The Second Consideration

The consideration that God is beforehand with us with his mercies should content us (I spoke to this as an aggravation of our discontent, but now I shall use it as a consideration to help us to contentment). You want many comforts now, but has not God been beforehand with you heretofore? Oh you have had mercy enough already to make you spend all the strength you have and time you shall live, to bless God for what you have had already. I remember I have read of a good man that had lived to fifty years of age and enjoyed his health for forty-eight years exceedingly well, and lived in prosperity, and the last two years his body was exceedingly diseased, he had the strangury, and was in great pain; but he reasoned the case with himself thus. Oh Lord thou mightest have made all my life to have been a life of torment and pain, but thou hast let me have forty-eight years in health, I will praise thy mercies for what I have had, and will praise thy justice for what now I feel. Oh it is a good consideration for us to think that God is beforehand with us in the way of mercy. Suppose God should now take away your estates from some of you that have lived comfortably a great while, you will say, That aggravates our misery that we have had estates; but it is through your unthankfulness that it does so. We should bless God for what we have had, and not think that we are worse because we have had thus and thus. We might have been always miserable, and certainly that man's condition is not very miserable that has no other great aggravation of his misery but because once he was happy. If there be nothing else to make you miserable, that is no such aggravation but that you may bear it, for there is much mercy in that that you had once, and therefore let that content you.

The fact that God has already gone before us with His mercies should bring us to contentment. I mentioned this earlier as an aggravation of discontent, but now I will use it as a consideration that helps us toward contentment. You may lack many comforts right now — but has God not already been generous to you in the past? You have already received enough mercy to keep you blessing God for the rest of your life. I recall reading of a godly man who lived to the age of fifty and enjoyed excellent health for forty-eight of those years, living in prosperity. In his final two years his body was severely afflicted with a painful disease. But he reasoned with himself this way: "Lord, You could have made my entire life one of torment and pain — but You gave me forty-eight years of health. I will praise Your mercy for what I have had, and praise Your justice for what I now suffer." It is a good practice to remember that God has already gone before us in mercy. Suppose God were to take away your estate after many years of comfortable living — you might say that having had it only makes the loss worse. But that response comes from unthankfulness. We should bless God for what we have had, not feel worse off because of it. We could have been miserable all our lives. And truly, a person's condition is not very miserable if the only aggravation is that he was once happy. If that is the only thing making your situation feel hard, you can bear it — for there is much mercy in the fact that you once had good things, and that itself is reason for contentment.