Chapter 5: Questions Illustrating the Doctrine of Contentment

For the illustration of this Doctrine, I shall propound these Questions.

Quest. 1. Whether a Christian may not be sensible of his condition, and yet be contented?

Answ. Yes; For else he is not a saint, but a Stoic. Rachel did well to weep for her children, (there was nature;) but her fault was, she refused to be comforted, (there was discontent.) Christ himself was sensible when he sweat great drops of blood, and said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: yet he was contented, he did martyr and crucify his own will: Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. The Apostle bids us humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, which we cannot do unless we are sensible of it.

Qu. 2. Whether a Christian may not lay open his grievances to God, and yet be contented?

Ans. Yes: To you have I opened my cause (Jeremiah 20:12), and David poured out his complaint before the Lord. We may cry to God, and desire him to write down all our injuries; shall not the child complain to his Father? When any burden is upon the spirit, Prayer gives vent, it eases the heart: Hannah's spirit was burdened, I am (says she) a woman of a troubled spirit. Now, having prayed and wept, she went away, and was no more sad; only, here is the difference between a holy complaint and a discontented complaint; in the one we complain to God, in the other we complain of God.

Quest. 3. What is it properly that contentment does exclude?

Answ. There are three things which contentment does banish out of its diocese, and can by no means consist with it.

1. It excludes a vexatious repining, this is properly the daughter of discontent. I mourn in my complaint: he does not say, I murmur in my complaint. Murmuring is no better than mutiny in the heart; it is a rising up against God. When the sea is rough and unquiet, it casts forth nothing but foam; when the heart is discontented, it casts forth the foam of anger, impatience, and sometimes little better than blasphemy. Murmuring is nothing else but the scum which boils off from a discontented heart.

2. It excludes an uneven discomposure. When a man says, I am in such straits, that I know not how to evolve or get out, I shall be undone. Head and heart are so taken up, that a man is not fit to pray, or meditate, etc.; he is not himself: just as when an army is routed, one man runs this way, and another that, the army is put into a disorder: So a man's thoughts run up and down distracted. Discontent does dislocate and unjoint the soul, it pulls off the wheels.

3. It excludes a childish despondency; and this is usually consequent upon the other. A man being in a hurry of mind, not knowing which way to extricate, or wind himself out of the present trouble; begins succumbere oneri, to faint and sink under it. For care is to the mind as a burden to the back, it loads the spirits, and with overloading sinks them. A despondent spirit is a discontented spirit.