Quote 4594
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But where contentment of heart springs from grace, the heart is very quick and lively in the service of God. Yea, the more any gracious heart can bring itself to be in a contented disposition, the more fit it is for any service of God. And just as a contented heart is very active and busy in the work of God, so he is very active and busy in sanctifying God's name in the affliction that befalls himThe Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
Contentment is not merely one act, just a flash in a good mood. You find many men and women who, if they are in a good mood, will be very quiet. But this will not hold. It is not a constant course. It is not the constant tenor of their spirits to be holy and gracious under affliction. Now I say that contentment is a quiet frame of spirit and by that I mean that you should find men and women in a good mood not only at this or that time, but as the constant tenor and temper of their hearts. A Christian who, in the constant tenor and temper of his heart, can carry himself quietly with constancy has learned this lesson of contentment. Otherwise his Christianity is worth nothing, for no one, however furious in his discontent, will not be quiet when he is in a good mood.The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
To be content as a result of some external thing is like warming a man's clothes by the fire. But to be content through an inward disposition of the soul is like the warmth that a man's clothes have from the natural heat of the body. A man who is healthy in body puts on his clothes, and perhaps at first on a cold morning they feel cold. But after he has had them on a little while they are warm. Now, how did they get warm? They were not near the fire? No, this came from the natural heat of his body. Now when a sickly man, the natural heat of whose body has deteriorated, puts on his clothes, they do not get hot after a long time. He must warm them by the fire, and even then they will soon be cold again. The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
Let me explain myself. Someone is disturbed, suppose it to be a child or a man or a woman. If you come and bring some great thing to please them, perhaps it will quiet them and they will be contented. It is the thing you bring that quiets them, not the disposition of their own spirits, not any good temper in their own hearts, but the external thing you bring them. But when a Christian is content in the right way, the quiet comes more from the temper and disposition of his own heart than from any external argument or from the possession of anything in the world. The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
Though a Christian ought to be quiet under God's correcting hand, he may without any breach of Christian contentment complain to God. As one of the ancients says, Though not with a tumultuous clamor and shrieking out in a
confused passion, yet in a quiet, still, submissive way he may unbosom his heart to God. Likewise he may communicate his sad condition to his Christian friends, showing them how God has dealt with him, and how heavy the affliction is upon him, that they may speak a word in season to his weary soul.
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
A shoe may be smooth and neat outside, while inside it pinches the flesh. Outwardly there may be great calmness and stillness, yet within amazing confusion, bitterness, disturbance and vexation.
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
Since God is contented with Himself alone, if you have Him, you may be contented with Him alone, and it may be, that is the reason why your outward comforts are taken from you, that God may be all in all to you. It may be that while you had these things they shared with God in your affection, a great part of the stream of your affection ran that way: God would have the full stream run to Him now.The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment Excerpts
If the children of God have their little taken from them, they can make up all their wants in God Himself… If anything is cut off from the stream (a godly man) knows how to go to the fountain, and makes up all there. God is his all in all.The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment Excerpts
A contented man, just as he is the most contented, so he is the most unsatisfied man in the world. You will say, 'How is that?' A man who has learned the art of contentment is the most contented with any low condition that he has in the world, and yet he cannot be satisfied with the enjoyment of all the world… though his heart is so enlarged that the enjoyment of all the world and ten thousand worlds cannot satisfy him for his portion; yet he has a heart quieted under God's disposal.The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment Excerpts
Knowledge and affection mutually help one another; it is good to keep up our affections of love and delight by all sweet inducements and divine encouragements, for what the heart likes best the mind studies most. Those that can bring their hearts to delight in Christ know most of His ways.
The heart of a Christian is Christ's garden, and His graces are as so many sweet spices and flowers, which His Spirit blowing upon makes them to send forth a sweet savor. Therefore, keep the soul open for entertainment of the Holy Ghost, for He will bring in continually fresh forces to subdue corruption, and this most of all on the Lord's Day.
David had sat many months under the lectures of the law, unhumbled for his complicated sin, but Nathan is sent to preach a rehearsal sermon to him of the many mercies that God had graced him with, and while those coals are pouring on his head, his heart dissolves presently (2 Sam. 12:13). The frost is seldom quite out of the earth till the sun hath gotten some power in the spring to dissolve its bands. Neither will hardness of heart be removed until the soul be thoroughly warmed with the sense of God's mercies.
A sincere heart is like a clear stream in a brook: you may see to the bottom of his plots in his words and take the measure of his heart by his tongue.
Other things may be the worse for breaking, yet a heart is never at the best till it be broken.
There is a great deal of folly in discontentedness, for it makes our affliction a great deal worse than otherwise it would be. It no way removes our affliction—nay, while they do continue they are a great deal the worse and heavier, for a discontented heart is a proud heart, and a proud heart will not pull down his sails when there come a tempest and storm. If a mariner when a tempest and storm come should be froward and would not pull down his sails but is discontented with the storm, is his condition the better because he is discontented and will not pull down his sails? Will this help him? Just so, it is for all the world with a discontented heart. A discontented heart is a proud heart, and he out of his pride is troubled with his affliction and is not contented with God's dispose, and so he will not pull down his spirit at all and make it bow to God in this condition in which God hath brought him.
A carnal heart—because there is nothing but filthiness, a filthy stink in himself, nothing but vileness and baseness within him—upon this it is that he seeks his contentment elsewhere. And as it is with a vessel that is full of liquor, if you strike upon it, it will make no great noise, but if it be empty, then it makes a great noise. So it is with the heart—a heart that is full of grace and goodness within, such a one will bear a great many strokes and never make any noise; but an empty heart, if that be struck, that will make a noise. Those men and women that are so much complaining and always whining, it is a sign that there is an emptiness in their hearts; but if their hearts were filled with grace, they would not make such a noise as now they do.
That soul that is capable of God can be filled with nothing else but God.
Contentment is a soul business: first, it is inward; secondly, quiet; thirdly, it is a quiet frame of spirit. It is a grace that spreads itself through the whole soul.
Ministers draw the bow at a venture, but God directs the arrow to the heart.
It is not enough for Christians to have knowledge and to be able to speak of the gospel, and have some striving of affection, but they must look to how they live.Gospel Conversation, Pg. 3
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