In this time of his sojourning he buried his wife : and as for his dwellings, he had no sumptuous buildings, but led his life in poor cottages : all this was enough to have broken any man's heart. Abra- ham might think thus with liimself : " Is this the land I must possess ? here is no probability of ,iny good ; all things are a- gainst me." V/ell, is he discontented ? No ; God saith to him, " Abraham, go, leave thy country," and this word was enoutrh to lead him all the world over ; he is presently upon his march. Here was a man had learned to be content. But let us descend a little lower, to heathen Zeno, of whom Seneca speaks, who had once been very rich, hear- ing of a shipwreck, and that all his goods were drowned at sea : " Fortune," saitli he, (he spake in an heathen dialect) " hath dealt with me, and would have me now study philosophy." He was content to change his course of life, to leave off being a merchant, and turn a philosopher. And if a heathen said thus, shall not a Christian much more say, when the world is drained from him, Jubit Deus mundiim derelinqucre et Christum expeditua seqni, — God woula have me leave off following the world, and study Christ more, and how to get to hea- ven ? Do I see an heathen contented, and a Christian disquieted ? How did heathens vilify those things which Christians did magnify ? Though they knew not God, or what true happiness meant ; yet, they would speak very sublimely of a numen or deity, and of the life to come, as Aristotle and Plato ; and for those elysian delights, which they did but fancy, they undervalued and contemned the things here below ! It was the doctrine tliey taught their scliolars. and which some of them j.ractised, that tlu>y should strive to be contented witli a little ; they were willing to make an exchange, and have less gold, and more learning ; and shall not we be content tlien to have less of the world, so we may have more of Christ? IMay not Christians blush to see the healliens content with a viaticum, so mucli as would recruit nature; and to see themsehes so transported with the love of earthly things, that if they begin a little to abate, and the bill of provision grows short, they murmur, and are like Micah, Have ye taken awav
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mv gods, and do you ask me what aileth me ? Judg. xviii. 24. Have heathens gone so far in contentation, and is it not sad for us to come sliort of heaven ? These heroes of their time, how did they embrace death itself! Socrates died in prison; Hercules was burnt alive ; Cato — whom Seneca calls the lively image and portraiture of virtue — thrust through with a sword ; but how bravely, and with contentment of spirit did they die? " Shall I (said Seneca) weep for Cato, or Regulus, or the rest of those wor- thies, that died with so much valour and patience ?" Did not cross providence make them to alter their countenance ? And do I see a Christian appalled and amazed ? Did not death affright them ? And doth it dis- tract us ? Did the spring-head of nature rise so high ? And shall not grace, like the waters of the sanctuary, rise higher? We that pretend to live by faith, may we not go to school to them who had no other pilot but reason to guide them? Nay, let me come a step lower, to creatures void of rea- son ; we see every creature is contented with its allowance, — the beasts with their provender, — the birds with their nests, — they live only upon providence ; and shall we make ourselves below them ? Let a Christian go to school to the ox and the ass to learn contentedness ; we think we never have enough, and are still laying up: the fowls of the air do not lay up, they reap not, nor gather into barns, Mat. vi. 26. It is an argument which Christ brings to make Christians contented with their condition ; the birds do not lay up, yet they are pro- vided for, and are contented ; are ye not, saith Christ, ' much better than they ?' But if you are discontented, are you not much worse than they ? Let these examples quicken us.
Sect. 12. The twelfth argument to contenta- tion.
The twelftli argument to contentation is, whatever change of trouble a cliild of God meets with, it is all the hell he sliall have. Whatever eclipse may be upon his name or estate, I may say of it, as Athanasius of his banishment, it is a little cloud tliat will soon be blown over, and then his gulf is shot, his hell is past. Death begins a wick- ed man's hell, but it puts an end to a godly