science every bitter thing is sweet ; it can pick contentment out of the cross. A good conscience turns the waters of Marah into wine. Would you have a quiet heart ? Get a smiling conscience. I wonder not to hear Paul say he was in every state content, when he could make that triumph, " I have lived in all good conscience to this day." When once a man's reckonings are clear, it must needs let in abundance of contentment into the heart. Good conscience can suck con- tentment out of the bitterest drug, under slanders ; " our rejoicing is this, the testi- mony of our conscience," 2 Cor. i. 12. In case of imprisonment, Paul had his prison songs, and could play the sweet lessons of contentment, when his feet were in the stocks. Acts xvi. 25. Augustine calls it ' the paradise of a good conscience ;' and if it be so, then in prison we may be in pa- radise. When the times are troublesome, a good conscience makes a calm. If con- science be clear, what though the days be cloudy ? Is it not a contentment to have a friend always by to speak a good word for us ? Such a friend is conscience. A good conscience, as David's harp, drives away the evil spirit of discontent. When thoughts begin to arise, and the heart is disquieted, conscience saith to a man, as the king did to Nehemiah, " Why is thy countenance sad ?" Neb. ii. 2. So saith conscience, hast not thou the seed of God in thee ? Ai't not thou an heir of the promise ? Hast not thou a treasure that thou canst never be plundered of? Why is thy countenance sad ? O keep conscience clear, and you shall ne- ver want contentment ! For a man to keep the pipes of his body, — the veins and ar- teries,— free from colds and obstructions, is the best way to maintain health : so, to keep conscience cloar, and to preserve it from the obstructions of guilt, is the best way to maintain cojitentinent. First, conscience is pure, and then peaceable.
R u 1 e 5 . Learn to deny yo urfielven.
Look well to your affections, bridle them in. Do two things : (1.) Mortify your de- sires. (2.) Moderate your delights.
1. Mortify your desires. We must not be of the dragon's temper, who, they say, is so thirsty, that no water will quench his thirst : " mortify therefore your inordinate
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affections," Col. iii. 5. In the Greek it is, your evil affections ; to shew that our de- sires, when they are inordinate, are evil. Crucify your desires; be as dead men; a dead man hath no appetite.
Quest. How should a Christian martyr his desires ?
Arts. 1. Get a right judgment of the things here below; they are mean beggarly things ; " wilt thou set thine eyes upon that whicli is not ?" Prov. xxiii. 5. The appe- tite must be guided by reason : the affections are the feet of tlie soul ; therefore they must follow the judgment, not lead it.
A. 2. Often seriously meditate of morta- lity : death will soon crop these flowers which we delight in, and pull down the fa- bric of those bodies which we so garnish and beautify. Think, when you are lock- ing up your money in your chest, who shall shortly lock you up in your coffin ?
2. Moderate your delights. Set not your heart too much upon any creature, Isa. Ixii. 10. What we over-love, we shall over-ofrieve. Rachel set her heart too much upon her children, and when she had lost them, she lost herself too ; such a vein of grief was opened as could not be staunch- ed, " she refused to be comforted." Here was discontent. When we let any creature lie too near our heart, when God pulls away that comfort, a piece of our heart is rent away with it. Too much fondness ends in frowardness. Those that would be content in the want of mercy, must be moderate in the enjoyment. Jonathan dipt the rod iu honey, he did not thrust it in. Let us take lieed of ingulphing ourselves in pleasure; better have a spare diet, than, by having too much, to surfeit.
Rule 6. Get much of heaven into your heart.
Spiritual things satisfy ; the more of hea- ven is in us, the less earth will content us. He that hath once tasted llie love of God, Ps. Ixiii. 5., his thirst is much quenched to- wards sublunary things ; the joys of God's Spirit are heart-filling and heart-cheering joys; he that hath these, hatli heaven he- gun in him, Rom. xiv. 27. And shall not we be content to be in heaven ? O get a su- blime heart, " seek those things wliich are above," Col. iii. 1. ' Fly aloft in your affec-
tions,— thirst after the graces and comforts of the Spirit ; the eagle that flies above iu the air, fears not the stinging of the serpent; the serpent creeps on his belly, and stings only such creatures as go upon the earth.
Rule 7. Look not so much on the dark side of your condition, as on the light.