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The rare jewel of Christian contentment Wherein is showedThe rare jewel of Christian contentment Wherein is shewed
The rare jewel of Christian contentment Wherein is showed; 1. What contentment is. 2. The holy art or mystery of it. 3. Several lessons that Christ teacheth, to work the heart to contentment. 4. The excellencies of it. 5. The evils of murmuring. 6. The aggravations of the sin of murmuring. By Jeremiah Burroughs. The first of the eleven volumes that are published by Thomas Goodwin, William Greenhil, Sydrach Simpson, Philip Nigh, William Bridge, John Yates, William Adderly.The rare jewel of Christian contentment Wherein is shewed; 1. What contentment is. 2. The holy art or mystery of it. 3. Several lessons that Christ teacheth, to work the heart to contentment. 4. The excellencies of it. 5. The evils of murmuring. 6. The aggravations of the sin of murmuring. By Jeremiah Burroughs. The first of the eleven volumes that are published by Thomas Goodwin, William Greenhil, Sydrach Sympson, Philip Nye, William Bridge, John Yates, William Adderly.
London: printed for Ben. Billingsley, 1666
THE RARE JEWEL OF CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT. › Sermon 6: SERMON, VI. at Stepney. Aug. 31. 1645.
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.
You think if I had such a thing then I should be content. I say there is more good in Contentment, than there is in the thing that you would fain have to cure your discontent, and ⟨p. 113⟩that I shall open in divers particulars. As thus.
1. I would fain have such a thing, and then I could be content: but if I had it then it were but the creature that did help to my Contentment; but now it's the Grace of God in my soul that makes me content: and surely it is better to be content with the Grace of God in my soul, than with the enjoying of an outward comfort. 2. If I had such a thing, indeed my estate might be better, but my soul would not be better; but by Contentment my soul is better, that would not be bettered by an estate, or lands, or friends; but Contentment makes my self to be better: and therefore Contentment is a better portion than the thing is that I would fain have to be my portion. 3. If I get Content by having my desire satisfied, that's but self-love; but when I am Contented with the hand of God, and am willing to be at his dispose, that comes from my love to God, in having my desire satisfied, there I am contented through self-love, but through the Grace of Contentment I come to be contented out of love to God; and is it not better to be contented from a principle of love to God, than from a principle of self-love? 4. If I am contented because I have that that I have a desire to, perhaps I am contented in that one particular, but that one particular doth not furnish me with Contentment in another thing? perhaps I may grow more dainty and nice, and froward in other things: if you give children what they would have in some things, they grow so much the more coy and dainty, and discontented if they have not other things that they would have; but if I have once overcome my heart, and am contented through the Grace of God in my heart, then this doth not content me only in particular, but in general, whatsoever befalls me. I am discontented, and would fain have such a thing, and afterwards I have it: now doth this prepare me to be contented in other things? No, but when I have gotten this Grace of Contentment I am prepared to be contented in all conditions: and thus you see that Contentment doth bring comfort to a mans life, fills a mans life full of comfort in this world; yea, the truth is, it is even Heaven upon Earth, why what is