The following points were copied and pasted from parts 1 – 8 of this series. The purpose of this review is to remind readers of the attitudes and graces spoken of in each part. By knowing where these specific attitudes and graces are explained, one might more easily return to review those he wishes to know more intimately.
Part 1 Points:
Contentment is a blessing bestowed by the New Covenant and its promises; all believers may partake of all the blessings of this covenant – Burroughs clarifies the knowledge, understandings, conduct…via which one might arrive at contentment
The doctrine contained in Phil. 4:11 is that it is the duty, glory and excellence of a Christian to be well-skilled in the mystery of Christian contentment
(1Tim 6:6 [ESV2011]) But godliness with contentment is great gain,
(1Tim 6:8 [ESV2011]) But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
(Heb 13:5 [ESV2011])Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
These texts suggest that godliness is NOT great gain unless you also have contentment
Contentment is the sweet inward work of the Spirit wherein one does not seek to help oneself via outward violence; murmuring; uttering perverse words against God and others; but is inwardly submissive, and waits upon God [for deliverance, relief…]
When a Christian is under affliction from God, God would have him receive this affliction, not murmur; seek to escape…but be sensitive to the pain it causes and quietly receive it – that you might demonstrate a proper Christian attitude of obedience / respect towards God; furthermore, no heart can truly know contentment that hasn’t known the contrary [found in affliction]
It is acceptable to seek deliverance as He leads me, via His providence [all things that enter one’s life are from God’s hand; so it seems that Burroughs is saying that one needs to pay attention to what is coming into his life and derive from that, a leading from God]
Part 2 points:
when affliction comes, whatever it is, and though you feel much pain; cry to God, seek lawful ways to be delivered [via prayer, abiding in His word…]; and do not murmur, repine, fret, vex yourself, nor permit tumultuousness of spirit, fear, or discouragement to destabilize and distract you; or rebellion to set you in opposition to God
Spiritual contentment derives from the disposition of the heart, rather than from externals: e.g., if a child is disquieted and you give it a toy, which quiets it, that quietness came from an external thing
Right quietude comes from within, from the disposition of one’s heart
Part 3 points
Contentment is opposite of the three following states:
1), Natural quietness that some possess; 2), a sturdy resolution; 3), the strength of natural unsanctified reason
If one is free from discontent, worry…, it is not enough that he not murmur, but he must honor God in his affliction: honoring God in affliction is a major thing which contributes to knowing the experience of contentment; 1-3 above lack this
The heart readily gives itself to God’s work when His providences are received by the godly person [providence: what He puts before you to be done]
When, for example, you go through a distressing experience, and you realize that it is from God, you are able to become quiet and contented
[When the apostle Paul was experiencing, for example, deprivation, due to lack of food, safety…his contentment could be seen. In peace and tranquility, contentment could be experienced by anyone; therefore, real Christian contentment requires some kind of stressor to be present with it]
Part 4 points
Contentment is freely submitting to and taking pleasure in God’s disposal [of you] [which I am interpreting as God’s providence to you – as the Bible makes clear that God brings things into our lives to conform us to the image of Christ, all types of experiences, people, situations…]
An important aspect of the above is that in the distress of an affliction, one remains under the hand of God [does not run from His providence via pleasure seeking: avoidance, addictions, entertainment, or anything intended to generate pleasurable feelings instead of the painful feelings of an affliction. God brings afflictions to teach lessons, when one seeks to escape these, he cannot learn from them; and that is disobedience…]
It is okay to desire the affliction to be removed and to seek that via prayer; but obedience remains under the affliction; more than that, is pleased to remain under it, thanking God for His work, knowing that He only does right
[For example, if you are mistreated by another, and you focus on that person, as though it were from him, then you are not viewing the situation rightly. God is the one providing our experiences; he uses people, situations…to bring things into our lives. We must thank Him even for such things as our name being slandered, because God permitted it to teach us something – that is not easy thing to learn]
God may, for example, afflict you in your possessions, your health, your spouse, your child, your friends; in each of those areas in a variety of ways [many who suffer the loss of a child or related devastating loss, are not able to remain calm, silent, inwardly content; some are moved to turn from God in such experiences…; yet, God expects us to feel the pain and remain quiet, and thankful to Him]
Part 5 points
…to be thoroughly sensible of an affliction, and to endeavor to remove it by all lawful means, and yet to be content: there is a mystery in that.
Godliness teaches us this mystery, Not to be satisfied with all the world for our portion, and yet to be content with the meanest condition in which we are.
A godly heart will not only have the mercy, but the God of that mercy as well; and then a little matter is enough in the world, so be it he has the God of the mercy which he enjoys.
Philippians 4:7, 9…The peace of God shall keep you, and the God of peace shall be with you.
A carnal heart knows no way to be contented but this: I have such and such possessions, and if I had this added to them, and the other comfort added that I have not now, then I should be contented.
But contentment does not come in that way, it does not come, I say, by adding to what you want, but by subtracting from your desires.
The world is infinitely deceived in thinking that contentment lies in having more than we already have. Here lies the bottom and root of all contentment, when there is an evenness and proportion between our hearts and our circumstances.
What, do you think that there is no way for the contentment of your spirit, but to get rid of your burden? O you are deceived.
The way of contentment is to add another burden, that is, to labor to load and burden your heart with your sin
The heavier the burden of your sin is to your heart, the lighter will the burden of your affliction be to your heart, and so you shall come to be content.
If you would have your burden light, get alone and examine your heart for your sin, and charge your soul with your sin.
If your burden is in your possessions, for the abuse of them…and the abuse of any mercies that now the Lord has taken away from you, that you have not honored God with those mercies that you have had, but you have walked wantonly and carelessly; if you so fall to bemoaning your sin before the Lord, you shall quickly find the burden of your affliction to be lighter than it was before.
Part 6 points
…though for the thing itself the affliction remains. The way of contentment to a carnal heart is only the removing of the affliction. O that it may be gone!
‘No,’ says a gracious heart, ‘God has taught me a way to be content though the affliction itself still continues.’ There is a power of grace to turn this affliction into good; it takes away the sting and poison of it.
Therefore think not this strange that I am speaking of. You do not find one godly man who came out of an affliction worse than when he went into it; though for a while he was shaken, yet at last he was better for an affliction.
But a great many godly men, you find, have been worse for their prosperity. [In scripture, Daniel and Nehemiah were the only two not hurt by it.]
A CHRISTIAN COMES TO THIS CONTENTMENT NOT BY MAKING UP THE WANTS OF HIS CIRCUMSTANCES, BUT BY THE PERFORMANCE OF THE WORK OF HIS CIRCUMSTANCES.
This is the way of contentment. There are these circumstances that I am in, with many wants: I want this and the other comfort-well, how shall I come to be satisfied and content?
A carnal heart thinks, I must have my wants made up or else it is impossible that I should be content.
But a gracious heart says, ‘What is the duty of the circumstances God has put me into?
You should labor to bring your heart to quiet and contentment by setting your soul to work in the duties of your present condition.
This is the excellence of grace: grace does not only subject the will to God, but it melts the will into God’s will, so that they are now but one will.
THE MYSTERY CONSISTS NOT IN BRINGING ANYTHING FROM OUTSIDE TO MAKE MY CONDITION MORE COMFORTABLE, BUT IN PURGING OUT SOMETHING THAT IS WITHIN.
The way to contentment is to purge out your lusts and bitter humours. ‘From whence are wars, and strifes? are they not from your lusts that are within you?’ (James 4:1).
So if those lusts that are within, in your heart, were got out, your condition would be a contented condition. These are the mysterious ways of godliness, that the men of the world never think of.
Part 7 Points
Every good thing the people of God enjoy, they enjoy it in God’s love, as a token of God’s love, and coming from God’s eternal love to them, and this must needs be very sweet to them.
What they have is sanctified to them for good. Other men have what they enjoy in the way of common providence, but the saints have it in a special way… I find God goes along with what I have to draw my heart nearer to him, and sanctify my heart to him. If I find my heart drawn nearer to God by what I enjoy, that is much more than if I have it without sanctifying of my heart by it.
The ways of God, the ways of affliction, as well as the ways of prosperity, are mercy and love to him. Grace gives a man an eye, a piercing eye to pierce the counsel of God, those eternal counsels of God for good to him, even in his afflictions; he can see the love of God in every affliction as well as in prosperity. … grace enables men to see love in the very frown of God’s face, and so comes to receive contentment.
Christ Jesus was poor in this world to deliver me from the curse of my poverty. So my poverty is not afflictive, if I can be contented in such a condition. That is the way, not to stand and repine, because I have not what others have; no, but I am poor, and Christ was poor, that he might bless my poverty to me.
Part 8 Points
Now just as God lets out a great deal of his power in working miracles in smaller things, so he lets out a great deal of goodness and mercy, in comforting and rejoicing the hearts of his people, in little things, as well as in great.
…’You lack this, your estate is plundered-Why? Am not I to you instead of ten homes, and ten shops, I am to you instead of all; and not only instead of all, but come to me, and you shall have all again in me.‘ This indeed is an excellent art, to be able to draw from God what one had before in the creature. Christian, how did you enjoy comfort before? Was the creature anything to you but a conduit, a pipe, that conveyed God’s goodness to you? ‘The pipe is cut off,’ says God, ‘come to me, the fountain, and drink immediately.’
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.
A GRACIOUS HEART GETS CONTENTMENT FROM THE COVENANT THAT GOD HAS MADE WITH HIM.
Now this is a way of getting contentment that the men of the world do not know: they can get contentment, if they have the creature to satisfy them; but in getting contentment from the Covenant of grace they have little skill.
There is no condition that a godly man or woman can be in, but there is some promise or other in the Scripture to help him in that condition. And that is the way of his contentment, to go to the promises, and get from the promise, that which [it] may supply. This is but a dry business to a carnal heart; but it is the most real thing in the world to a gracious heart: when he finds lack of contentment he repairs to the promise, and the Covenant, and falls to pleading the promises that God has made.
You will say that this is a promise that the plague shall not come nigh them; but mark that these two are joined: there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall the plague come nigh thee, the evil of it shall not come nigh thee.
Perhaps their faith does not attain to this promise; and God often brings many outward afflictions, because the faith of his people does not reach the promise, and that not only in the Old Testament, but in the times of the New Testament. Zacharias’ time may be said to be in the time of the New Testament, when he was struck with dumbness because he did not believe;
That notwithstanding his promise, he will have liberty to make use of anything for your chastisement.
That he must have liberty, to make use of your wealth, or liberties, or lives, for the furtherance of his own ends, if it is to be a stumbling block to wicked and ungodly men. God must have liberty, though he has made a promise to you he will not release the propriety that he has in your possessions and lives.
This promise tells me that if it does befall me yet it is for some notable end, and because God has a use for my life, and intends to bring about his glory some way that I do not know of. And if he will come in a fatherly way of chastisement, yet I will be satisfied in the thing. So a Christian heart, by reasoning out of the Word, comes to satisfy his soul in the midst of such a heavy hand of God, and in such a distressed condition as that.
All parts of this series are located in the Category: Spiritual Disciplines.