Contentment Leading a Christian, Treatise 1 · Chapter 13
CHAP. XIII. Of tryalls in our Estates, and Cententment therein.
THe second sort of trialls concerning our selves, which godlines fenceth the heart against, respecteth our estates: reduced to three heads; namely, the want or losse,
1 Of wealth and riches.Grounds of Contentment in the losse or want of riches.
2 Of delights and pleasures.
3 Of honors and preferments.
In the want or losse of riches, godlinesse perswadeth contentment, thus.
First, it turneth up the eyes of the soule unto God, and beholdeth in him many things, all which afford sweet contentment: as,
First, his providence and overruling hand, in which are the heavēs, the earth and creatures. It is he that layeth the lines for the sonnes of men: but his eye especially is upon them that feare him, to whom so long as he granteth them life, hee will provide sufficient maintenance.
Secondly, his affection to his children is such, as cannot let them want what is fit for them. For, whom he chose to be his children before they were, and those for whom he sent his Son, being enemies, will he withhold good things from them, being reconciled? Hence Christ perswadeth contentment, Mat. 6. 31. your heavenly father knoweth what you stand in need of. Marke the Evangelist saith not, God knoweth, but your heavenly Father, by that loving name the more to strengthen and assure us, that if wee who are evill, can give to our children good things, much more our heavēly Father will give good things to his children, asking them of him. Can a mother forget her childe, &c. Esa. 49. 15. no, say as David, the Lord is my shepherd, I shal want nothing. Ps. 23, 1.
Thirdly, his unchangable truth, which never faileth, but standeth for ever. He hath promised that no good thing shall be wāting to thē that feare him; but he will increase their stock & state in his time, viz. whē it shal make for his glory & their good. Ioseph was made next man unto Pharaoh, that without him none should lift up his hand or foot in al the lād: but he must first be sold of his brethren, accused of his mistresse, bound fast in the prison, where the irons entred into his soule. Our Saviour Christ did not presently turne the water into wine at his mothers desire, because his houre was not Iohn 24.come. If Gods houre be come, thou shalt see thy water turned into wine, thy want into wealth: or else he will give great blessing on small meanes, that the little which the just man hath, shall be better then the abundance of Prov. 16. 8.the wicked.
Secondly, it looketh up to Christ our head, who was poor, and had not where to lay his head, when Foxes had their holes, and Birds their nests, Mat. 8. 20. And many of the faithfull were ever poore, or else made poore, as Heb. 10. 34. and 11. 37. Yea the stock of Christ, the posterity of King David, of whom Ioseph & Mary came, were brought to great poverty: and yet it never impeached the promise, or love of God to that family. Yea Christ hath sanctified our want and poverty: and as his Father loved him never the worse for it, no more doth he his members. Hee accepts not the person of the rich or poore because they are so, but in every nation he that Act. 10. 135.feares him and workes righteousnesse is accepted of him. To him a godly poor man is in more request then wicked Kings.
Thirdly, godlinesse maketh men 3 Si non sunt a… cu… haber…t…r, non … … cū a…i…teren tur. Aug.esteem of wealth in the due place and value. As the having of them cannot make a man the better man, so the not having of them cannot make him much worse. The want of them cannot hinder Gods Election: nay, hath not God chosen the poore of this world to be rich in faith, and heires of the Kingdome, Iames 2. 5? It cannot hinder from the meanes of grace and life: nay, the poore receive the Gospel, when not many rich, not many noble receive it. It hinders not salvation: no, poore Lazarus shall be in Abrahams bosome, when Dives shall be in torment.
And even for this present life, whereto riches be only servants: godlinesse teacheth, that mans life stands not in abundance, Luke 12. 15. It is not bread, but the staffe of bread, which feedeth us: the blessing of God maketh rich, and hee addeth no sorrowes to it. And, if I have lost wealth, I lose some movables, my inheritance I hold, and my enduring substance.
Fourthly, godlinesse maketh the 4heart seeke for and purchase other wealth so much the more, and content it selfe to make the Lord his portion: that Christ is become his wealth: that faith, hope, love, and other graces are his goods: the pearle is better then all. Christ never comes alone: yet if he did come naked, hee were wealth enough. The lines are fallen in a good Psal. 16. 6.ground, if God be present. What can be wanting to him that enjoyes God a Father in Iesus Christ? Let God give me himselfe, and heaven mine inheritance, let him doe with his movables as he please.
Thus of wealth and riches.
Next, in the want or losse of worldly Grounds of Contentment in the want or losse of pleasures. 1pleasures and delights, godlinesse contenteth the heart thus.
1 Because the Disciple of Christ is knowne by a contrary colour: Hee must daily take up his crosse, and they that are Christs have crucified the flesh and lusts of it, Gal. 5. 24. Shall Christ so willingly buckle under his crosse, and shall wee be as Simon of Cyrene, who wi… not beare it unlesse it be forced upon us? The whole life of Christ was a continuall sorrow: we read hee wept thrise, over Lazarus, over Ierusalem, and in the garden, but never that he laughed.
2 The pleasures worthy a Christian are the pleasures of Gods house, standing in remission of sinne, peace with God, peace of conscience, joy in the holy Ghost: and these are so proper and peculiar to the godly, as they agree to no other. These are the pleasures of an high and excellent straine, which we are to reserve our hearts and affections for: and the other, in comparison of these heavenly and spirituall joyes, to bee loathed and contemned. Delight thy selfe in the Lord: of all other delight, say as Salomon, It is madnesse.
3 Solomon who tryed his heart 3 E…cl. 2. 11.with all worldly delights, pronounced of them all, that they are vanity and vexation of spirit. And the Apostle affirmeth of widowes living in pleasure, that they are dead while they live. And what other is the profit of the lives of Epicures and b…lly-gods, who seeke nothing more then to live in ease and pleasure? They choake all holy cogitations, unfit them as enemies to all godly studies, refuse as uncapable all good admonitions, and degenerate men from men into filthy beasts. How do they infect the mind, oppresse the soule, dull the wit, waste the body, and bring harmes on a man a thousand more? This made one of B…rnard. Descriptió of worldly pleasure.the fathers describe worldly pleasures thus: It is an harlot fitting in her chariot, whose foure wheeles are Gluttony, Lust, Pride in apparell, Idlenesse; the two horses are, Prosperity and Abundance; the two drivers are, Idlenesse and Security; and if he had added the retinue or attendants that follow and wait upon her, as griefe, too late repentance, pale-faced sicknesse, leane consumption, beggery and death, hee had made a most absolute description. But who cannot by the quality of the Mistresse gather the nature of her handmaids? Now this being the troup of earthly and unsanctified pleasures, they are not onelyonly to be contemned, but hated of all Christians.
4 Consider this present life as a 4warfare, a pilgrimage, a moment on which eternity dependeth, a day of grace, a space of repentance, and of strife to enter in at the strait gate: the time of our absence from home, and from the Lord. And how can we sing so merrily in a strange land? What a number of enemies besiege us, and watch for our security? What a bad constitution is my heart of? How labours it of the poison of sin? How is it with me other then a seafaring man? When he is safest, there is but an inch between him and death: and how can I in all these miseries set my selfe on a merry pin, as the rich glutton did, who heard that sentence, Son, remember thou hadst thy pleasure here, and Lazarus paine, but now hee is comforted, and thou art tormented? Or how shall God wipe away my teares in heaven, if I shed none in earth? And how shall I reap in joy, if I sow not in teares? I was borne with teares, and shall die with teares: why should I live without them in this valley of teares?
5 Since our sinne cast us out of 5Paradise, that place was shut up, that we should looke for no Paradise on earth any more, but toward that heavenly Paradise whereof the other was a type. Wee must therefore use the world as not using it, rejoyce as not rejoycing, and not suffer any worldly 1 Co…. 7. 29, 30.joyes to be as the Devils birdlime, to hinder us from mounting aloft in heavenly meditations here, and much lesse to dimme our sight from beholding those admirable joyes and pleasures at Gods right hand, prepared for the Saints. How easie a thing were it to be a lover of pleasure more then of God? but withall how dreadfull and unhappy? Therefore I have them, I must be watchfull: if not, I must be thankfull and contented.
6 All the world cannot take my joy from me, if I rejoyce in these 6things: That my name is written in Heaven: That Christ is mine, as when Si…on had him in his armes, and Zacheus in his house: And in the testimony of a good conscience, and a life purely led, according to the Word.
So of earthly pleasures.Grounds of Contentment in the want or losse of honours.
In the want or losse of worldly honours and preferments, godlinesse inforceth on the heart contentment, upon these grounds:
1 It teacheth to lay the foundati 3on of true Christianity in humility, and in the knowledge of our selves. Our selves are in our best mettall but dust, and clay, and ashes. Our estate is, to be borne to misery, as the sparkes to fly upward, Ioh. 5. 7. And by sin, we are the children of death, which by sin entred into the world. This sinne of ours, dishonouring God, hath layd all our honour in the dust. And the way to come to true honour againe, is, by humility, which can neither greedily desire worldly advancements, nor too impatiently bewaile their losse. For this purpose Christ proposeth to us the example of a little child, to whom we must be like, Luk. 9. 47.
2 It lets a man see the truth of that …our Saviour, answering the woman who desired that one of her sōs might sit at his right hand, and the other at his left in his Kingdome, Yee aske ye know not what, Mat. 20. 20. It is the blindnesse of ambitious men, that excessively love and prize their honors, to seeke to be aloft. Little doe they know or thinke, that they are climbing up to a greater and sudden fall: as our Saviour saith, He that exalieth himselfe, shall be brought low, Mat. 23. 12. Haman that was lifted up above all the Princes of Ahashuerus, within one twelve moneths space was hanged on a paire of gallowes fifty cubits high, of his own making. Trees which stand in higher hils, are subject to more vehement and blustering winds. Little doe these see the temptations, which their high estates expose them unto. If smaller cares in a lower place distract a man from prayer and other spirituall exercises, how should a man give himselfe to God, when hee is burthened with more change and cares? Little see they, how little soundnesse and stability is in that honour, which they raise themselves unto by dishonouring God, by Machiavilian policies, by supplanting others, by playing the hypocrites, and making shew of good parts which were never in them; yea, and which is supported and maintained by the same means doubled and repeated. A building so weakely, or rather wickedly founded, threateneth a great ruine.
3 Earthly honors are so far from furthering heavenly, as they rather hinder the same. In the history of Christs temptation, may be observed what Chrysost, noteth, that the Devill caries men up aloft, that he may throw them down headlong. What an headlong fall had we all in Adam, when not content with his estate he would be liker God thē he was? Neither was he so wary to answer his wife in the midst of the delights of paradise, as Iob was to answer his, sitting in the ashes.
Againe, not many wise, mighty or noble are called, but by the weake and 1 Co…. 1. 26vile things of the world God confounds the great and mighty. Generally, the poore receive the Gospell, when great men have other things to intend. So as greatnesse with men is no binder to God.
Often also it doth not grace the professiō of christ, but hinder it: as is said, many of the rulers beleeved in Christ, but durst not confesse him because of the Pharisees; & the reason is givē, because they loved the praise of men more then the praise of God, Ioh. 12. ver. 42, 43.
Finally, earthly preferment makes men rather forget then remember their benefactor. Pharaohs Butler forgat Ioseph, when hee was restored to his place. And hardly do men in these high places consider or remember the afflictions of Ioseph, of Gods people.
4 Godlinesse teacheth a man to fly from this shadow of earthly honour, 4 How to get the true honour. 1 Sam. 2. 30and seeke the honour which comes from above:
First, by honouring God: Him that honoureth mee, I will honour, saith the Lord. And who were ever honoured in the Scripture, but the friends of God, and servants of God? Now the property of a good servant is, to love his Masters honour more then his owne.
Secondly, by magnifying Christ and his righteousnesse; as truly estimating the things which men can conferre, from those which Christ bestoweth. Paul was circumcised the eighth day, an Hebrew of the Hebrewes, of the tribe of Benjamin, which had the King chosen out of it as well as Iudah, a Pharisee, lived unreprovable in his sect, spake with tongues more then all the Apostles, and was called by Christ in glory: Yet all these things, and whatsoever else men magnified so much, were but losse and dung to win Christ, and bee found in him.