For you pastor/preachers: Thomas Watson’s Rules of Contentment Thomas Watson, the most quotable of the Puritans, wrote a wonderful book entitled The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11. In Chapter 14, condensed and adapted below, Watson gave his “Christian directory,” listing his rules of contentment. Rule 1: Advance faith. All our disquiets issue from unbelief. O set faith a-work! It is the property of faith to silence our doubtings, to scatter our fears, to still the heart when the passions are up. Faith works the heart to a sweet serene composure. It is not having food and raiment, but having faith, which will make us content. Faith sucks the honey of contentment out of the hive of the promise. Rule 2: Labor for Assurance. He who can say, “I know whom I have believed”—that man has enough to give his heart contentment. If any thing in the world is worth laboring for, it is to get sound evidences that God is ours. If this be once cleared, what can come amiss? No matter what storms I meet, so that I know where to put in for harbor. He that has God to be his God is so well contented with his condition that he does not much care whether he has anything else. Rule 3: Get a Humble Spirit. The humble man is the contented man. He does not say his comforts are small, but his sins are great. He thinks it is mercy he is out of hell, therefore he is contented. A proud man is never contented; he is one that has a high opinion of himself, therefore under small blessings is disdainful, under small crosses impatient. The humble spirit is the contented spirit; if his cross be light, he reckons it the inventory of his mercies; if it be heavy, yet he takes it upon his knees, knowing that when his estate is worse, it is to make him better. Rule 4: Keep a Clear Conscience. Contentment is the manna that is laid up in the ark of a good conscience. Oh, take heed of indulging any sin! It is as natural for guilt to breed disquiet as for putrid matter to breed vermin. Would you have a quiet heart? Get a smiling conscience. Rule 5: Learn to Deny Yourselves. Look well to your affections, bridle them in. Do two things: Mortify your desires; moderate your delights. Rule 6: Get Much of Heaven into Your Heart. Spiritual things satisfy; the more of heaven is in us, the less earth will content us. He that has once tasted the love of God, his thirst is much quenched towards sublunary things; the joys of God’s Spirit are heart-filling and heart-cheering joys; he that has these, has heaven begun in him. Seek those things which are above. Fly aloft in your affections, thirst after the graces and comforts of the Spirit; the eagle that flies above in the air, fears not the stinging of the serpent. Rule 7: Look Not So Much on the Dark Side of Your Condition, as on the Light. The pillar of cloud had its light side and dark; look on the light side of the estate. Suppose you are in a lawsuit, there is the dark side; yet you have some land left, there is the light side. You have sickness in your body, there is the dark side; but grace in your soul, there is the light side. You have a child taken away, there is the dark side; your husband lives, there is the light side. Look on the light side of your condition, and then all your discontents will easily disband; do not pore upon your losses, but ponder upon your mercies. Rule 8: Consider in What a Posture We Stand in the World. We are soldiers; a soldier is content with anything though he has not his stately house, his rich furniture, his soft bed, his full table, yet he does not complain. We are pilgrims, in the world but not of the world. We are beggars at heaven’s gate, begging this day for our daily bread. Rule 9: Let Us Often Compare Our Condition. Let us compare our condition with others; and this will make us content. Am I in prison? Was not Daniel in a worse place in the lion’s den? Do I live in a mean cottage? Read of the primitive saints, that they wandered in sheep and goat skins, of whom the world was not worthy. Let us compare our condition with Christ’s upon earth. What a poor condition was He pleased to be in for us; for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor. Let us compare our condition with what it shall be shortly. God may presently seal a warrant for death to apprehend us: and when we die, we cannot carry estate with us: honor and riches descend not into the grave, why then are we troubled at our outward condition? Rule 10: Do Not Bring Your Condition to Your Mind, but Bring Your Mind to Your Condition. The way for a Christian to be contented, is not by raising his estate higher, but by bringing his spirit lower; not by making his barns wider, but his heart narrower. Rule 11: Study the Vanity of the Creature. The world is like a shadow that declines; it is delightful, but deceitful, promising more than we find. The world may be compared to ice, which is smooth but slippery. Rule 12: Get Fancy Regulated. The water that springs out of the rock drinks as sweet as if it came out of a golden chalice. Things are as we fancy them. Ever since the Fall, the fancy is distempered; God saw that the imagination of the thoughts of his heart were evil. Fancy looks through wrong spectacles. Pray that God will sanctify your fancy. Could we cure a distempered fancy, we might soon conquer a discontented heart. Rule 13: Consider How Little Will Suffice Nature. Christ taught us to pray for our daily bread. Nature is content with a little. Not to thirst or to starve is enough. Having food and raiment let us be content. Rule 14: Believe the Present Condition Is Best for Us. A wise Christian has his will melted into God’s will. God is wise. God knows which is the fittest pasture to put His sheep in; sometimes a more barren ground does well, whereas rank pasture may rot. Did we believe that condition best which God doth parcel out to us, we should cheerfully say, “The lines are fallen in pleasant places.” Rule 15: Do Not Too Much Indulge the Flesh. The flesh is a worse enemy than the devil, it is a bosom-traitor; an enemy within. O let it not have the reins! Martyr the flesh! Keep it under! Put its neck under Christ’s yoke, stretch and nail it to His cross. Rule 16: Meditate Much on the Glory Which Shall Be Revealed. There are great things laid up in heaven. It is but awhile and we shall be with Christ, bathing ourselves in the fountain of love; we shall never complain of wants and injuries anymore. The hope of this is enough to drive distempers from the heart. Blessed be God, it will be better. Rule 17: Be Much in Prayer. Is any man afflicted? Let him pray. Is any man discontented? Let him pray. When the heart is filled with sorrow and disquiet, prayer lets out the bad blood. Prayer is a holy spell to drive away trouble; prayer is the unbosoming of the soul, the unloading of all our cares in God’s breast; and this ushers in sweet contentment. Paul could be in every state content, yet it was through Christ strengthening him. Morgan, Robert J.:, S. 14
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 03:44:58 +0000
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