PHILIPPIANS. 4.11. For I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
NOW there are many Pleas and reasonings yet remain, for there’s a great deal of do with a discontented murmuring heart. And I remember I find that the same Hebrew word that signifies [to lodge, to abide] it signifies to murmur, they use one word for both, for murmuring is a distemper that doth lodge in men, where it gets in once it lodgeth abideth and continues, and therefore that we may unlodge it and get it out, we will labour to shew what are the further reasonings of a discontented heart.
The Fourth Plea
Me thinks I could be content with Gods hand (saith one) so far as I see the hand of God in a thing I can be content: but when men deal so unreasonably and unjustly with me I know not how to bear it, I can bear it that I should be in Gods hands, but not in the hands of men: my friends or acquaintance when they deal so unrighteously with me, Oh this goes very hard unto me, that I know not how to bear it from men.
For the taking away of this reasoning, first, Though they be men that bring this crosse upon you, yet they are Gods Instruments, God hath a hand in it, and they can go no further then God would have them go. This was that that quieted David when Shimei curst him, (saith he) God hath a hand in it, though Shimei be a base wicked man yet I look beyond him to God. So, is there any of your friends that deal injuriously with you, and crosse with you, look up to God and see that man but as an instrument in Gods hands.
Secondly, If this be your trouble that men do so wrong you, you are rather to turn your hearts to pity them than to murmur or be discontented: For the truth is, if you be wronged by other men, you have the better of it, for it is better to bear wrong than to do wrong a great deal, if they wrong you your heart cannot submit; you are in a better condition than they, because it’s better to bear than do wrong. I remember it is said of Socrates that being very patient when wrong was done to him, they asked him how he came to be so, saith he, If I meet with a man in the street that is a diseased man, shall I be vexed & fretted with him because he is diseased? those that wrong me I look upon them as diseased men and therefore pity them.
Thirdly, Though you meet with hard dealings from men; yet you meet mith nothing but kind good and righteous dealings from God: when you meet with unrighteous dealings from them, set one against the other. And that’s for the answer to the fourth Plea.
A Fifth Plea
Oh but that affliction that comes upon me is an affliction that I never lookt for, I never thought to have met with such an affliction, and that is that I know not how to bear, that is that which makes my heart so disquiet because it was altogether unlookt for and unexpected.
For the answer of this, first, it is thy weaknesse and folly that thou didest not look for it and expect it, In Acts, 20.22, 23. see what Saint Paul saith concerning himself, And now behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befal me there, save that the Holy-Ghost witnesseth in every City saying, that bonds and afflictions abide me. It’s true saith he, I know not the particular affliction that may befal me, but this I know that the Spirit of God witnesseth that bonds and afflictions shall abide me every where, I look for nothing else but bonds and afflictions wheresoever go; so a Christian should do, he should look for afflictions wheresoever he is, in all conditions he should look to meet with afflictions, and therefore if any affliction should befall him, though indeed he could not fore-see the particular evil, yet he should think, this is no more than I lookt for in the general. Therefore no affliction should come unexpectedly to a Christian.
A second answer I would give is this, Is it unexpected? then the lesse provision thou madest for it before it came, the more careful shouldest thou be to sanctifie Gods Name in it now it is come: it is in this case of afflictions as in mercies, many times mercy comes unexpected (and that might be a third answer) to you, set one against the other, I have many mercies that I never lookt for as well as afflictions that I never lookt for, why should not one rejoyce me as well as the other disturbs me? As it is in mercies, when they come unexpected, the lesse preparation there was in me for receiving mercy, the more need I have to be careful, now to give God the glory of the mercy, & to sanctifie Gods Name in the enjoyment of the mercy; Oh so it should be with us now, we have had mercies this summer that we never expected and therefore we were not prepared for them, now we should be so much the more careful to give God the glory of them: so when afflictions come that we did not expect, then it seems we laid not in for them before hand, we had need be the more careful to sanctifie Gods Name in them, we should have spent some pains before to prepare for afflictions and we did not, then take so much the more pains to sanctifie God in this affliction now. And that’s a fift reasoning.