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…

The last thing that I would name is this, A godly man hath Contentment by opening and letting out of his heart to God, other men or women they are discontented, but how do they help themselves? by railing, by ill language, such a one crosses them, and they have no way to help themselves but by railing and by bitter words, and so they ease themselves that way when they ⟨p. 68⟩are angry, but a godly man when he is crossed how doth he ease himself? he is sensible of his cross as well as you, and he goes to God in prayer, and there opens his heart to God, and lets out his sorrows and fears, and then can come away with a joyful countenance; now do you find that you can come away from prayer and not look sad? As it's said in 1 Sam. 1. 18 of Hannah, that when she had been at prayer her countenance was no more sad, there she was comforted, and this is the right way of Contentment. Thus we have done with the Mystery of Contentment. Now if you can but put these things together that we have spoken of, you may see fully what an Art Christian Contentment is, Paul had need learn it; you see Contentment is not such a poor business as many make it, to say you must be content &c. But it is a great Art and Mystery of godliness to be contented in the way of a Christian, and it will appear yet further to be a mystery when we come to the third head; and that's to show what those lessons are that a gracious heart doth learn when it learns to be Contented. I have learned to be Contented, Learned, what lessons have you learned? As now a Scholar that hath great learning and understanding in Arts and Sciences, how did he begin it, he began (as we use to say) his A B C, and then afterwards he came to his Testament, and Bible, and Accidence, and so to his Grammar, and afterwards to his other books; so he learned one thing after another: So a Christian coming to Contentment is as a Scholar in Christs School, and there are divers lessons to teach the Soul to bring it to this learning, every godly man or woman is a scholar, it cannot be said of any Christian that he is illiterate, but he is literate, a learned man, a learned woman, now the lessons that Christ teaches to bring us to Contentment are these.

The last thing that I would name is this, A godly man hath Contentment by opening and letting out of his heart to God, other men or women they are discontented, but how do they help themselves? by rayling, by ill language, such a one crosses them, and they have no way to help themselves but by railing and by bitter words, and so they ease themselves that way when they